Life – Love – Hate - A Reflection
“Love me or hate me as you will, and be at peace.”
Charlotte Bronte (Jane Eyre)
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Hate is a ridiculously strong word, so you can’t hate losing. I just dislike it very much. I’ve always disliked it very much. I disliked the last minute of Saturday’s game very much. I disliked it more than I disliked the Hackney defeat and I didn’t think I could dislike anything that much. I disliked it more than the Plymouth defeat and I didn’t think I could dislike anything more than the Hackney defeat, but when we lost at Plymouth I realised that I did. People said I shouldn’t go near the Tamar Bridge after the Plymouth defeat, but nothing horrible happened, because it’s only a game. I told myself this for every single second of the three hours immediately after the Plymouth match, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. I knew it was only a game but couldn’t convince myself that it really was. I tried the same thing again for the next three hours but it changed nothing – nothing at all. Things were not good and the bridge seemed to be drawing ever closer, the long drop into the murky waters of the Cornish border creeping ever nearer. But salvation was at hand, as by the time we reached the Tamar Bridge it was nearly twenty four hours after the final whistle of the Plymouth defeat and things had got a bit better by then. We’d won a cup, a trophy, a memento of success. Okay, it was only a fifteen year old culendar, but it’s what it represents that matters. The fifty six drainage holes didn’t matter and the vegetables that had previously drained in those fifty six holes didn’t matter and the idea of pouring fizzy Fanta into the thing and the entire team drinking from (underneath) the fifty six drainage holes all at once didn’t matter. It’s winning it that matters. I love winning, but sadly the warm glow one felt at the memory of winning a fifty-six-hole, fifteen year old culendar is but now but a dim and somewhat distant one. It has been replaced by a deep and seemingly immovable gloom.
I’ve just got home after spending nine hours on Sunday lecturing to twelve hope-to-be cricket umpires. It’s not everybody’s cup of tea and I can understand why, but I like it. It’s probably a bit like train spotting or coin collecting or spending entire weekends in a field with members of the Winchcombe Camping and Caravanning Club, but I’ve never tried any of these similarly oddball pastimes. The point is, it takes your mind off things you dislike very much. Like 12.53pm on Saturday. And Hackney. And Plymouth. By four-thirty pm today my stint is done and I sit there listening to someone else droning on about correctness of score, the nuances of law 37 (obstructing the field) and deliberate short runs, though why anyone would want to do this when they know someone else is watching defeats me. And as soon as I think ‘defeat’ I realise once more how much I disliked Hackney and Plymouth and yesterday – in rank ascending order. By 6.09pm it dawns on me that I have been ruminating for 67 whole minutes about a mere sixty seconds the previous day and realise too, not for the first time, that I hadn’t liked those sixty seconds very much at all. At 6.29pm I realise that not only have the ruminations now been going on for 87 whole minutes, but that everyone else has gone home and the caretaker is drumming his fingers on the main door, rattling a very large set of keys in the main lock and gesturing with a touch of genuine impropriety in my direction. His face tells a story. It is time to ponder elsewhere.
I come home, turn on the computer, finish next week’s programme and send it to the printers. I edit the B Team match report for a period of time considerably greater than it would have taken to completely rewrite it and deliberate over writing the A Team resume, but find myself quite unable to do so. I answer some e-mails and send several more to my other address, telling myself how great life really is. I go to my other address and open several freshly sent messages about happiness and joy and culendars, but the intransigent gloom won’t lift. I open more electronic correspondence from a man in a Robin Reliant and find THIS photograph. It is the depiction of 12.38pm yesterday, but it could be about any time or any game. The occupants of the photo are the same as they would have been in a picture taken just fifteen minutes later, a scene thankfully not captured by the city’s phantom snapper. And as you look at the photograph you realise for the three thousand five hundred and twenty eighth time of your utterly miserable existence that this photo is what sport is all about, this is why we play it, this is why we watch it, and this is why we’ll probably be involved in it for the rest of our utterly miserable days. 12.53pm? I disliked it very, very much, even more than Hackney and even more than Plymouth. But I know I’ll remember 12.38pm for far longer. Because this photo and the tens of thousands of similar photos is why we love it, it is why we’ll always love it and it is why we’ll keep going back to it again and again and again. Saturday 12th March 2016. Thanks for the memory.
Charlotte Bronte (Jane Eyre)
---------------------
Hate is a ridiculously strong word, so you can’t hate losing. I just dislike it very much. I’ve always disliked it very much. I disliked the last minute of Saturday’s game very much. I disliked it more than I disliked the Hackney defeat and I didn’t think I could dislike anything that much. I disliked it more than the Plymouth defeat and I didn’t think I could dislike anything more than the Hackney defeat, but when we lost at Plymouth I realised that I did. People said I shouldn’t go near the Tamar Bridge after the Plymouth defeat, but nothing horrible happened, because it’s only a game. I told myself this for every single second of the three hours immediately after the Plymouth match, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. I knew it was only a game but couldn’t convince myself that it really was. I tried the same thing again for the next three hours but it changed nothing – nothing at all. Things were not good and the bridge seemed to be drawing ever closer, the long drop into the murky waters of the Cornish border creeping ever nearer. But salvation was at hand, as by the time we reached the Tamar Bridge it was nearly twenty four hours after the final whistle of the Plymouth defeat and things had got a bit better by then. We’d won a cup, a trophy, a memento of success. Okay, it was only a fifteen year old culendar, but it’s what it represents that matters. The fifty six drainage holes didn’t matter and the vegetables that had previously drained in those fifty six holes didn’t matter and the idea of pouring fizzy Fanta into the thing and the entire team drinking from (underneath) the fifty six drainage holes all at once didn’t matter. It’s winning it that matters. I love winning, but sadly the warm glow one felt at the memory of winning a fifty-six-hole, fifteen year old culendar is but now but a dim and somewhat distant one. It has been replaced by a deep and seemingly immovable gloom.
I’ve just got home after spending nine hours on Sunday lecturing to twelve hope-to-be cricket umpires. It’s not everybody’s cup of tea and I can understand why, but I like it. It’s probably a bit like train spotting or coin collecting or spending entire weekends in a field with members of the Winchcombe Camping and Caravanning Club, but I’ve never tried any of these similarly oddball pastimes. The point is, it takes your mind off things you dislike very much. Like 12.53pm on Saturday. And Hackney. And Plymouth. By four-thirty pm today my stint is done and I sit there listening to someone else droning on about correctness of score, the nuances of law 37 (obstructing the field) and deliberate short runs, though why anyone would want to do this when they know someone else is watching defeats me. And as soon as I think ‘defeat’ I realise once more how much I disliked Hackney and Plymouth and yesterday – in rank ascending order. By 6.09pm it dawns on me that I have been ruminating for 67 whole minutes about a mere sixty seconds the previous day and realise too, not for the first time, that I hadn’t liked those sixty seconds very much at all. At 6.29pm I realise that not only have the ruminations now been going on for 87 whole minutes, but that everyone else has gone home and the caretaker is drumming his fingers on the main door, rattling a very large set of keys in the main lock and gesturing with a touch of genuine impropriety in my direction. His face tells a story. It is time to ponder elsewhere.
I come home, turn on the computer, finish next week’s programme and send it to the printers. I edit the B Team match report for a period of time considerably greater than it would have taken to completely rewrite it and deliberate over writing the A Team resume, but find myself quite unable to do so. I answer some e-mails and send several more to my other address, telling myself how great life really is. I go to my other address and open several freshly sent messages about happiness and joy and culendars, but the intransigent gloom won’t lift. I open more electronic correspondence from a man in a Robin Reliant and find THIS photograph. It is the depiction of 12.38pm yesterday, but it could be about any time or any game. The occupants of the photo are the same as they would have been in a picture taken just fifteen minutes later, a scene thankfully not captured by the city’s phantom snapper. And as you look at the photograph you realise for the three thousand five hundred and twenty eighth time of your utterly miserable existence that this photo is what sport is all about, this is why we play it, this is why we watch it, and this is why we’ll probably be involved in it for the rest of our utterly miserable days. 12.53pm? I disliked it very, very much, even more than Hackney and even more than Plymouth. But I know I’ll remember 12.38pm for far longer. Because this photo and the tens of thousands of similar photos is why we love it, it is why we’ll always love it and it is why we’ll keep going back to it again and again and again. Saturday 12th March 2016. Thanks for the memory.
