by Evelyn Michalos
1. Let’s say that I enjoyed ping-pong, also known as table tennis. Let’s say I used to play it with my two sisters in the faculty gym when we visited our mom at work. Let’s say it all began with a game. We took our stance, rackets in hand. Facing each other. Ready. You waited your turn by the exercise equipment. You would play winner. And so it started with a game. The way we play it: a rally until a point is scored. Then the other gets to serve. These “points” or scored rallies continue until one of us gets five points. They’re not exactly the rules of table tennis I know but then again we were never really good at it. You were better.
2. We called you the munchkin, and really you were one. The little game winner. Queen of ping. Corny title but you liked it. The short striker, always hitting the ball with her racket with more accuracy than I have in putting a cap on a pen. That’s how you win points. Of course, sometimes there are moments in one’s life where you have to settle for a let, a rally in which the result is unscored. In those cases, no player gets a point. The best course of action, the win, is left undecided. That is, until the next round. A let is an unknown, an obscure space of the game for decisions to dwell racing and crashing one into the other. What comes next? The net won’t help you. Your focus is on the point, a point that won’t come as soon. Not in this rally. You have to work and wait for the next.
3. During our game, my little sister called my name asking me to come with her to the bathroom. She had been playing with the weights, the ones we told her to be careful with. Some forty or fifty pounds. There had been an accident. She trailed blood on her way out the door. No one noticed. We were too busy playing the game. You were too kind to interrupt. Gretchen Rubin wrote, “Negative emotions like loneliness, envy, and guilt have an important role to play in a happy life; they’re big, flashing signs that something needs to change.” I didn’t see your sign. Later you told me you thought we’d be mad, but really it was I who let you down. I was so busy trying to win a point I couldn’t hear the shake in your voice when you called. Nor did I look up from the table to see the fear in your young eyes. My focus was on the ball, the racket, the win. So I didn’t come when you called. I won no points that day. Just guilt. The let. She served. It is I who failed to receive.
4. “The next point — that’s all you must think about” (Rod Laver).
5. What’s my next point? Focus on comforting my little sister. Hold her as we drive to the hospital. Help her smile past the pain. Most importantly, be there. But really a duality plays in Laver’s lesson. I believe in the need to focus on the next point, but just how you come to that focus is the question. Think on the next point by remembering the last. Queen of ping comes out of the operating room. No points were scored, nevertheless a telltale victory glows through her eyes. You can feel the triumph radiating from her small frame like a mouse that has just bested a lion. And of course, a shiny yellow lollipop glistens from her clutched free hand (as doctor’s are known to give to little ones). Everything is fine. The game won. The scare done. She smiles, but I don’t. You are my let. My reminder with no end. It doesn’t end for me. It didn’t. It hasn’t. It won’t. All I can do is wait. This time, I’ll be ready for the next point.
