How to Win

and also, how not to

The Olympics have me transfixed for the first time since Calgary, when Jamaica had a bobsled team. This year I’m unhinged by it - watching sports I’ve never heard of, googling the origins of the ball and chain we somehow call a hammer, and refreshing seventh grade geography archives with countries who have emerged since then. My dad’s 80 something year old cousin who found me on Facebook DMs me the results of all Lithuanian athletes - basketballers and discus as expected - and now a breakdancer. Before this year, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the summer games, just historical snippets and highlights of Joyner-Kersey and Comaneci.

This year we have access to Peacock, which is a thing you watch on the TV that I affectionally refer to as Netflix, because all streaming services are Netflix in my lexicon. It may be part of my problem, as you can pause it, but if you do so briefly you are punished with extra commercials, and if you pause long enough to take the dog for a walk, you have to start over again and will both never find your place AND be punished with even more commercials. So instead of risking the pause button, I do my own version of the triple jump whenever they cut to highlights of golf or wrestling to quickly attend to all of my basic needs that cannot be met.

The floor is lava. Pee fast. Grab a banana.

I have done my PT exercises with a tired stretchy band and an overpriced 9” Pilates ball while watching people leap veritable meters forwards or over various obstacles. I’ve forced myself to dig my heels into my studies in the earlier part of the day, abandoned nonessential work tasks, and stayed up way past my bed time on several occasions.

I don’t think I’ve been taken by a midlife obsession with sports, I think something hopeful has opened in me, and this appreciation may be secondary to breaking the national spell of vitriol. These well-timed Olympics are leveraging a sense possibility that has emerged.

Eight years ago I experienced three whole days of liberation - between the end of a toxic personal relationship and the start of a national one, and even though the fog has lifted, there are still clouds looming in the distance.

And still, hope. The sun sparkles above and below and behind. It exists.

(I forget this sometimes).