Been a few weeks, I know. A combination of demands on my time (including several visits from friends, a fair amount of work on my two projects — three, if we include the daily work I do for Radu on CEE Real Estate Matters), and, frankly, no real developments of significance with the visa or living situation, has limited both my time for and my interest in drafting and posting updates.
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| Matt "Enjoying" the Tartar at Kolkovna |
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| Drinks at Riegrovy Park |
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| Drinks at U Zlateho Tygr |
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| A Good-bye Drink in Vinohrady! |
And what I've got today isn't exactly revolutionary, either. But it's ... important, to me, and I wanted to share. It's going to seem to be all about tennis, but stick with it. It's not, really — or not entirely.
So first: I was playing pretty well in England, with Oliver. As he got better I got weaker, but I have no real experience on grass, and I held my own. It was fun, and I felt comfortable and confident.
But I signed up to play in a tournament here in Prague the first day after I returned, and ... it was miserable. In large part because I hadn't played on clay in three months — and in fact had been playing on grass, which is essentially the polar opposite of the primary playing surfaces — I was absolutely not prepared for the completely different way the ball bounces, putting me way out of position and unable to hit a hard shot. I managed to win my group by: a) playing against much weaker players; and b) pushing the ball into the court and relaying on my defense to win. But I was simply unable — I mean, absolutely unable — to hit a normal topspin groundstroke, which was extremely frustrating for my opponents (and embarrassing for me). In the quarterfinals I played a guy who had lost two of his three group matches and who, on a normal day, I would have beaten 6-2, and ... I lost in a tiebreak. (Though kind of cool that I was down 1-4 and 2-5 before coming back to FORCE a tie-break).
Even worse, I had to suffer his polite inquiry as to whether this was my first tournament — I think he was actually trying to reassure me that I was pretty good for a newbie! Sigh.
Although I somehow knew I'd need a readjustment to clay, it never feels like that's what's going on. It feels like you just stink, and I left the tournament angry at myself and disappointed.
That's the initial background.
After that I played twice with Filip and once with another American here in town, and did reasonably well. Not great, but of course when there's nothing at stake I was more relaxed, and it was fine.
And then I found a tennis coach to work with once or twice a week, hoping to recreate the effect coaching had on me in the States — locking down the ground-strokes and giving me the confidence I needed to play well in tournaments again.
...
And then things fell off the cliff.
I played in another tournament on June 15th, and it was a disaster. For some reason I had the same experience as the previous tournament: Won all my group matches against really really weaker players by relying only on my defense — having to suffer their obvious frustration (and directed anger) at how defensively I was playing — and then losing in the quarterfinal against a weaker player when I simply couldn't hit the ball.
Meanwhile, although I still hadn't (and still haven't) received any word from the Czech Ministry about the status of my appeal, I did remember that there's a website you can check for updates. On Thursday morning I checked it, and got this message:
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| Wonderful |
To be fair, it's not evident whether this is reflecting only the status of my formal application, which I of course already knew about, or whether it's been updated to reflect the status after my appeal. It's just not clear.
Still, while in some ways this means nothing has changed, it certainly isn't good news, and although I had been telling myself to expect rejection on the appeal, this put that theoretical emotional readiness to the test. After checking it on Thursday I thought was handling it ok — joked about it with Liesel, both of us reminding each other that it actually doesn't necessary mean anything about the appeal — and headed off to play tennis with Filip.
That gets us to the most recent tennis match I've played. Following up on an unpleasant first tournament back involving a failed readjustment to clay, then another more inexplicable replication of that result in a subsequent tournament, then kinda/sorta bad news about my visa status, which was forcing me to start thinking about continuing to live in limbo and out of a suitcase another six months or so — delaying my ability to get real health insurance here, get a bank account, get furniture for my apartment, etc. etc. —I was carrying a little more stress than I was aware of into this meaningless friendly morning tennis match.
Sure enough, I was super tight, and ... could not hit a normal ball. During the first set, when Filip was still cold, I was able to stay competitive, but once he really warmed up he obliterated me. He won 6-4, 6-0, and we finished with me hitting another ball out by ten feet, then throwing my racket in frustration.
I found myself having an ongoing conversation with God throughout — well, it was a one-way conversation. I just kept begging Him not to take the one thing in my life I enjoyed and was good at away from me. I kept asking Him how many lessons He felt I needed to learn in my life. And although I also acknowledged to myself that I was wallowing in self pity — I mean, even at the time I recognized it — I simply could not stop thinking about how, despite all my effort, I was living in limbo and out of a suitcase as I approach 60, no real home, no family, no real job, no real pension, and now the one thing I feel good about myself with is being taken away from me again.
Ugh. Once the ball started rolling, it was impossible to stop, and every time I tried to tell myself, "ok, shake it off, just hit THIS ball well" ... I would hit it 15 feet out. (That's a LOT, that's someone who really doesn't know how to hit a tennis ball). It was among the worst experiences of my life. It was crushing. It was so painful I can't explain it. I actually felt, a few times, that maybe I would throw up.
When we finished the second set I told Filip that it would probably be best if we just stopped there, and I managed to hang out with him for half an hour, laughing a bit, walking home with him, and being social, before going into my apartment and feeling crushed.
Ok, that's all the bad news.
The good news is, Friday afternoon I realized what had just happened. In my opinion, I've been carrying around a lot of stress, and putting too much — way too much — pressure on my tennis to be an escape. Playing tennis well — simply hitting the ball well — requires finding that really fine sweet-spot between focus/concentration — precision timing, power, technique, and tactics — and relaxation, keeping your wrist super loose to snap it over the ball, giving it topspin and keeping it in the court. The more stressed you are, the more difficult it is to stay loose — if you watch tennis on TV they'll talk about a player getting "tight" late in close matches, as he or she makes surprising errors. And that was absolutely happening to me. I was trying to FORCE the ball into going where I wanted at the pace I wanted, and ... that's just not how tennis works. You have to relax, you have to be able to snap your wrist, and with all the frustration of the past two weeks of tennis and the ongoing uncertainty about my life piling on top of me, I simply wasn't able to do it.
I was happy to have this epiphany, and I was glad I had scheduled a tennis lesson for this afternoon. Still, I approached it with some trepidation. If, in fact, I was still unable to keep the ball in the court, I would literally have to put the racket aside for a month or two. If tennis isn't giving me pleasure — and it certainly hasn't been, for the past few weeks — there's simply no reason to keep at it.
But, fortunately, wrapping this all up ... I made a conscious effort to stay relaxed, to snap my wrist, to not dwell on mistakes, and it was all much better. Of course a lesson is very different from an actual match, so I'm interested to see what I do in my Wednesday morning match against Filip, but knowing what my problem is should make it much easier to address it when it arises — he said, crossing his fingers.
Looking back at it, I think the uncertainty and dislocation and frustration of the past four months — to some extent, over the past nine months or so — just fell on me like a load of bricks, making even what is normally the simple pleasure and easy escape of tennis impossible, and once that was taken away from me, making it all way too much.
Way.
Too.
Much.
All that just to say ... that fine line between focus and relaxation isn't just tennis, of course. It's everything. I've now caught my breath, and remembered all my blessings. I certainly don't have the most traditional life, but I have a few very good friends, I've experienced and learned a lot in this life, and I have a lot of exciting things going on now and on the horizon. I don't mean to say the sadness about choices not taken and opportunities missed is gone, so much, but at least it's tempered by an awareness of the choices I have taken and the opportunities I have seized. That's how this all works.
And tomorrow is a new chance to find ... confidence and stability. As is the day after that. And the day after that. Not dead yet.
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| Still looking good! |
And then my old friend Beth was here, from way back San Francisco days, with her husband Carvell, and that was every bit as diverting and fun as I could have hoped.
