Tuesday, March 19, 2013

My billiards prowess currently resides somewhere between a) trying super-hard to not tear the felt and b) remembering to chalk up on occasion. With only two sessions under my belt, I suppose I can’t expect much, but the frustration, the loathsome burden of being a novice, is there. I’m already wrestling with this feeling vis-à-vis the other four-lettered word, g*lf, and I don’t know if I have the mental capacity to tackle both.

There was an unintentional side benefit of pool, though, and it manifested itself in a moment of total clarity, right around the fifth or sixth time I scratched. A huge component of the game is knowing where the ball will land after it completes its primary task. Duh, right? But to me, this was revelatory. I had been so preoccupied with making contact that I failed to think beyond the initial impact of the cue ball, and I wished this shortsightedness began and ended at the table.

It doesn’t, unfortunately. I realized I don’t think beyond the next thing, the next task, and this has been going on for, what, months now? Years, perhaps? It’s like I’ve bred myself into a kind of corporate horse, blinders ever at the ready, the warm blanket of routine draped comfortably across my rump. This simply won’t do. I need to shake off the cobwebs, and I’m looking to chess for answers. It’s strange, adulthood. There was a time when I’d give anything to avoid a gathering of chess players. Now, I need to find them.