Category: Uncategorized (So Far)

Yesterday, Roger Federer announced that he wouldn’t be playing in the French Open after all, choosing instead to focus his energy on the grass- and hard-court seasons later this summer. When earlier this spring he announced that he’d skip all of the clay court season except the French, there was some speculation that he’d ultimately choose to skip the French as well. I didn’t think that would be the case, a Grand Slam still being a Grand Slam, but apparently I was wrong.

The announcement on his website said, “I need to recognize that scheduling will be the key to my longevity moving forward. Thus, my team and I concluded today that playing just one event on clay was not in the best interest of my tennis and physical preparation for the remainder of the season.” I have to admit, the decision makes sense. Clay tends to be the most arduous of the surfaces to play on. If Roger wants to maximize his chances of being fully rested for Wimbledon–obviously this is the case–then spending energy playing best-of-five-set matches at Roland Garros, where he would surely win several rounds just because he’s Roger, isn’t in his best interest.

I speak of this in part as introduction to what Rafa has just achieved and is threatening to achieve. I’ve already been talking about the possibility that he could sweep the tournaments in the European clay court swing this year. On Sunday, he took a step closer, beating Dominic Thiem 7-6 (8), 6-4 in the finals of the Madrid Open. Of the five main European clay court tournaments (Monte Carlo, Barcelona, Madrid, Rome, and Roland Garros), it’s Madrid where Rafa has had the least success, Madrid being considered the fastest of the five, ostensibly because of the elevation there. (Madrid is just over 2000′ high–not all that different from sea level, says the guy who lives in Colorado–so if it’s really the altitude that makes Madrid play faster, it suggests just how fine the margins at the pro level really are.)

And just how impressive was Rafa’s performance this time around? He went three sets against Rafa-killer Fabio Fognini in his first match, then whupped Kyrgios in straights, beat Goffin in straights, beat Djokovic in straights, before beating Thiem in straights in the final. So to answer my question: pretty damn impressive.

Which means that if you’re making predictions for Rome and the French, you’re definitely considering Rafa the prohibitive favorite. With Djokovic and Murray still far from their best (Andy lost at Rome today, in fact), it would seem that the only player capable of beating Rafa is … Rafa himself. The downside to winning all the time is that you play more matches than anyone else. Rafa is thirty now, and the otherworldly recovery abilities he demonstrated as a young man aren’t quite what they once were. He’s been pretty efficient through the clay court tournaments so far, but the wear and tear adds up. It would be pretty awful to see him run through Rome and then get injured in, say, the quarterfinals of the French.

But I sure hope it’s otherwise. Just winning the French, which would be his tenth title, would be incredible. To pick up the Rome title just before it and end up sweeping the European clay courts would be simply incredible. Even he has never done that before. (The closest he’s come was winning everything but Barcelona, back in 2010.)

The cost of all this clay-court dominance may show up later in the season, though. One thinks back to Dominic Thiem’s tale-of-two-seasons 2016, when he played a zillion matches in the first half of the year, winning several titles and making the semis at the French, but then fell off in the second half of the year. With there being no evidence at all that Djokovic or Murray are likely to right their ships anytime soon, it becomes worthwhile to ask if Roger then becomes the favorite to win the at Wimbledon (surely yes) and possibly the US Open as well.

Exciting and interesting times are afoot in the tennis world.

Tottenham Hotspur 2 – Manchester United 1

I certainly believed that one day I would get to White Hart Lane to watch my beloved Tottenham Hotspur play. They’d played at White Hart Lane since forever (1899, to be exact), so clearly they would play there until forever as well.

Except not. There had been talk for several years about building a new stadium, so surely I should have understood that it was only a matter of time. Then last year, plans fully came together, and they actually broke ground. They said the plan was to play one last year in the Lane while the initial work on the new stadium began next door, then spend a year playing their home matches at Wembley while the old stadium was torn down and the new one completed. So it’s not like I didn’t know, but there is that way that far-away things seem far away, so I still didn’t fully internalize that if I wanted to actually see a match there, I better get my ass to London this year. Then things happened the way life does, and whatever remaining dream I had of getting across the pond got shelved, and so it became clear that I would never set foot in White Hart Lane.

I watched yesterday’s final-ever White Hart Lane match because of course I would watch, and it was no roll-over-for-the-home-team testimonial match. ManU still had an outside chance of qualifying directly for the Champions League, and so both teams played an actual soccer match with actual stakes. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched Spurs lose to Manchester United, but right now Tottenham are clearly the better team, and they took a 2-0 lead early in the second half and held on well enough to earn the win. In a team’s final-ever match at a beloved old stadium, it’s only proper that they win, but having been a Spurs fan for many years now, I still kind of expected they would find a way to fuck it up, because they’re Spurs. But not this time.

And so they and the rest of their fans and I said goodbye to White Hart Lane in style, beating a tough team, finishing the season unbeaten at home, winning the last 14 of those matches. For one season–this final season–we saw Fortress White Hart Lane. That’s cool.

Change had to come some day, because change always comes. Still, it’s a little disconcerting that something that seemed always is now no more. But then, given the reality of the other shifts in my life, and given that White Hart Lane was for me always more idea than reality (never having set foot in the place), how surprised am I supposed to be? How nostalgic am I supposed to be? Things change, because things always change. In my own life, I am facing the change and saying, “This is for the best.” Surely I can do the same thing for my favorite soccer team, right?

It wasn’t long after I read the initial draft of the piece Jerry published on Tuesday that I came across an article that struck me as relevant to the discussion of how centering allows us to come to learn the underlying truth of every situation.

The article describes the human cost of the the actions of the conspiracy theorists–Truthers, I guess they call themselves–who show up and insist that various atrocities never happened. The article in question deals with the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT.

(Here’s a link to the article: Sandy Hook father Leonard Pozner on death threats: ‘I never imagined I’d have to fight for my child’s legacy.’ Be forewarned that there are details about the wounds suffered by his son that make this article a very tough read.)

An acquaintance of mine some years back was a 9/11 Denier. Our incipient friendship ended one night as he drunkenly shouted at me, “You have to accept that 9/11 was inside job!” No, I didn’t, and I didn’t need to be friends with someone who felt it was appropriate to treat me that way. We had an interaction in the aftermath of Sandy Hook, and he insisted that the events in Newtown that day constituted a “PsyOps operation” by the government, designed to distract the American people.

As my acquaintance offered insane details ostensibly contradicting the “official” reports of what happened in Newtown, I remember thinking of rejoinders to his claims, but I wisely chose not to engage in that manner. What was the point? But I also remember a sickening feeling of wrongness in my body as he spoke. I had a literally visceral feeling that the best course of action was to get out of the situation as quickly as possible and never look back. (I completely cut ties with him after that.)

This all happened well before I ever met Jerry, so I had never even heard of centering, and yet I still had a felt, embodied sense of wrongness as I experienced this man’s unhinged diatribe. I guess I can consider myself lucky for that.

To say the very least, we live in complicated times. If we hope to engage effectively with the madness that surrounds us–and in some cases, like this one, madness is not too strong a word–we would be wise to cultivate the skills that will allow us to find our way through the distortions in reality that occur all too often in our society.

I have bigger plans for Free Refills than what I’ve accomplished so far. I always have. But it’s taken over two years, a ton of zero-drafting and a lot of conversations with people who care about me enough to listen as I stumble along logorrheically to get to a point in which I can say exactly what it is I am doing, or planning to do.

And by saying that I’m at that point, I mean I’m pretty sure I can articulate it now. Pretty sure. It’s not simple. It’s still going to require a fair amount of practice and exertion to adequately bring the expression into being and in front of your eyes. I’ve made promises here before about the evolution of Free Refills and I haven’t kept all of them.¹ This promise I will keep, though. It’s going to shift things to a higher gear. But for now, I just need to make the promise, and then say that with my pieces this week, next week, and perhaps even the weeks after, I am building some space for myself so I can do the work to bring it to fruition. With a little space for thinking and writing and editing, soon enough this will all finally make sense. To me as well as everyone else.

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¹ On the core promises, though, I’ve never wavered. 5,000 words per week and daily publishing.

About this transition, how comfortable am I sharing details publicly? It’s kind of a funny question, because I know intellectually that the majority of the people who read Free Refills are people close to me, so they mostly already know what’s up. But in my head I have always treated Free Refills like I am writing to a much larger audience, to people who don’t know me personally. People who are here because they like the writing and want to see more of it.

This thinking is meant as an act of intention, of manifestation.

There’s a certain way that speaking of intention and manifestation always sounds a little cocky to my ears. One should be modest, yes? Except I am coming to believe that this sense that it is improper to treat and state your ambitions as already true is in fact a form of contraction. Something along the lines of Safer to not say such things, because if they were true or became true then they would necessarily open up expansion of self, and I would have no choice but to follow that expansion into the unknown. Much safer to stay here, stuck.

Contraction is a shitty choice. So let’s not do that.

All right, then. I write under the assumption of a broader audience because I know that day is coming. When the universe calls us, we can choose to answer, or not. But the universe does not call us only to pull the rug out from beneath us, stand over our supine bodies and cry triumphantly, “Psych!”

But so yeah. Hence my continued choice to allude to what’s going on rather than just saying it.

I’m going through a period of transition unlike any I’ve gone through since I got out of college. In a month or so, my life is going to look totally different. Isn’t that fun?

No, actually. It is not fun. A lot of the time it’s really sad.

Which is not to say that there aren’t moments of fun. I invited this change into my life, and I did it because of the firm conviction, arrived at after–trust me on this–ample exploration, that ultimately my life will be better for it. I can see expansion in my life already. Things are going to get better. My life is going to get better. I am going to be happier, more true to myself, more in flow with what the universe is asking of me and offering me.

But here in the middle of it, it is heavy and sad and overwhelming, and all I can do, day by day, is to try to put one foot in front of the other; and on those days in which I act out and do not do even that–those days when I play Game for six hours, or spend too much money having two cocktails too many–well, I see myself doing it, and I know why. I think I can forgive myself. Maybe somewhere there is some perfect version of me doing this all perfectly. I’m not that guy. I fuck up a lot. Still, I’m doing my best. And I trust that, through the promise of expansion, my best improves a little, every single day.

The last time I was in a period of transition as intense as the one I’m in right now was when I got out of college. In fact, right now feels a lot like that. As in: all the patterns and rhythms that govern my life (besides the natural ones, of course) are ending.

Most of our lives, we have a pretty good sense of what things will look like a month or two hence. We live in cycles, after all. Yesterday: the sun rose, the sun set. Today: the sun rises, the sun sets. Tomorrow: the sun will rise, the sun will set. In between: our lives. Cycles.

But right now I don’t know what to expect.

Like when college ended, the space of transition itself is clear enough. I will do this for a few weeks. I will move here. And then … unknown. True, the future is never more than a dream, but most of the time we can trust that there will be some resemblance between that dream and what occurs when the future becomes the present.

This is not where I find myself now. Orthographically I might write it thus: “Two months from now I will be ???”

There are words that I can fill in that blank with, and know they are correct. “Two months from now I will be writing.” Yes. That is true.

And this: “Two months from now I will be breathing.” And this: “Two months from now, I will be alive.”¹

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¹ Well, you know, unless I’m not. Shit does happen. But what am I supposed to say? “Actuarial data assigns a high probability that two months from now, I will still be alive.” Factually accurate, but rhetorically a handful of overcooked spaghetti. Life is much too short to be that mirthlessly literal, don’t you think?

In the pieces I write for TTW, I speak with a voice that implies a certain mastery of my subject. I suppose I’ve earned it. I bring a seriousness and intensity in my approach to these practices, and I also bring the training in close perception I’ve developed from all my years as a writer. That Jerry, who is certainly a master at the energy techniques we talk about, has given me his imprimatur to teach is quite a gift. I do not take his confidence in me lightly.

Nevertheless, I’m still less than three years into the adventure that started when Jerry first taught me to center and thereby set me on this path. Yes, I’ve seen vast changes in my life. Compared to where I was when I started, my sensitivity to what’s around me and my ability to deal with those things have gone off the charts. But in the grand scheme of things, I’m still something of a novice at all this stuff. Three years of exploring the practice of centering is far less than the 40 years I didn’t. And that means that sometimes I get overwhelmed.

There’s some deep turmoil in my personal life right now. Some days I navigate this well. Some days I pretty much go insane–I find myself unable to find center, my thinking gets utterly clouded, and I feel terrible. Some teacher I am, eh?

Except that I’ve walked too far down this path to ever turn around now, or even to much lose sight it. The other day, I felt bad, lost and sad and angry. I was badly out of center. But that I was out of center was part of my understanding of how I was feeling. I recognized it.

As I was trying to find my way back out of that oppressive grey mood, I knew to be seeking center. This approach is already too ingrained for me to do anything else. I didn’t succeed, by the way. It took Jerry’s help and experience to re-center me, and I moved back out of center rather quickly. But today, in a much better place, I can see the benefit of that apparent failure. Through the vulnerability of that experience, I can speak to how do deal with this stuff.

So what do you do when things get really bad?

In part, you let them be bad. You don’t fight their being bad, but you try not to feed the badness, also. Your perception of stuff is bound to be faulty, so try not to do anything rash. Don’t be shitty to people around you–in this kind of state, when everyone seems like an asshole, chances are that the actual asshole is you.

If there’s someone you can call on, someone whom you recognize has the ability to help ground you, call on that person. Don’t suffer though this alone.

But above all, know that little bits of self-care can make a huge difference. Even if things do not immediately feel better, doing something positive for yourself sets positive energy into motion. So go work out if you can. Now, if I’m sufficiently in turmoil, I might find the prospect of even going to the gym to be too much. But unless you’re in Antarctica or the middle of a hurricane, it’s pretty much always possible to go out for a walk rather than wallow in the unhappiness of the present time and place. A walk is great because the natural world is going to support you with its energy.

When I asked Jerry what I should write about this week, he replied “Something light and fun to give you something else to focus on. The lighter the better.” This piece, perhaps unfortunately, isn’t that.

But there is something to knowing that I am perhaps, even in this space, able to help others, that takes a lot of the weight off. Yes, things are hard right now. They’ll get better; they always do. I feel safe in saying this because I am paying attention, and it is true.

YO MAN DON’T MALIGN ME, AIN’T NO CLOUDS GREY ENOUGH TO DIMINISH THE RADMAN’S PIZZAZZ.

ENJOY TODAY’S SUNSHINE, CAPTAIN LUGUBRIOUS.

“The lighter the better,” Jerry advised when I asked what I should write about this week. But it’s hard to find much lightness on a morning as grey and gloomy as this one. On a day like this, even Ima Radster writes in lowercase.