Feels Like The First Time
Once upon a time (in 1992) a little girl (named me) used to have reocurring dreams (or half-dreams, had while listening to WTOP radio broadcasts on my Walkman, in bed, under my blankets, pretending to be asleep) about walking into a baseball stadium for the first time. Vivid images they were. 1992. Camden Yards. Just built. Up high. Entered. Looked down at left field, out to home plate. It was very very green. 10 years old. Never been to a game.
I wanted, more than anything, to go to a game, to see this view, to buy a ticket for myself and my dad for his birthday. An entrepreneur, I made it happen. Never in my life will I forget what it looked like that first time, what I felt that first time, where we sat that first time. Vivid. Brilliant.
13 years later nothing had changed. Camden Yards. Game for his birthday. 13 years later I wrote this: "I smiled and took a sip of my beer. I told my dad about the time I saw the Nats play at Dodger stadium the week before Ieft Los Angeles. I told him how everyone says Dodger stadium is the most beautiful place ever. I told him how I remember sitting on the third baseline, nonplussed.
"Nothing compares, dad," I said, "This is the most beautiful place on earth.""
ESPN has been running that commerical fairly regularly this week. You know the one. Or, the ones. The ones about the love, the passion, about how it's more than a game. They tend to show those shots of the outfield. The one where you look out over left field and down to home plate. It makes you teary if you have a heart, like the way you get when you listen to the Field of Dreams soundtrack.
I write that because that is today. Today is that day where, for the first time this year, I will walk out, up high, and see across that green and - just like that first time, that one time every year, every time, every spring, summer and fall - for a moment I wont be able to breathe. And then for the remaining moments all I will do is breathe. The fans, the smell, the songs. Euphoria, I think is what they call it, likened to those fleeting post-coital moments, but rather than last moments it lasts hours. More than a game.
I wanted, more than anything, to go to a game, to see this view, to buy a ticket for myself and my dad for his birthday. An entrepreneur, I made it happen. Never in my life will I forget what it looked like that first time, what I felt that first time, where we sat that first time. Vivid. Brilliant.
13 years later nothing had changed. Camden Yards. Game for his birthday. 13 years later I wrote this: "I smiled and took a sip of my beer. I told my dad about the time I saw the Nats play at Dodger stadium the week before Ieft Los Angeles. I told him how everyone says Dodger stadium is the most beautiful place ever. I told him how I remember sitting on the third baseline, nonplussed.
"Nothing compares, dad," I said, "This is the most beautiful place on earth.""
ESPN has been running that commerical fairly regularly this week. You know the one. Or, the ones. The ones about the love, the passion, about how it's more than a game. They tend to show those shots of the outfield. The one where you look out over left field and down to home plate. It makes you teary if you have a heart, like the way you get when you listen to the Field of Dreams soundtrack.
I write that because that is today. Today is that day where, for the first time this year, I will walk out, up high, and see across that green and - just like that first time, that one time every year, every time, every spring, summer and fall - for a moment I wont be able to breathe. And then for the remaining moments all I will do is breathe. The fans, the smell, the songs. Euphoria, I think is what they call it, likened to those fleeting post-coital moments, but rather than last moments it lasts hours. More than a game.
posted by AllDeTime at 2:25 PM
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