Dear Reader
Before I start this afternoon’s random chatter, an apology. You presumably signed up for this regular nonsense as a result of wanting to get a little more “golf” in your life, before it is too late, and I understand that only too well. Or, if you clicked Subscribe by mistake, or perhaps dropped a digit onto your keypad as you dozed off reading an earlier piece, the end point is the same. You expect Stymied to deliver some sort of whimsical reflection on golf, and it has come to my attention that yesterday’s piece seemed to centre on music instead.
Clearly, a line has been crossed here in terms of your trust, so I will immediately sack everyone concerned in this diabolical act, and return to the subject in hand - golf - for as long as things occur that feel (to me, at least!) like they are worth saying on that topic. At least until the next time I get so involved in reading other people’s golf writing (yesterday it was, again, the late, great Alistair Cooke; more to come on that one day) that I fail to produce anything golf-y of my own.
Thank you for your patience!
I was on the school run this morning, a regular feature of life at the moment. Often this refreshing 20-minute walk is accompanied by a succession of rapid-fire footballing facts and questions from my son, which is simply an example of time repeating itself, as I inflicted a similar barrage on my own father, longer ago than I’d care to quantify. These are always precious moments, but this morning, we took a route that enabled us to pick up two of his beloved cousins as well, and their energetic talking left me and the ubiquitous dog to tread our own path slightly ahead.
As usual, I was thinking about the details of the day ahead, and an endless stream of things to remember. Such is modern life. But as we turned on to the busy road approaching the school entrance, I glanced back to make sure this great triumvirate behind - one of whom was dressed magnificently as a Roman, adding a little colour to the morning - were safe and happy, and ready for another day in class.
And then it hit me, as these glorious epiphanettes so often do. All these minutes I had been barely present, occasionally ceasing my stream of consciousness to smile at or greet another person bustling from one place to another. I see in the faces behind the steering wheels of the cars a serious, almost glum expression that probably mirrors my own, though I’m too lost in thought to realise it, but as I pause to watch these three angels engrossed in their conversation, deeply imbedded in this experience, the engagement written all over their innocent young faces, I realise that I have spent years around the same content expressions on the faces of adults, without ever recognising them, or realising what it was that created them.
We adults - the other parents on the pavement, the people in the cars, the general public - we can get lost so easily in the past and the future, tied up with worries or regrets, or often simply firefighting the never-ending admin of life in the twenty-first century. But looking back at the presence these three are showing takes me back to my own walks to school, all those years ago, and the intensity and happiness of growing up protected from all the uncertainty of adulthood, and “real life”.
There are places all over the world where some of us head to remember what it is like to park all the concerns for a while, leave behind the symphony of messages and appointments, and return to a simplicity that is reminiscent of childhood, where play is the name of the game, and where we will smile and laugh and meet Triumph & Disaster with equanimity (or sometimes irritation), and afterwards we will return to the rat runs of our prescription Western lives a bit lighter for the interval.
You know some of these places, of course - they are the golf courses we love to visit despite our miserable play, despite the British weather, even despite the extraordinarily complicated handicapping matrices (that one’s for you, JD). Take a moment next time you are at the Club to look at your fellow golfers as they come off the course, three balls down, and with a score that looks more suited to a cricket match, and you will notice that the same, happy smile that my son and his two cousins wore this morning is all over each face.
I return my gaze to the road ahead, and the dog, ball in mouth as is necessary for everyone’s sanity on these missions, is not smiling per se, but is equally present in the moment. And it is a timely reminder, as I plan out the rest of today, to not spend every last morsel of energy on other people’s hopes and dreams, but to invest in a just little more joy today, and see where that takes me.
For three quarters of this school run, I was lost, but now I am found, and, with golf to be written about today, and played tomorrow, you might see a glimpse of that same content smile start to break over me in the hours ahead. For this is what golf offers, which the non-golfer might struggle to understand - we don’t play golf to withdraw from life, or shelter from it, though sometimes it feels like we need to; we play it to get back in the middle of it, to feel like we are living it, rather than it living us. We immerse ourselves in the game and it teaches us what is important, as clearly as any of the lessons awaiting those three children today.
One shot at a time, for as long as we can still stand up straight. What a gift, this game!
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What do a 2yr old boy and a 5yr old dog have in common? They are living in the moment 💚!! Just like a Roman on the school run...
This has certainly put a smile on my face! Beautiful piece.