the calm club

“Let me get this right,” John says.  “You are actively meditating while you walk around the pond.”

“Well, I’m trying,” I answer, in full transparency.  “It’s called a walking meditation.”

“Sounds a lot to me like sleep-walking,” Telly chimes in. 

“It would probably be much more of a real meditation if I could close my eyes,” I explain.  “There is so much out there to distract me.  Like a certain cat,” I say, hurling my voice like an imperious javelin, “who, unprovoked, will start tearing across the grounds, pole-vaulting over picnickers and using the backs of sunbathers like a pommel horse.  Not only is it embarrassing, but it is next to impossible to meditate through.”

The subject of my complaint listens from his roost on the mantel, unshakable in his calm. 

“Maybe walking is too much effort to quiet the mind,” Telly says.  “Maybe the body requires stillness… in one place.”  He taps each arm of his easy chair to demonstrate what one place in time might look like. 

I invited Telly and John over to watch the Olympic games with me.  As Toby has taken up a position directly below the television, we are actually watching the Olympic games and one cat.  When Big Jeff learned from Telly there would be food, he invited himself.  The food is little more than chips and a bowl of guacamole.  But it’s darn good guacamole.  Not that anyone else is going to know, as the bowl just stopped on Big Jeff’s big lap. 

Truly, I have enjoyed watching these Olympic games, perhaps more this year than ever.  They have been a wonderful diversion from those less-than-wonderful things in 2020 that continue into 2021.  Not that the games are free of politics.  And, of course, for big business, they are big business.  But if we focus on just the games and the athletes, we can enjoy the team- and individual-competitions and witness just what poetry of grace the human body is capable of.

“Are you going to use words like poetry and grace for the next two hours?” Telly asks me with a wink.

“My party…my house…my over-the-top verbiage.  Besides, the performances this year have been breathtaking.”

John agrees with me.  He also says he feels a little guilty about enjoying the televised poetry and grace so much.  “Aside from pushing a button on the remote, there is zero effort required of us to participate as spectators.  We’re just couch potatoes with a view.  The athletes, on the other hand, put in four years of hard work.”

Big Jeff cracks open another bag of chips, and I see any hope of partaking of the dip, that was as expensive to make as ten avocados, dwindle before my eyes.

“Well,” I say, “the rest of us did have to get through the last four years, which, given those particular four years, is an accomplishment, I think, as impressive as a Biles triple-flip-double-twist dismount.”

Jeff laughs and coughs a few chips into his private bowl of dip.  “I love watching other people exert themselves.”

“Point taken,” John says.  “But that’s four years.  Most of the athletes have more in the game than four years.  They have invested the bulk of their childhood in practicing, sacrificing, qualifying.  And for what?  A thirty second routine?”

Three of us shake our heads.  One of us curls his tail.  

“What do you suppose gets into a young person that makes them aspire to be an Olympic athlete?”  A former associate pastor, John draws on what he knows.  “I can tell you what might call a person to God or the church.  But the Olympics?”    

“Other athletes?” Telly suggests.  “Recognizing that they can throw a lead ball farther than anyone else?” 

“Recognizing they are Sha’Carri Richardson?” I suggest.

“Stop it,” John says.  “I’m serious.  That’s a lot of work to put into a short performance that will probably yield no positive financial outcome.  Keep in mind, you have to have a lot of losers to yield one winner.”

The winner of the dip raises a chip to his three losers. 

“And the difference between those winners and the athletes they beat out may be just tenths of seconds.  And don’t get me started on the judges and commentators,” John says, clearly a self-starter in such matters.  “They go absolutely nuts if a gymnast steps back too far on the matt after a dismount.  Heck, I step back just trying to stand still.  Is that really enough to say that one person is better than another?”

“In the context of the Olympics?”  Telly pauses to suggest that he doesn’t like what he is going to say next.  “Yes, it is.” 

But John disagrees.

“Let’s put this in a real-world context,” the former pastor says to our ninety-two-year-old neighbor.  “Let’s say you and I sell socks.”

“I want to sell socks,” I tell him.

Big Jeff also wants to toss his chip into the sock ring.

“Okay, we all sell socks.  At the end of a month, let’s say I make an even ten thousand dollars in commission.”

“Woah!  That’s a lot of money selling socks,” Big Jeff says as crumbs of disbelief tumble into the dip.

“This is just an example.”

“I want to make ten thousand,” I say to the architect of a world of sales in which socks rival cars.

“Yeah, well you don’t.”  John is uncompromising.  “This is the real world.” 

“No, it’s not.”  Telly laughs.

“Can you really make that much selling socks?” 

Kudos to Big Jeff and his probing question.  Telly and I lean in to hear the answer.

“Guys, listen to me,” John tries to rein us in.  “Loch makes nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents.  Telly makes one penny less than that.  Jeff makes one cent less than Telly.  So who is the better sock salesman?”

“Wait…why do you get to make more?” I ask.

“It’s my example.”

“It’s my house.”

“Gee Louweeze!”  This is as close to cursing as I have ever heard the former pastor get.  “How much do you want to make?”

“Two pennies more.  Just enough to make me the top salesperson.” 

“Done,” John speaks and it is so.  “Now you make a whopping one penny more than me.  That one cent is the only thing that differentiates your performance from mine.  But what do you think that one penny is going to buy you?  You can’t even buy one sock for that.  If Jeff made four more cents, putting him in the lead, that wouldn’t buy him enough dip to cover one chip.”

Big Jeff pulls the bowl of guacamole tight.

“On top of this,” John continues, “let’s say we have a supervisor who judges our sales performance.  If you don’t make a sale, that’s one point deducted from your maximum potential score.  If you’re caught speaking to a customer when you have crumbs on your mouth from the chips you’re not supposed to be eating while on the floor, that’s two more deductions.  Then maybe you say something the customer is offended by.  Well, his or her hurt feelings get escalated to the boss who makes another big deduction from your overall score.”

“Pennies aside,” I ask for clarification, “what does the best score get a person?”

“Bragging rights and a gold star next to their name on the breakroom roster.”  Telly is on a real Biles roll.

“But in the end, I still have my one cent lead,” I say.  “Right?”

“Yes,” John says.  “But so what?  You bested me by one penny, Telly by two, and Big John by three.  What does that mean?”

The three of us are waiting for the other sock to drop.

“It means there is real money to be made selling socks,” Telly says.  “Who knew?”

“My point is…”  John waits for his small congregation to stop laughing.  “If they made it to the Olympics, they are all great athletes.”

“Can we do more than sell socks?” Big Jeff asks.

John frowns.  “What do you mean?” 

At this point, Big Jeff raises a finger to buy time to clear his mouth of avocado.  

“In John’s absurd example, we’re really good at selling socks,” Telly takes the baton and runs with it.  “What happens if everyone starts wearing sandals and doesn’t need socks anymore.  As good as we are at selling socks, the stores don’t need sock sellers.  In that scenario, what are we going to do with this one thing we are good at?”

“Can we get good at something else?”  Big Jeff surprises us with this follow-up question. 

“Simone Biles wasn’t born a great gymnast,” I say.  “It’s quite likely that by her remarkable discipline and perseverance, she could have become anything.  She chose to become the gymnastics world’s Goat.”

“She’s a goat?”  Telly is confused.

“The Greatest gymnast Of All Time.”

“Acronyms!” Telly groans and looks above until one of his ninety-two-year-old vertebrae audibly complains.

“Brace yourself Telly, there could be a GROAT in the making.”  Before my senior friend can risk hurting himself by looking up too high, I unpack the new acronym.  “The Greatest Runner Of All Time.”

“Again?” John says to me.

I nod.  “Sha’Carri Richardson.”

“Okay, let’s talk about Sha’Carri.”  John sounds a little put-out to leave the sock business, but he’s willing to talk about anything.  “First, here is someone else who put years of hard work developing her talent, but because she smoked a little weed to comfort herself when her mother passed, the Olympic committee banned her from competing.  Which is complete bullshit.”  THIS is the new closest we have heard John come to cursing.  “So, she doesn’t even get a ticket to Japan with a shot at being one of the losers.”  He looks worked up enough to slap a lectern or ask the house for a collective amen.

“True,” I concede.  “But by being banned this year, Sha’Carri is perhaps more associated with the games than many of the actual winners.  And then there is Simone Biles, who, after a lifetime of hard work, bowed out of the games because her head was not in the right place to perform at her accustomed high level.  No wins for her either.  But by her courage to speak so openly about mental well-being, which has been taboo for athletes in the past, she has achieved yet another move impossible for those before her.  Everyone is talking about Simone and her courage so much that the 2021 Olympics could easily be renamed the 2021 Biles.”

“And your point?” John begs.

“Even losers can be winners.  Remarkable winners.”

“I accept that Biles achieved an unexpected win for strength of character.  But what is your case for the GROAT?”

“First, she’s Sha’Carri Richardson.” 

“She was banned,” Telly says, obsessing like John over a little thing like not getting to the games.  “And you cannot prove or justify something by saying it is because it is.  A person can’t be self-referential in their own proof.”

“Oh, but she is.  Even if it was outside the Olympic arena, She’Carri is the first American woman to really threaten the standing record set by Flo-Jo in the ‘88 Olympic games.  Granted, Elaine Thompson-Herah of Jamaica did beat Flo-Jo’s record by one-hundredth of a second.  But at twenty-one, Sha’Carri is just getting started.  To understand her potential, all you have to do is look at the last forty meters of her run.”

The A B C’s of the Olympic Games.

“You’re just going to ignore the first half of the race?” John asks.

“I am.  For the first half of the race, she is just like you and me, just another sock seller.  But instead of trying to outsell her competitors by another penny or two, she distinguishes herself by pulling away from the pack, like a rocket in runners’ shoes.  Her top end speed, as they call it, is impressive enough.  But as one who works hard to control his stress, here is the thing about her performance that really captivates me.” 

Big Jeff turns his chair and bowl to better listen. 

“In those last four seconds, Sha-Carri has an expression on her face that is almost Zen-like in its calm.  I can’t say it lasts long after she crosses the finish line.  But at the point where her body is doing what no body should be able to do, the inner-Sha’Carri appears to settle into a state of calm and accept the impossible moment as just another four seconds in her life.  I would call it a Biles Calm, but it’s Sha’Carri’s calm.”

Telly, who has done everything in his ninety-two years, tells me, “I competed in the 400-meter run in two Olympics.  I didn’t win any gold, but I did learn how to find that groove you’re describing.   If you would like, sometime, I can show you how it’s done.”

Our jaws drop.  We’ve seen Telly walk.  We’ve seen the wobble.  It’s difficult to reconcile that wobble with the poetry and grace we have seen today in the games. 

“You and Sha’Carri…” Big Jeff begins but can’t bring himself to finish.

Telly nods and helps out his friend.  “We have that in common.  If you consider the context of time and age.”

While Jeff is pulling his jaw back into place, the TV above us takes a commercial break to let big business do its thing. 

John is done with socks and pennies. 

Telly seems satisfied with the disruption his past has made on the present.

Without anyone saying or doing anything more, an unprovoking calm descends on the room. 

And then it happens.

Something scratches out of the blocks, and I look up in time to see Toby leap from the mantel in a blur of fur.  He scratches off the wall and grabs the curtains, pulling his rear legs up and parallel to the floor.  He propels himself through the air, patting the top of Big Jeff’s big head with his front legs while bringing his rear legs up and over, twisting and turning his body—even extending one leg out for a quick mid-air groom—before completing his last revolution and sticking a landing on the far edge of the bowl in Jeff’s lap.  But the moment he hits, one paw slips from the edge and Toby’s front legs pinwheel in vain to push back time and gravity.  His body succumbs, at last, to the inevitable and he falls back, tail first, into the uneaten guacamole. 

A laugh is building in all of us, but first we have to work through the awe that one cat’s athletics has just evoked in us.

“Unbelievable,” John says about what he has just seen.

“I think someone has been watching the games too long,” I say to Toby.

“Did you see him lick his leg in mid-air?” Jeff says, quickly salvaging the last dippable dip with a chip.  “I mean, it was like he just forgot for a moment he was in the middle of a real-life Biles routine.”

“We all saw it,” Telly assures him.  Then to Toby, he says, “Welcome to the club.”

Presented with all the dip he can lick, Toby is deaf to praise.

“The calm club,” John says, thinking out loud.  “Sha’Carri, Telly, and Toby.”

John shakes his head at this more-real real-world example of less-than winners.  “You know, I don’t think that could never be repeated,” he says, attributing a more than perfect score to Toby’s slipped-paw landing.  “I wonder what got into him.”  

“I don’t know. But happens every time we go for a walk,” I say, reminding them. “Right now, I’m more concerned about what got onto him.” I ask Big Jeff to keep him in the bowl. “I’m going to get a few wet-wipes for our furry Olympian.”

Another aspiring athlete out of the blocks.