The Most Satisfying Sound

It might surprise you to know that I don’t consider myself a sporty woman.  Yes, I shined in the 400 metre relay in grade eight (though I did fake a quad injury right before the big race because physical competition stressed me out and life was hard enough back then, what with the pink glasses and bad hair).  That was, however, the last time I can remember participating in an organized sport, unless you count sand dune parties and I’m betting you don’t.

Like most epiphanies in life, this one came out of nowhere.  I could not have foretold the events of last Saturday night.  When Oprah finally asks me, I will tell her that the evening began like any other evening out.

We had plans with Jen and Paul from two doors down and I was fixing my face at the very last minute (insert one of my family’s many caustic remarks here) and fielding questions from the boys who wanted to be sure – for the tenth time – that they could, in fact, have popcorn with their movie.  As I washed up the last few dishes in the sink, I noted with concern that the middle finger on my right hand was still giving me trouble.  I had also noticed earlier that my right knee was sore.  This was an old dancing injury from when I was sixteen.  Admittedly, the injury was not due so much to my ballet practice, as certain people have believed over the years, but more to a night of drunken dancing in stocking feet at the Ballinafad Town Hall (note that if you don’t pronounce that name Bal-na-fad, it will be clear that you’ve never been there.  Note also that never having been to the Ballinafad Town Hall is not something to worry about).  During one overzealous spin, my right leg had an argument with itself – the top half spun, the bottom half didn’t, and that was it.  I was left writhing on the dance floor, and not in time to the music.  Fortunately, my sympathetic friends tied a cold Coke can to my knee with a scarf and left me on a table (a belated thanks to Laila, Tracy, and Bev for that).  My Mum ended up taking me to emergency in the first light of morning where they confirmed that I had a partially torn ligament.  I have wrecked that same knee at least a half dozen times since then.  So it was this old injury that was acting up on Saturday but my other knee hurt as well because it was both skinned and bruised from that afternoon’s game of manhunt with the kids. This is a great game.  Geoff and I take the kids to the woods nearby and tell them to run away.  According to the rules, if we catch them, we get to tie them up and throw out their favourite toys.  They hide for a really long time and we have a peaceful hour. Then we hunt them down. We play it more often than the children would like.

You might be thinking, with all of those injuries, how did she manage to go out?  I wondered that myself, but sometimes you just have to dig down inside as deeply as you can and find that place beneath the immediate concerns of the day, that place that is so much more in need of a Jack Daniel’s on ice than a good night’s sleep.  I found that place on Saturday evening and I’m glad I did because I went out an injured woman but I came home an athlete.

And by that, I mean that I am a bowler.

My first moments were shaky.  I stood there with an eight-pound ball in my two hands, wondering if I could find a lighter one, feeling the twinges in my finger and the creaking of my troubled knees.  I looked down that lane and it was the longest lane I had ever seen.  The lights were a little too bright.  The crowd was a little too loud.  Well, there were only the four of us there but Jen and Paul were talking and Geoff was shouting advice. Then I recalled suddenly that I had bowled once twelve years earlier and, yes, I had pulled a muscle in my bum so badly that I limped for a week and I had been too embarrassed to let my date know (though I shouldn’t have bothered as my date turned out to be something of a complete idiot and our dating only lasted a matter of weeks.  We broke up not long after my brother Andrew threw a dart into his foot) but I bowled out the rest of that game, dammit, and even played one more after that.  And I have watched the Big Lebowski at least three times so maybe all of that preparation had just been leading up to this moment.  Maybe I was meant for this.  I took a deep breath and eyed that centre pin and I bowled.

I bowled four spares and broke 100.

By the second game I had finished my drink and entered what we call “the zone”.  That ball was rolling straight from the centre of my gut, right over those pretty little arrows down the middle of the lane.  I have to tell you, as an athlete, there is little more satisfying than the sound of all the pins being knocked down at once.  You know?  There’s just you and that ball and the lane and your cool shoes and the crowd of people watching from the stands in a hushed silence and then SLAM they all go down at the same time and the uproar is CRAZY and your victory dance is understandable, if not elegant, and you swagger back to your seat because you, my friend – you with your three strikes and three spares all in one game – you with your ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY TWO points – you have just rocked the bowling world.

What’s that?  Oh yes and the others bowled quite well too but I forget their scores.

So now I find myself at something of a crossroads in life, struggling to decide whether to dedicate myself to my bowling or continue to really be there for my children and it’s difficult, you know, when you get that glimpse of greatness, just to turn your back on the possibilities.

I think the kids will understand, don’t you?  I’ll let them play with my trophies as long as they don’t touch my shirt (I want that one) – the one with JoJo embroidered over the heart.