Enjoy the Show

I'm working super hard on my entry for the writing contest. I'm finished the meat and potatoes of it all and now I'm in the process of whoring it out to all my friends and family for editing, input, criticism, and encouragement. I have a post for this blog that I've started and stopped about a million times which I'll get to publishing as soon as I get my shit together. But for now? Here's a special little bit that I get to share with you, compliments of my dad (he had emailed this to me about a week or so ago). He's a kickass human being and an excellent writer:

As I left Guildford library yesterday, at the last moment I grabbed a movie called “Moneyball”, starring Brad Pitt, based on a true baseball story about a former player, now baseball manager named Billy Beane.  Because I have never been fond of “true story” type movies, I hadn’t considered this movie before.  I watched it this morning, and it ranks right up there with one of the best and most inspirational movies I’ve ever watched.  If you ever get to a stage in life where you’re a bit down, just watch this movie.  It will help.

 

There’s a line from a song in the movie that says “I’ve got to let it go, and just enjoy the show”, and the movie ends with Billy Beane’s daughter singing this song. 

 

It reminded me of my own shattered sports dreams.  As a youngster and teenager, I participated in every type of sport possible.  I had the heart of a lion, and the talent of a stone.  I played baseball in Little League in Yellowknife, but once I started to face the fast balls of 140 pound 13 year olds, I recognized that I would never be able to connect my brain knowledge with my swing ability.  The same proved true for all other sports, including hockey, football, and golf.  Over the years, I played a lot of golf; I even took lessons from a pro for a while.  I don’t believe I ever broke 100, although my scores may have occasionally suggested that I did.  Eventually in frustration I quit golfing and took up fishing, and have been a much happier person for it.  And I have maintained my “heart of a lion” attitude as I continue to support the Canucks through thick and thin.

 

But the movie reminded me that I did “succeed” once in sports, as a teen ager in the “sport” of long distance running.  I trained my buns off, running almost daily for 2 or 3 years.  I ran in interschool track meets on Vancouver Island, and until my final high school race, never finishing higher than 12th.  I enjoyed running because it didn’t require any athletic coordination skills; I just had to move my legs and feet. 

 

Then one day, while I was in Grade 12 in Nanaimo, it was announced that there would be a major Vancouver Island track meet, including schools from up and down the entire island, and it would feature a 14 mile cross country race, which was the longest distance ever used in a school track meet that I had ever heard of at the time.  I determined that I would practise for that distance, and practise I did.  I knew I had no hope of winning, but I also knew that this would be my last high school race, and I wanted to know, beyond doubt, that wherever I did finish, it would be the very best race that I could have possibly run.

 

There must have been 100 or more entrants in that race, and when it started, there was the usual jostling and bumping for the first half mile, and since I knew I was a real “plodder”, I just set my own 14 mile pace and didn’t join the maddening throngs up front.  As I plodded along, mile after mile, and particularly during the last half of the race, I realized I was slowly passing runner after runner, but I didn’t give any thought to it really.  I just kept my pace.  As I approached the last half mile or so, I realized that there was a runner quite far ahead who I couldn’t catch, but nobody visibly behind me.  I was running out of gas, but I increased my pace as best I could, and finished the race ahead of a pack of runners breathing down my neck.  The minute I crossed the line, I knew that I had completed the race in the best time that I could have possibly done.  I figured I had again finished somewhere in the top 20 or so, which would have been just fine.  But when I was told that I had finished second, I was overwhelmed with joy.  Never once did I regret not finishing first, because I always knew inside that I had done my very best possible.

 

I know that my running tale is awfully hokey, but I’m glad that this movie reminded me of it, because for health reasons, I’ve been a bit down lately.  I just needed that little song to remind me that “I’ve got to let it go, and just enjoy the show”.

 

So I’m going to go do something that I’m physically capable of doing, which is getting on my motorcycle and riding up the roads along the Fraser River.  And practise my gratitude a little while I’m doing that.