I am not particularly a sports fan. Oh, I watch the Olympics intermitedly when they come around every few years, seeing sports played that I never knew were sports. (Curling??? Who knew.) And I watch football sporadically while I sew or quilt, but my husband must tell me what team to root for. Of course, I have watched my children’s and grandchildren’s sports with interest. But I must admit here that I never figured out some of the more arcane rules and penalties of field hockey nor been able to tell why a swimmer was disqualified for some reason.
But I did watch one recent sporting event with a great deal of enthusiasm, and that was Serena Williams’ second match at the U.S Open. It was not so much because of the sport, or my continuing interest in tennis, but because she was 40 years old and a mother. Anett Kontaviet, who was certainly a very good player and kept her cool under difficult circumstances was, above all, only 26. And there you have it. I wanted the old lady of 40 to win, and she did squeak out a victory. I know Serena was later defeated, but that one winning match said a great deal.
With that in mind I have entered into my own modest foray into the sporting world. I have become belay certified, which sounds much grander than it is. My youngest grandchild has taken up rock climbing, (which I cannot, at the moment, imagine myself doing) and the only way I can go to the gym with her is to hold the rope that helps secure her spidery self way up that wall. I wear a harness, with a carabiner attached to a loop and a sturdy rope attached to that. My job is to keep the rope taut as she ascends into the heavens. I may not be Serena exercising her powerful serve or formidable strokes, but I am faintly in the game.
But most of the joy in this effort, rope burns and all, is the realization that there is always something new to learn no matter what one’s age. And as Serena proved, the limitations placed on one’s stage in life are arbitrary and made to be broken. Who knows? Maybe I will become the next climber. Watch out Spiderman.