I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: sports

  • His Holiness the 14th. Dalai Lama


    A walk in the woods on Saturday afternoon, an interview with a community leader for my new book on Sunday afternoon and a WordPress blog that I read first thing this Monday morning – what do they all have in common?  And the answer is…who is the Dalai Lama.  I find that borderline bizarre or mildly convergent.

    First, a walk in the woods.  Saturday morning my young bestie Meghan texted me with an invitation to join her and a couple of her other friends and their dogs to drive to Fort Jackson and hike a portion of the Palmetto Trail for a little while.  The day was perfect  – the weather like it had been ordered for a walk in the outdoors: give me a bright sunshiny day, hold the rain, no mosquitoes, extra colors and a splash of conversation.  Teresa was at work, and I hated it for her, but I was in.

    I took my black lab Chelsea because she is the least likely to create a fuss in a pack and we all set off together in high spirits.  We did set off together, but the dogs ran ahead of us with the small group of three relatively younger adults following at a brisk pace; and then there was the token senior adult, me, bringing up the rear with my camera.  We had random moments together, though, when the others would drop back to make sure I was trudging along with no problems.

    During one of these chats along the way, I mentioned to Meghan that I felt guilty for having such a wonderful walk on such a gorgeous day while Teresa was inside working at the Mast General Store.  We then engaged in a tongue-in-cheek exchange about feelings of guilt, and she jokingly told me the Dalai Lama said guilt shouldn’t   be a word.  According to him, guilt was unproductive in our lives and interfered with our expectations for happiness.

    Now, Meghan is a student in an acupuncture school in North Carolina and also a licensed massage therapist who has tried to help my various aches and pains in the past few years.  She is way more informed about alternative medicines and Eastern beliefs than I am – which made me think if she said the Dalai Lama didn’t believe in guilt, then he clearly did not.    I certainly wouldn’t argue with her.  But, the conversation made me try to think of everything I knew about the Buddhist spiritual leader, and the only image I could recall was Richard Gere dressed in a white robe sitting on a hillside in a faraway place with a little  Asian man who looked like the cat who ate the canary.

    Sunday afternoon I interviewed Michael who is one of the people that will be included in my next book which has a working title of A State of Our Own: Oral Histories of the Queer Movement in South Carolina from 1984 – 2014.    While I’ve known Michael for fifteen years, I didn’t realize the depth of his passion for his spiritual commitments and certainly never knew of his interests in religious experiences outside Christianity.  Although no mention was made of the Dalai Lama, I made a mental note that I found it coincidental to be discussing spiritual topics in a twenty-four hour period.  That’s really strange for me.

    This morning I opened my WordPress Reader to wander through the blog posts of the people I follow, and the very first one was a blogger who went to see and hear His Holiness the 14th. Dalai Lama in Birmingham, Alabama yesterday.  Apparently, it was the conclusion of his three-day visit to Birmingham, and she was effusive in her description of the experience.

    Okay. Knock, knock.  Who’s there?  The Dalai Lama, that’s who.

    And then I went off on a cyberspace search for a man who leads a religion I know very little about and yet, has been the confidante of world leaders and an inspiration for an enormous following of truth seekers including Richard Gere.

    His Holiness has a web site and is connected to Facebook, twitter and a vast array of You Tube Videos that offer a glimpse into the man.  I’m not sure why I was surprised that I could Tweet the Dalai Lama, but I totally was.  I am clearly out of touch with spiritual matters in the 21st. century.

    I read about the history of the Dalai Lamas and found it most interesting.  In a nutshell, this Nobel Prize winning man of peace is a descendant of centuries of violence and political mayhem in Tibet-and lives in exile in India.

    I randomly selected a You Tube Video of his appearance at Macalester College in March of this year.  Macalester is located in St. Paul, Minnesota and is one of the foremost private liberal arts colleges in America.  His Holiness was being honored with a doctorate from the school and looked the way I expected him to look in his robes and eyeglasses as he sat on the stage with the other dignitaries . He was short but not a tiny man.  For a man in his nineties, he looked to be in good shape.

    I was stunned when the Provost gave him a Macalester baseball cap along with his degree – and even more stunned when he wore it during his entire address to the gathering of students and teachers and visitors in the large auditorium at the college.  The audience responded with a cheer when he donned the cap, but it became very quiet when he spoke in English that I could only compare to my spoken Spanish. Not great, but you get your point across.

    Time is always moving, he began, and no force can stop time.  The past is past.  The future belongs to the young people of the 21st century – the people who are inheriting a lot of problems because of our failures in the 20th century: a population of seven billion people separated by a huge gap between the rich and the poor, major disasters that will occur due to global warming, a lack of water, and so on.  But the most important message he drove home was that violence brings more violence, and the 20th. century was one of violence.  His hope for the 21st. century is dialogue.  He urges us to talk and to not draw weapons.  He said the world is one world now because of our communication capabilities; but we have different colors and different religions, different economic resources and we must talk to each other to resolve our differences that lead to conflict.

    I confess I didn’t listen to the entire speech, but I also admit I enjoyed him.  What I liked most was that he laughed a sincere loud laugh when he thought he was being funny.  He had an interpreter who stood at his side while he spoke and occasionally the Dalai Lama looked to him for a word or encouragement.  I noticed the interpreter also made sure to laugh when His Holiness laughed.

    I don’t know if the 14th Dalai Lama is really the incarnation of the 13th or not, and I can’t verify the elimination of the word guilt from his vocabulary.  What I do know is that I admire anyone whose truth resembles my own, and I have a new appreciation for a man who advocates peace and non-violence in a country where our teenagers gun down each other in our public schools on a regular basis. More power to you and your baseball caps – the message is more important than the messenger.

    I may even Tweet you.

     

     

     

     

  • I’ve Been to the Mountaintop


    If you are a cyberspace friend of Red’s Rants and Raves and/or The Old Woman Slow’s Photos, you know South Carolina Pride was this past weekend in the state capitol of Columbia.  I took 163 digital images over the weekend and posted my favorites on the blogs.  I am a believer in the old adage “A picture is worth a thousand words,” and these pictures are images of hope, faith, love and joy – and the occasional unsmiling prophecy pretenders.  I love the pictures, but I can’t resist the thousand words, give or take a few.

    When I look at these images, I hear the voices of America singing.  I hear the cries of Paul Revere on his midnight ride and the loud sounds of argument and heated debate as the Founding Fathers (yes, Virginia – there were no mothers present) drafted the Constitution of the United States with a Bill of Rights guaranteeing individual liberties.

    I hear the sounds of slaves who could not speak to their masters, and I hear the whispers of abolitionists who spirited those slaves away in the darkness.  I hear the cries of the wounded and dying Confederate and Union soldiers as the artillery fired around them on the fields at Vicksburg and Gettysburg, and I hear the cannon fired in Charleston Harbor at Fort Sumter.

    I hear the choruses of the suffragettes who held a convention in Seneca, New York, and marched and dared to dream that women had the right to vote –  which they hoped would lead to greater equality, and I hear the roll call of states that  refused to ratify an Equal Rights Amendment which attempted to level the playing field for “the weaker sex” in the 1970s.

    I hear the singing of the marchers in Selma and Birmingham in the 1960s as they walked to overcome their harsh treatment.  I hear the voices of angry rappers today in Fullerton, Missouri, over the endless struggles for fair treatment in a country where equality is, too often, lip-synced.

    I hear the voices of the drag queens at Stonewall in 1969 as they refuse to be treated inhumanely and stand firm against the oppression of the gay community.  I hear the sounds of pleas by children who are thrown out of their homes and into the streets when their family confronts their sexuality.  I hear the sounds of comfort and support from people who respond with love to these children in distress.

    This is what I hear when I look at the digital images of the Pride March, but what I feel is entirely different. When you grow up feeling you are somehow not right, that there is something wrong with who you are and that you will never be good enough, and when you spend a lifetime being denied basic dignities and respect and are continually marginalized by being a part of a sub culture, and when you march in your hometown for twenty-five years and in those earlier years the prophecy pretenders outnumber the people who march with you, then the South Carolina Pride March this past weekend was like a parade for the astronauts who walked on the moon – minus the confetti and streamers.

    I wish I had the gift of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to describe my feelings as I rode on the Pioneers Float Saturday, but since I don’t, I’ll borrow his words:

    “Well, I don’t know what will happen now.  We’ve got some difficult days ahead.  But it doesn’t matter with me now.  Because I’ve been to the mountaintop.  And I don’t mind.  Like any man I would like to live a long life.  Longevity has its place.  But I’m not concerned about that now…God’s allowed me to go up to the mountain.  And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land.  I may not get there with you.  But I want you to know today that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.  And I’m happy, today,  I’m not worried about anything.  I’m not fearing any man.”

    I’ve been to the mountaintop.

     

     

     

     

  • The Rest of the Story


    No Hollywood ending was in store for Peng Shuai at the 2014 US Open tennis tournament, the final Grand Slam event of the year.  The crowd of 18,000+  spectators did give her a standing ovation as she left the court yesterday following her semi-final match with Caroline Wozniacki, but unfortunately, she left that court in a wheelchair and was unable to appreciate the moment of respect.

    The bizarre ending to an entertaining duel between two tennis gladiators became bittersweet moments of victory and defeat while stirring a swirl of controversy that was as tempestuous as the wind blowing on the tennis courts at the Billie Jean King Tennis Center.  CBS has broadcast the US Open for forty-eight years on television, and this is its final year to cover the event.  The Wozniacki/Peng match will certainly be one of the most memorable in the archived footage of its last hurrah for the Open.

    The story of the unseeded Peng Shuai’s two-week run to the semi-finals flew under the radar as she quietly upset three of the higher seeds in the tournament and didn’t drop a set until she lost 7-6 to Wozniacki in the first one of the semi-final.  The women played for over two hours in the same challenging conditions of gusting winds and brutal heat that had plagued most of the other day matches throughout the second week of the tournament.

    The second set started with the equal ferocity of play as the first with long points and breaks of serve, but in the end, the outside forces of wind and heat were the winners –  as outside forces often are for all of us in our everyday battles.

    Peng Shuai, who is ranked as the number 39 player in the world,  succumbed to heat illness in the middle of the second set and was ultimately forced to retire…but not without high drama as she reportedly told the medical personnel she did not want to stop play while they were evaluating her condition off the court.  Wozniacki remained calm during the eleven minutes of her opponent’s medical evaluation, but the reaction of the TV commentators was less than sportsmanlike.

    Apparently the integrity of the entire tournament was at risk as a result of the possibility that too many minutes were taken between points played in the seventh game which was never finished.  Even as Wozniacki herself came across the court to comfort Peng who had slumped to the hard court surface and was clearly in agony and tears, the announcers debated the rules of the game related to forfeiture during cramping.  Come on, guys and gals.  Seriously?

    Three hours following her retirement from the match Peng Shuai was feeling better physically and when asked about her condition she replied, “Safe now.”

    And then, “I want, but I could not.”

    In this match which was her best finish in her 37th. try in Grand Slam events, Peng Shuai literally left everything she had on the court and refused to give up.  “I know I’m not going to stay maybe too long, but I just want to try,” she said about her decision to come back on the court after her initial medical evaluation.  “This almost two weeks I feel like I play really good and then I just maybe need to believe more in myself.  I keep going, fight and then look forward.”

    The good news is that in her home country she is considered to be the “pride of the Chinese people.”  The Communist Party People’s Daily says “There is no loser today.  Thank you Shuaishuai, you tried your best.”

    When the last ball dropped across the net in the final game before she retired, that is exactly what she did.   It is what each of us can do.  Pain, suffering, hardships abound and are the elements in our lives and in the lives of those around us which we feel are out of our control, and it is up to us to choose to try to make the circumstances of our lives and our communities and our country better.  Often we lack the simple belief in ourselves that we can rise, pick up our racquet and finish the game.

    We must keep going, fight and then look forward.  And this, as Paul Harvey used to say at the end of his radio broadcasts many moons ago, is the rest of the story.

     

     

     

     

     

  • The 37th. Time is the Charm


    The name Peng Shuai is not a household name in the USA, but she is the third-ranked Chinese professional female tennis player behind the more familiar Li Na and  Zhang Shuai.  More familiar to tennis addicts, that is.

    This afternoon in New York City at the US Open, Peng played her 37th. match in Grand Slam events since turning pro in 2001 at the age of fifteen – and reached her first semi-final ever. Think about that.  Thirty-six entries and thirty-six times falling short of a goal over thirteen years.  Finally, on try number thirty-seven, she makes it to the semi-finals of one of the most prestigious tournaments on the Women’s Tennis Association tour.

    Her interview following the match with Tennis Channel commentator Tom Rinaldi was not nearly so entertaining as the ones with the number one Chinese player Li Na, but then she hasn’t had the same practice.  The most she could do was smile and wipe her face with a towel while she tried not to cry.  “Very excited,” she managed to say in English, when asked to describe her emotions.

    Very excited, indeed.  Peng is the daughter of a policeman and homemaker and the niece of an uncle who encouraged her to start playing tennis at the age of eight and she has played off and on for twenty years since.  When she was thirteen years old, she had heart surgery, and she has struggled with several health issues throughout her tennis career.

    “I love tennis, I love to play tennis,” she said in her post-game interview.

    I was happy for her because I love a good story about individuals who overcome adversity and realize their dreams after years of hard work.  Years of hitting a little yellow ball across a net.   Hours, days, weeks, months, years…and in those years believing within herself that she could win the big matches that place her name among the elite in her sport.  She has spunk.  I love spunk.

    In February of 2014, Peng Shuai reached a career high-ranking of number one in the world in doubles.  She is the first Chinese professional tennis player, male or female, to reach that standing.  Beyond impressive. Rankings are rankings in every sport and are often overrated, but Peng has had a tortuous climb from number 357 in the world in 2002 to number 39 in singles in 2014.

    She will face the winner of the Caroline Wozniacki/ Sara Errani match which will be played tonight under the lights in the Arthur Ashe arena.  They each have their own stories and are, I’m sure, equally excited and deserving of the opportunity to meet Peng in the semi-finals.  Exciting matches in store for the readers of Sports Illustrated.  I can’t wait…

    Peng Shuai may not make it to the finals of the Us Open this year, but I’d bet good money she’ll keep trying until she does.

     

     

     

     

  • Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh


    GOLD, FRANKINCENSE AND MYRRH

    A CHRISTMAS STORY FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

                And it came to pass in these days that there went out a decree from the personal laptop computers and hand-held computers and iPads and iPods and high-definition televisions and Sirius radio satellite stations that all the world should be buying gifts for Christmas in 4G.   And all went to buy gifts, every one into his/her favorite retailer, or online.

    There was an old woman who lived in the world

    and her eyes saw and her ears heard the decree,

    but her heart refused to buy 4G.

    For, you see, too many Christmases had come and gone

    And the old woman’s heart had turned to stone.

    The gifts she wanted couldn’t be wrapped.

    They were buried in memories too deeply trapped.

    But, behold, the old woman was visited by wise women this year,

    And they came bearing gifts of good cheer.

    Gold, frankincense and myrrh from days of old?   Not quite.

    But the women followed the same bright light.

    I’m a basic Bah, Humbug Christmas person and have been for years.   I’m not clinically depressed during the Holiday Season, but neither am I joyful.  I resist the pressure to shop ‘til I drop, but that isn’t limited to a particular time of the year, either.  I’m considering the possibility I may suffer from borderline Scrooge disorder or at a minimum, Holiday Harrumphs.

    This year is different.   I’ve been jolted and shaken out of my cynicism and once again believe in the Magic that is Christmas.   I think my transformation actually began last year when my new neighbors in Texas on Worsham Street decorated their homes and yards with spectacular exterior holiday lighting.   They adorned trees, bushes, windows, doors, porches, benches, roofs – anything they could find to attach a string of lights – and the little street came alive with white icicle lights and plain white lights and multi-colored lights of all shapes and sizes that glowed and blinked and gave the appearance of a miniature Disneyland.  I absolutely loved them and of course, I had to participate with my own lights on our house on the street.  I felt my Christmas ice melt just a little each time I turned the switch that lit my bright lights.  This year the street is again beautiful, and I thank my neighbors for the inspiration of their lighting traditions.

    I miss my family at Christmas, the family that defined Christmas for me as a child.  That family is gone as that time and place are gone, but the child inside me mourns their loss every time I hear “Silent Night” and other carols sung during this time of the year.  We were musical people and much of our holiday revolved around music in our churches where my mother was always responsible for the Christmas Cantata.  Sometimes she played the piano for it so my dad could lead the church choir and sometimes she drafted another pianist so she could lead the choir herself.  Regardless, music was the reason for the season for us and we celebrated the season in church.

    Family has been re-defined in my adult life by my partner and four children in furry suits that I adore.  I have a step-son who now has a girlfriend he lives with and so our family grows together.  Through the past forty years I’ve been away from Texas I’ve been fortunate to have wonderful friends who have become closer than the DNA-linked group I left behind.  In my gay and lesbian community in South Carolina, the term “family” is a word we use to describe ourselves.  The question, “Do you think she’s family?” is translated, “Do you think she’s a lesbian like us?”  Being part of a marginalized sub-culture creates strong bonds within that environment and my friends have been simply the best.

    Coming home to Texas to live has connected me once again with my DNA family and that’s been an incredible experience and part of the Magic of Christmas for me the last two years. First cousins, second cousins, third cousins once removed and the people they’ve married and their children are good, and a few questionable, surprises for me.  Gathering for a cousins’ Christmas potluck luncheon or going with cousins to the Montgomery Annual Cookie Walk or having cousins come to our home or visiting in their homes rekindle good memories of the times when our hair wasn’t white and our figures were slimmer and the great-grandparents at the table weren’t us. I see these relatives and I am a part of them, and I feel good to belong to them at Christmas. Our conversations honor and celebrate our heritage and the ones who are no longer with us.  We laugh and cry together because we are moved by our memories. My family is a Christmas gift.

    But just as the familiar story goes of the Wise Men who followed a bright light to Bethlehem and brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the baby boy in the manger, Wise Women in my life have brought gifts that rocked my Christmas complacency. My partner surprised me with an early gift at Thanksgiving when I went home to her in South Carolina.  It’s worth its weight in gold to me.  It’s a western saddle made of leather and rides a wooden quilt holder that a neighbor gave me when she saw the saddle.  It’s a perfect combination and looks good in my Texas den underneath a picture of a cowboy sitting on a fence.  Whenever I look at the saddle, I think of two of my favorite things: my partner who knew me well enough to buy this treasure for me and my days of riding horses as a child. I feel the love of the giver of this perfect gift.

    Frankincense was used in ancient times for medicinal and calming purposes including treatment for depression.  Burning frankincense was also thought to carry prayers to heaven by people in those days.  One of the Wise Women in my life gave me my own version of frankincense last week when she bought a plane ticket to South Carolina for me to be with my partner for Christmas.  I marvel at this generosity from a friend who surely loves me and who chased away the potential Christmas blues. This gift came from prayers to heaven that were unasked but answered on the wings of a snow white dove called US Airways and the spirit that is the Magic of Christmas in the heart of my friend.

    Myrrh is an Arabic word for bitter and it is the resin that comes from a tree that grows in the semi-desert regions of Africa and the Red Sea.  The Chinese used it for centuries to treat wounds and bruises and bleeding.  The Egyptians used myrrh as an embalming oil for their mummies.  Yesterday I received another gift that reminded me of myrrh – not the bitterness nor the embalming properties – but the unexpected present was a live blooming cactus plant that arrived at my house via a congenial UPS driver who I believe thinks he is Santa Claus.  When I opened the box and removed the moss packing per the enclosed instructions, I was stunned by the beauty of the pink blooms and the deep rich green of the plant.  The gift came from another Wise Woman who is married to my cousin in Rosenberg, Texas and was an additional reminder of the Magic that lives in Christmas.  Every day I’ll see these blooms and think of my cousins who sent them and the healing power beauty affords us when we take a moment to consider it.  I’ve always loved a Christmas cactus.

    Gold, frankincense and myrrh with a 21st century twist.  The Christmas story of Mary and Joseph’s plight in the manger in Bethlehem has been told and re-told for thousands of years.  Regardless of your belief, it is a tender tale of a family who welcomes a baby boy into a world of conflict and hardship and hopes he will somehow change it for the better.   The same conflicts continue two thousand years later and hardships of every shape and description plague our families today, but we move on.  Sometimes forward, sometimes backward.  But onward we go.  And in this spirit of hope for a better world where peace becomes the norm and hardships are made more bearable, I abandon my Bah, Humbug  with a Merry Christmas to all!