Day 4

Day 4

I'm kind of tired of eating out, so make myself a couple great peanut butter sandwiches on the loaf of currant bread I brought.  I pick up more film (camera and camcorder), want to take a lot of photos today, and record the games. 

The fields today are near the airport, but they're also well-kept, a pleasure to play on.  Colder today, a little breeze too, some clouds, we're all cold standing around waiting to play.  

Game three is also a loss, although we're starting to play just a little better.  I'm starting to get to know the other players on our team, I only know 3-4 of them from Ithaca.  Eric is a builder, huge fella, he plays up front.  Ibe is our manager, I think from Uganda, plays well but complains a lot on the field.  Adam and Dave are brothers.  Tim is with the Fish and Wildlife service, he has just spent time critiquing the fracking Environmental Impact Statement.  His brother-in-law Troy runs an outdoors business in Telluride, CO.  John is a surgeon at the hospital in Ithaca, Tomas is a doctor at the VA in Syracuse.  Roger is a teacher, used to live in Ithaca, now lives in Las Vegas.  He brought his friends George, Tony, and Vasili, all Eastern-Europeans, great players... but who chain-smoke between games.   Joe is a contractor from Cortland, getting ready to run the Boston marathon.  We're playing over-40, but our average age is probably 50, maybe next year we'll play in the over-48 division.  Chris is 55, I'm guessing the oldest, even though he runs like a gazelle.  I'm guessing I'm second-oldest at 53.

We wait for the last game, but the other team does not show up, so we win our only game, by forfeit.  We'd rather play and lose.  But then a group of Hispanic kids show up, so we decide to play pickup, and probably have the most fun of the weekend, as the sun sets over the red mountains.

Tomorrow we'll leave the soccer and this great mecca of artifice behind, and go hiking in the mountains.  
I am reminded of the Buddhist saying, which I'm paraphrasing a little:  "There they sit, the mountain peak and the soccer pitch, till only the peak remains."

Day 3

Day 3 was yesterday, this is a day-late recap. 

We drive a good hour to soccer fields north of the city.  We are surrounded by red mountains, it's gorgeous.  We wait and watch games for about 3 hours before our first game.  Players are of all sizes and shapes and ages.  What a site, fit players, players with paunches, young-looking, old-looking, dreadlocks, bald, everything.  We play our first game, and lose 4-1, but what a thrill to play.  We all know what to do, the rules are age-old.  In some ways, it's all a semblance of normalcy in a world which so often is not.  

We wait a couple hours between games, and then play our second, also a loss.  Okay, time to really dig deep and really accept that openness to losing.   I do a body scan to assess for damage, only a knee scraped on the artificial turf, that's why I usually play in sweat pants when I play on turf. Note to self:  Sweats tomorrow.

In the evening, I go out with Tim Sullivan and his brother-in-law Troy who has joined us from Colorado.  We walk down the strip.  What a neon smorgasbord of eros and pathos.  We have dinner at a steakhouse in the Bellagio Hotel, I think I'm the only vegetarian for several states around here.  I find a Tortellini yam thing that's great, and finally find a beer I've been looking for by the New Belgian brewery (Fort Collins, CO), which I've heard makes great beer and has a great commitment to the environment.  

I'm totally beat, and asleep by 9.  Also probably the only person asleep by 9 for several states around.  Zzz.

Day 2

Day 2 - Up for breakfast with Jay and Louise, and then off to the airport.  Flight to Las Vegas on time and uneventful.  Las Vegas is mad wild.  All I've heard of is true, the artificial construct in the desert.  Mountains loom behind it, and in front are all the names of the strip:  MGM, Harrahs, Caesars, and more.  On the strip, there is no sign of nature, just lights and sound. 

At a Starbucks in the hotel, I see a man keel over to the floor and his eyes go weird, I think he's had a heart attack, I run and tell the front desk to call 911, by the time I get back he's sitting up, he must have had some kind of seizure. 

I need cleats, they want $50 for a cab to Dick's, so I find that there's an Adidas store on the strip that I can walk to.  "Just a few blocks," I'm told.  Turns out that it's a good couple miles.  The walk down the strip is mad wild, lights, music, noise, sensory overload.  But I'm relaxed and can take it in.  I find good cleats, light, supple, won't need breaking in, cheap.  I buy the old-fashioned kind, black, I'm not into the white or colory ones. 

Can't reach my soccer buddies, don't even know where I"m going tomorrow.  But back at the hotel, Tim has left a message, his cell phone died and his e-mail box is full, so he couldn't be in touch.  His brother-in-law has a car and will drive tomorrow.

Sleep.

Day 1 - leave Ithaca at 7:30 pm headed for NJ.  Cold light rain.  Trying to avoid the snow due after midnight.  The question I'm asking is why?   Why leave the warmth of home on a cold winter night, into the dark, into the rain?  Why travel across the country to kick a ball around on a field in the desert?  Answers come and go.  This game since I've played since I'm 8 is just way in me.  I love running around, getting the ball, giving the ball, running without the ball, running with the ball. I love stopping and holding the ball, then moving again.  I love good short passes.  I love the camaraderie.  I love winning, but I don't mind losing.  Gary Weiss's rules of winning come to me:  You win if you don't hurt yourself, if you don't hurt someone else, and if you break a sweat.  The rain lets up, it's dry through PA, and then a fog settles in over NJ.  I get to Jay's just before midnight and crash.