And a voice that is dark like tinted glass

June 8, 2007 in bangor, flatball, flickr, friends, images, photos, places, thought

About a week ago I had another transcendent, remembering-why-I-love-it moment. For all intents and purposes, as of the end of the semester I’d stopped playing Ultimate for almost a year. Sure, I went to the BUFO vs. squash scrimmage a month ago, and played a few points in one of the games at Kraftees, but I hadn’t been to a practice since the fall, and the ones that I did go to were still when my arm was in a sling and I was just working on my lefty throws (still pretty good, much to my continuing delight).

But last friday I caught a ride down to Belfast with Hash (Aaron Hoshide—the Bangor High Eutyls wily Asian mentor and active advocate for youth ultimate development in Maine) and Corey (Bangor High class of ‘03 and Syracuse class of ‘07) to play pickup down there. The sun was shining, the field is right on the bay (I’m kicking myself for not bringing my camera). Play was intense and at a high-enough level so I didn’t get bored, but not so high as to make me feel like I was in over my head. My throws were working, except for a few long ones that got away, and I didn’t feel so out of shape as I thought I was.

It was a real confidence-booster for me as a player, but more importantly it was just a lot of fun. I might even go so far as to say that what was more rewarding than seeing my throws behaving themselves and my hands and legs working like they’re supposed to were the things gotten out of the game that can’t be measured by points or wins. Things like the people, a mix of old faces from summer league (including Hash and fellow ‘05 red-teamers Larkspur and Neal) and friendly new folks from the Camden/Rockport/Belfast scene; or the simple joy of tossing around a frisbee on one of the most gorgeous evenings of the year; or talking at great length about something you’re passionate about with someone who’s passionate and thoughtful. All in all it added up to a sort of brief reconnection with the Ultimate Frisbee State of Nature, the innocence that helped draw me to ultimate in the first place.

Sure, I enjoy good, competitive play at a high level just as much as the next American male, but where I learned to play (Broad-effin-way!) keeping score was literally not a part of the culture. At the risk of hyperbole, I might even go so far as to say that the first game I played where score was kept (even briefly, at the end, as is the custom in most pickup games) was at the Frozen Butterball in November 2003 (the genesis of the Eutyls, when one of us got the crazy notion that we should go to a tournament)—more than two years since the wisdom that enabled me to put behind me years of humiliating failures to throw a frisbee (flick the wrist!) was imparted to me by a fellow mathlete at the south-bound rest stop in Kennebunk, Maine, beginning a (possibly life-long) obsession with throwing a frisbee.

But now I’m dangerously close to beginning a “why can’t everyone be like me” rant about my superior grasp of Spirit of the Game (which, for me, is at least partly a rationalization of my fear of really investing myself in the sport—and partly a romantic plea for the return of humanity and joy to sports). The point I’m trying to make is, I think, a positive one, about remembering how much, and why, I love this game, and how happy I am to be able to at least periodically reconnect with that feeling of unfettered, carefree joy.

(In case you’re not one to follow inline links, and in case you made it all the way through that, these might be interesting:

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