I'm having a thought: the classic strategy on how to play life is to pick a goal, a far out into the future goal, that will define the direction of your life. A lot of times this is a profession -- teacher, priest, fireman (Apparently, in my mind, two and a half out of three professions are for men.)-- and/or a life style like parent of children, home owner, world traveler, etc. And then once this end point is determined, life is played in pursuit of it, making various moves (school, experience, friends) in order to get there.
You see this, you know what I'm talking about, right? It's the whole "what am I going to do with my life" conundrum.
Well, I've been think a lot about Euchre lately, a four-person, trick-taking, partner card game. My mom's side of the family plays it a lot, and I'm really good. How it works is that you are partners with the person across from you, and between you both, you are trying to take more tricks than the other two folks. Betting (called "ordering it up"), before hand, that you can accomplish this wins you the right to influence trump; the downside is if you fail, the other team scores more points than they would if you hadn't bet. (And if I haven't yet forced you to play this game with me, you know we're not good friends.)
I've found by playing and watching my family play, that most often, aggressive play is rewarded. Ordering it up on middling cards most of the time pans out better than passing. My aunt Yvonne plays very aggressively, often saying "Best I got." to explain her nearly reckless card playing. And she wins almost always.
Well, I was thinking on the train: what if that is an alternative to how we're taught to play life? Calling trump before you look at your cards has no advantages, and maybe betting on something many years in the future is not a good idea either.
I've heard metaphors about "playing the cards you're dealt" and some such, but that is usually referring to attributes given at birth which play out over a lifetime. But it seems to me that life is dealing new cards all the time; you get more than one hand to play over the years.
And unlike that other thing they told us -- that we could do anything we put our minds to -- the cards make a big difference. There is luck and unfairness involved. And the metaphor, playing life as a kind of Euchre game, allows the recognition of that injustice and of things outside your control, while it allows you to look at the cards you hold right now (not something way out in the future) and figure, "Best I got."
1.31.2012
1.29.2012
Amen.
Train station platform, three women chat by the side of the brick ticket office. Blonde edges brighten their hair, their hair in uniform waves, even though it is winter and Saturday. They wear boots and leggings and sleek coats and earrings. They say Our daughters have a 4g phone. We just have a 3g.
A woman with round shoulders and a green coat, stiff with pockets, shuffles up along the tracks.
Our kids always take our upgrades, they say. Well actually, Paul takes Mine. –But they really need it more than We do, they say. To be with their friends.
she reaches the group of women. Her eyes are part-way closed; her hair is gray and stringy. she walks up to them, up next to the group. she is shorter than them by six inches.
Our next upgrade isn’t until November. We want a new one before then, they say. My children, they say, My children will probably take it first.
she has joined their circle. They do not look at her.
“I don’t want n—none of that,” she tells Them.
A woman with round shoulders and a green coat, stiff with pockets, shuffles up along the tracks.
Our kids always take our upgrades, they say. Well actually, Paul takes Mine. –But they really need it more than We do, they say. To be with their friends.
she reaches the group of women. Her eyes are part-way closed; her hair is gray and stringy. she walks up to them, up next to the group. she is shorter than them by six inches.
Our next upgrade isn’t until November. We want a new one before then, they say. My children, they say, My children will probably take it first.
she has joined their circle. They do not look at her.
“I don’t want n—none of that,” she tells Them.
1.22.2012
Sports Pt 1
"Sports. Sports. Sports." -- Mitch Carver
Because I have heard the seemingly wide-spread generalization that women don't watch sports or know anything about sports, I will posit another grossly-unfounded generalization: old women watch sports. In fact, I believe that many spend most of their waking hours doing so.
Mitch's grandma will text him the scores of the various games she is watching. She watches all sports, but likes football in particular. It's hard for me to imagine what she thinks of all these fit men, so much her junior, running around and into each other and over things. (Unless it's baseball in which case she's watching men standing with the beginnings of what will someday be formidable beer guts and diabetes.) I guess I could ask her.
Donald Hall writes in this weeks's New Yorker (about the experience of getting old), "My mother heard baseball as it happened, from the small radio beneath her ear, next to the ashtray. (In another room, an enormous steam-powered television showed a continual blank screen; she did not want to move from her chair.) The radio games replaced her window of schoolchildren and birds. During the months between baseball seasons she spent her nights reading the Reader's Digest, Henry David Thoreau, Time, Robert Frost--and Agatha Christie. My summer nights are NESN and the Boston Red Sox."
My grandma will ask grandpa to put the game on for her. He'll wheel her into the living room and help her get into the brown corduroy chair. She likes basketball best, but then again, during the game, she is mostly sleeping.
Because I have heard the seemingly wide-spread generalization that women don't watch sports or know anything about sports, I will posit another grossly-unfounded generalization: old women watch sports. In fact, I believe that many spend most of their waking hours doing so.
Mitch's grandma will text him the scores of the various games she is watching. She watches all sports, but likes football in particular. It's hard for me to imagine what she thinks of all these fit men, so much her junior, running around and into each other and over things. (Unless it's baseball in which case she's watching men standing with the beginnings of what will someday be formidable beer guts and diabetes.) I guess I could ask her.
Donald Hall writes in this weeks's New Yorker (about the experience of getting old), "My mother heard baseball as it happened, from the small radio beneath her ear, next to the ashtray. (In another room, an enormous steam-powered television showed a continual blank screen; she did not want to move from her chair.) The radio games replaced her window of schoolchildren and birds. During the months between baseball seasons she spent her nights reading the Reader's Digest, Henry David Thoreau, Time, Robert Frost--and Agatha Christie. My summer nights are NESN and the Boston Red Sox."
My grandma will ask grandpa to put the game on for her. He'll wheel her into the living room and help her get into the brown corduroy chair. She likes basketball best, but then again, during the game, she is mostly sleeping.
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