When we get a long rally going and all you can hear is the squeak of your shoes and thwack of the ball, I can almost lose myself in the rhythm of my arms swinging and the loophole of the sweet spot, until it feels as if I’m not exerting any effort at all, or thinking--just fitting, with an audible click into a preestablished pattern that exists in nature independent of me and is going on all the time.
For that twenty minutes or hour or however long it lasts, I could swear I’m a teenager again. I have the same feeling I had then, that I’ve joined some cycle, or tide, or silent music and become a passive part of it, like a body being brought in by a wave, catching a ride on an unseen force.
Even--especially--myself.