Recollections

Craig decided, some years ago, that we would take up tennis. I am reminded of this because of an obnoxious blue that emanates from the warm, transitional colors of autumn in the park across the street. The tennis courts, as a result of the city's recent resurfacing project, traded its worn, innocuous green for magic marker blue. A child's rendering of a swimming pool comes to mind each time I walk down the driveway, glance out of the living room windows or attempt to bask in the seasonal colors on the front porch. The day-glo view is blinding and I end up watching the casual tennis that gets played on these courts, reducing the matches to comical displays much like Boise State football games.

All of Craig's hobbies start out the same way. He decides to take something on and then inundates himself with knowledge, gear and persistence until he becomes the model fly-fisherman, backpacker, carpenter. My track record with competitive sports was no secret. The time spent debating which team would be stuck with me at family gatherings did not cease when Craig came around. He even participated (more than once) in the gentle ejections that siblings and in-laws alike subjected me to. Craig played racket ball once a week for a couple of years with friends and long ago dabbled at tennis but he insisted that we would learn together.

Santa brought tennis rackets and multiple containers of tennis balls that year and Craig brought home videos from the library for us to watch and mimic. The girls, at the top and the bottom rungs of toddler hood at the time, excitedly wheeled around on primary-colored bikes and riding toys on the empty side of the gated courts while Craig and I, in the dead of winter, took up tennis. My abilities did not advance with Craig's. They did not advance at all. The girls began hanging out behind me to collect all of the missed balls.

The session that killed our tennis phase also confirmed the limits of Craig's patience. He stood in position to serve as he tried to go through the motions of actual tennis. My only objective was to hit the ball over the net (with the racket). Sometimes, when the ball came my way at an unexpected angle or my racket sent the ball up rather than out, I covered my head with my hands, afraid I might get struck. This may seem irrational and un-tennis like. It drove Craig insane (temporarily). Craig served the ball and I swung the racket, incorrectly. Even I could tell. I suspected that the ball flew straight up and waited, head covered, for a few seconds for the ball to crash down on me. Nothing. I looked up. No ball. I looked over at Craig.

"Did you see where it went?" I asked, still expecting the ball to drop at any second, anywhere. Craig stared at me, frustration filling out his narrow face.

"Did you?" I asked again. Maybe we'd have to scour the treetops to find the landing spot.

"Look at your racket!" Craig ordered, unamused.

The ball sat wedged between the racket face and the handle of the racket in my hand. The discovery was too much for me and I fell onto the court in helpless laughter. Tears found their way to the corner of my eyes and reminded me of the chill temperatures that even a mild day in mid-winter can bring. Craig didn't laugh. Maybe he did, a little, later, after a glass of wine, but I found the debauchery a wonderful summary of my foray into competitive sports.

No one else thought the story very funny (so don't feel bad if you don't find this at all humorous). So I stopped telling the story. Only my sister, Kami, recognized the same hilarity of the moment as I did, laughing with zeal when I recounted the events over the phone for the first time. Every now and then, deep into the night and a bottle of wine on a summer evening at our parents' home, Kami will beg me to tell her the tennis tale or the big ass lamp anecdote and together we laugh with a shared sense of humor that appears to be ours exclusively. She will recall a mishap with a boyfriend or her part in Jonathan Livingston Seagull and we will fall deeper into our laughter sending anyone that tried to linger through our bout of goofiness away. The tears and loss of speech usually climax with the shared memory of inappropriate behavior through a long ago holiday mass.

We are two sisters quite unlike each other. She, full of beauty and adventure, free-spirited and unreserved, continuously expressing herself and her art, unmindful of the outcome. I am more domestic, reserved. We do, though, share a love of many things. We connect through books and writing. And laughter.