As the fog rolled in softly late Sunday, my young pitcher hurled a scoreless inning, and looked fine out there on the "mound," which actually is just a flat piece of brown earth at Grant's Field in the West Sunset sports complex. It wasn't cold; it wasn't windy.
The umpire is none other than Larry Baer, executive vice-president of the Giants, whose season came to a premature end on a dismal road trip. It would appear that the Barry Bonds era is finished in San Francisco. His homerun total -- 734 -- is more than any player has ever hit in one league, but it sits under the dark cloud of suspicion that he helped himself courtesy of performance-enhancing substances.
I haven't asked Larry, but my assumption is the team will not renew the 42-year-old Bonds' contract. So, he'll probably finish his career just like Hank Aaron did, as an American Leaguer. Neither would ever be able to challenge Babe Ruth's AL homer total of 714.
None of this is interesting to non-stat-heads, I realize, so I'll change gears right this moment.
***
"Listen to your Heart," one of those pop song titles that sticks in my head. When it comes to relationships, there is such a thing as over-analyzing them. In this culture, we do so much therapy, we read so many self-help books and articles, we visit counselors, mediators, ministers, priests and rabbis. We talk about them in anonymous groups, 12-step programs, or over crisis hotlines. We talk about them in excruciating detail publicly on talk shows, in press conferences, even in the "news" section of newspapers, radio, and TV.
By far the biggest user-generated content on the Internet is all about relationships -- love, sex, meeting people, seeking advice, giving advice, and exploring fantasies. What all of this generates for me is cerebral fatigue.
I don't want to think about it any more. I just want it to happen. Love, that is. No matter how you cut it, love happens. In order for it to happen, you have to let yourself go. You "fall" into it.
Then, inevitably, you wake up to your new reality and doubts creep in. Maybe he's "too old," or maybe you "won't like her kids," or maybe you're "too different," or "too much the same."
To me none of this matters. You can analyze love until your face turns blue (i.e., you are dead, rendering the conversation irrelevant.) I know all of the popular wisdom about paying attention to the structure of relationships, being mindful of how power is distributed between partners.
And, this is good stuff. It's true wisdom for how to live your life and how to preserve your relationships, once you have them.
But it's not helpful to finding love. Love has its own way, and it tends to move well outside the channels of thought that compel us to assess and re-assess what we do and do not have in our intimate relationships.
I have been with enough people over enough time to have learned something basic. For me, there is no "type," that can be described rationally. That's why I rarely write physical descriptions or even mental descriptions of the women I love. They key to the "type" question for me is strictly emotional.
That's where the connection starts and ends. It's all about the heart.
***
Engulfed as we so often are in the fog, we just have to feel our way. Baseball is the perfect metaphor. Players know you can "think too much." Relying on instinct is the better way. Ignore the batter, throw your pitch. He's a great hitter and he hits a hard line drive right back at you. If it was yesterday, and you're the 12-year-old pictured above, you position your glove perfectly, making it look easy. The batter is out, the inning is over. You weren't thinking, you did it all by instinct.
Just like in love.
Chrissy Field 9/24/06
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