let fall the flowers from your hair

ray lamontagne

All I really want to do these days is play tennis. Maybe it doesn’t seem like I really love tennis, because I mostly avoid exercise as a rule, but that’s completely wrong; it makes up some essential component of my ability to be happy. I have barely played all year, whereas in secondary school I played almost every day, and I’m just beginning to see the subtle and mysterious gaps that tennis has left in my life.

I love the damn sport. It used to be about trying to get better, and always better, and winning matches and playing tournaments and rising up the national rankings, but now that I play so rarely that’s obviously not really a question anymore. It’s funny that when I was (semi-) serious I was so much more unhappy. I used to think so much. It was still fun, but simultaneously a task that had to be overcome.

My joys in tennis, as I play it these days, are small but frequent. The utter satisfaction that you get at the sound of a nice, crisp, beautiful shot – that solid, wholesome CRACK, you know what I’m talking about– and the wonderful feeling of fluidity and motion when force is transferred from your muscles to your racquet to that little yellow ball; it’s enough.