LYNDA LANE
You Mean a Lot to Me
(This is a story I wrote about a trip I made in 2000 to an old baseball field I used to play on as a teenager)
It has been thirteen tears since I played on this field, but I means a lot to me. It is a simple ball part, one of many in this city. People drive by every day and do not even bat an eye- but It means a lot to me.
I returned there tonight. Other fields are still making memories at 9PM, for they have lights. Not mine. It is long silent. It was not the favourite of players in the league. They said it was in poor shape, with rotten grass, awful fence, and no lights. But is so special because it was always there for me.
I step onto the dark deserted field and I feel as if I have been transformed. I have had a tough day on the return to my hometown, but just stepping here and it all disappears. Just me and the field. When I used to play here when I was eighteen, there were eight other players on my side, and nine on my opponents. Bu I guess even then it seemed like it was just me here.
I run to third, the same way I did. I don’t run like that anymore but somehow it happens. I take a few groundballs. Usually my back is stiff, but not here. It is like I am 18 again. With each “groundball” I field, it is like this world vanishes. I almost see the ball bouncing to me, as I drift into a mystic meditative state. All thoughts are shut off, albeit only for a few seconds, as my body goes thorough the motions of scooping up the imaginary ball and throwing it to first base.
I run back to the dugout and find I am up first this inning. I walk to the plate and dig in. the ball slides by, just outside. I tug at my shirt and tilt my head. The second pitch I turn on, how my body can still make these motions I have no idea, but I know the ball was smacked down the line. In jeans and street shoes I glide into second base. A wild pitch moves me to third, and a hit allows me to trot home.
As it is time to leave, I look over the field again. I say a heartfelt thank you for all the memories. For all the bad hop groundballs that struck my shin, for all the sure homeruns that bounced off the top of the fence and for the flyballs in practice that I could not reach. They also the memories that make this field unique, not just the homeruns and won games.
I thank the spirit of this place. As I turn to leave I stop and ask the field to grant me a wish. I ask to please continue to give these memories to young ballplayers like I had. You may not be the most beautiful or modern, and perhaps most who played here have led their memories drift to the wind. But not me. Continue to make these memories, for 13 years from now, another young man struggling to reconcile his past and understand his future may come to see you with a fist full of the same memories.
Yes Lynda Lane, you mean a lot to me.