Spring Training
Posted on April 5, 2013
I have a friend who’s a fanatical Red Sox fan and lover of baseball. Every year around this time he sends me an email with the subject header: “Pitchers and Catchers Report in One Week”. For me this email is as much a harbinger of spring as the sighting of a robin or the first crocus or daffodil pushing up through the leftover snow. When I was growing up in Maine, it was the breakup of the ice jam on the Penobscot River.
But spring means something different to me now than it did when I was young. Then it meant time to be outside, to play in the fields and woods, to be free. I don’t have that sense of freedom today. Although still active, I don’t play baseball or even softball anymore. I’ve given up my true sports love, basketball. I bike, play tennis, and practice a martial art. And I still hike in the woods and fields, but not with the same sense of play. So much of my time is not my own. Great chunks of every week I have to be at work, which has much longer hours than elementary school!
This year I’ve decided to try to change my mind-set. I still have to go to work, of course, but I’m making it a practice to be outside, even in the winter, and especially as spring approaches, as much as possible. Before and after work and at lunchtime, I take walks. I make myself go to and from the parking garage by the street instead of through the connector walkways.
What does spring mean to you? Are you filled with a sense of renewal and a rebirth of hope? Will the Red Sox rebound from their miserable season of last year? What personal goals do you have for “this season”?
From Wiki Commons: Spring Training, Vero Beach, Florida, 1994, by Rick Dikeman
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