The Games People Play

Yesterday, after lunch, Scrabble Tim found me and asked “What are you up to right now?”

“I was thinking about getting a cup of coffee downtown,” I said.

“Time for a game?”

“Sure,” I replied.

“Great,” he said. “I’ll go and get the stuff from my office.”

For a second I paused, thinking about the odd way he’d framed that last statement: I’ll go and get the stuff.  It carried a whiff of the illicit, especially on our campus, where most of the students take euphemistic “walks in the woods” to consume their drugs of choice. It was a beautiful fall day; we both had work we could be doing; I drove over to his office and left the car running as I waited for him.  He arrived with the scrabble equipment tucked under his jacket: bag of letters, board, wooden trays, chess clock.  We drove down the hill, set up on an outdoor cafe tabel, and played one game.  I was down big early, but came back by playing YODELING on a triple word score.  In the last few moves it was close, but Tim prevailed, playing the phony RA on a triple word.  He took the point from my last letter, I lost it, and the final score turned out 317-315.

It was, as I said, a lovely afternoon here in Southern VT, way too warm for the 9th of November, but a real gift from the people in charge of climate change.  I poked my head into the Captain’s room at 2:30, with my cycling gear on.

“C’mon,” I said. “Let’s go.”

“I’ve got stuff to do!” he replied.

“You’ve got to ride, man!”

“You’re the second one in an hour,” he frowned. “Tattoo Dave was on the phone just a few minutes ago.”

“O.K,” I said. “It’s not gonna be like this for months.” I ran downstairs and climbed on my cross bike.  Spent a blissful two and a half hours getting covered in mud.  Rode a few of the dirt roads my new bike has made possible. Got lost. Watched as the light grew golden and severe on the green hills.  Pedaled through a stream six inches deep and discovered, to my amazement, that this was possible.  Rode a section of trail a bit too rocky for my bike, and found that if you take it slow and stay off the brakes, you can ride most things.

I was supposed to go to swim practice, but I’d overdone it on the bike. I made dinner and found Tim for another couple games.  Won an ugly game by a hundred points, and then lost another squeaker, 293-290.  Tim and I are evenly matched, but if you put us up against anyone with an ounce of skill, we’d get killed. We end all of our games lamenting, saying “We gotta learn more words.”

Today I’ve got soccer practice at 3:15. Would’ve had it yesterday, too, but my girls have a game on Saturday, so I gave them Thursday off.  They also played the best game of their season on Wednesday, thoroughly dominating a JV team from a big prep school about a half hour south.  They only managed a 2-1 win, but had many more chances than the other team. It was a wet, cold day, the kind of day that seems made for soccer, that recalls deeply green fields under grey British skies.  I changed how we played that day, looking for some more offense, to a 4-3-3 formation.  Usually I hate the 4-3-3, as it gives players the opportunity to stand, static, in their little corner of the field, and yell for the ball.  But it worked. The change freed up the center of the field, and my center forward and midfielder distributed the ball effectively. We went home happy, having beaten a good team on their home field.

I look at these days and I see games, games, games. I play obscure board games with my friends Justin and Elsa, race my bicycle on the weekends, keep my television tuned to ESPN.  What is it with games? As with anything, there’s a dark side and a brighter vision.  Games can be compensatory, an excuse to measure the world and find yourself superior, but most of the time I just find myself having fun.  There are the long hours, of training, of memorizing odd three letter words (Avo, Cwm, and Bel, anyone?), of finding drills to make my girls better soccer players. There are the records, the scoreboards, the times, the medals and the trophies, sometimes the admiration, but these things, although nice, remain things. I’d rather not talk to people about how a race went, unless it went badly and I’ve got a story to tell, but I will remember laying down that YODELING for 83 points, and thinking in that moment, gee, this is fun.

Addiction

I drink a lot of coffee. The students at the school where I teach reflect America’s current bipolarity (thin/fat, left/right, hedonist/ascetic), and the teetotalers say to me, with the sanctimonious tone typical of Vermont’s artist immigrants, “You sure drink a lot of coffee.” When I shrug and keep drinking, they push the issue: “Wouldn’t you rather not rely upon something to make your day possible?” I shrug again and say “There are worse things to be addicted to, don’t you think?”

And it’s true. I could be back in New York City, drinking too much and staying up all night, losing days to hangovers, missing work and embarassing myself, but I’m not. I’m going to sleep early tonight, so I can get up and go to the pool tomorrow, so I can be fresh for tomorrow’s long run. I’m not saying this because I’m pleased with myself. I’m saying this because I’ve clearly traded one addiction for another.

I bought a cyclocross bike recently (see “Newbie Once More”), I thought because I was sick of road riding after a long season on skinny tires. I realized today, as I was scouring Bikereg.com for races that would keep me competing each weekend until New Year’s Day, that I bought the bike so I could keep racing. Isn’t this an addiction? A habit I pursue regardless of near financial ruin and compromised relationships? Of course it is. Like the coffee, though, I would ask “Aren’t there worse things to be addicted to?” I’m in the best shape of my life. If doctors are to be believed, I’m putting years in the bank and managing stress (life, work, life) in a healthier way than self-medication.

It’s the question of why, though, a question that haunts all of us who train hundreds of hours for only, at most, dozens of competitive hours. Why the obsession, the skipped nights out with friends, the fights with loved ones, the weekends spent driving to races instead of hiking, climbing, exploring, or sleeping? I think, for most of us, we’ve traded a more insidious addiction for the ostensibly safer habit of endurance sports. I work with a guy who was a big time bike racer a number of years ago. He was also an alcoholic, and his stories resonate for me: the highs and lows, the constant sense that this thing that you thought was a good friend, an ally in difficult situations, was waiting patiently to devour you whole. He doesn’t drink any more, and he’s a huge role model for the kids, users or non, at our school. I also think of a runner a friend of mine told me about once, a superstar back in the golden days of American running, who rose to mythic proportions and then simply disappeared, leaving a family behind, to resurface twenty years later in Hawaii. “Someone who spends that much time out on the road,” my friend said, “is running from something.”

I hear that, and I’m sure that some of you out there do, too. If I hadn’t bought that cyclocross bike, if my next race were months distant instead of days, I would be out tonight with two of my friends who were going to a movie and then on to “Hit the bars.” I know where that leads. Take away my sense of responsibility to myself, to the hours I’ve already logged, and I will overachieve in another, darker realm. So even though it is an addiction, I’m going to keep drinking the coffee. Aren’t you?