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My tea has gone cold in its thermos again. I’m sitting on a hard metal bench, the kind that’s always a little too cold in the shade and a little too hot in the sun, watching my son’s feet move across the faded green court.
Scuff, squeak, thwack. Scuff, squeak, thwack. It’s a rhythm I’ve come to know by heart. My own heart has a rhythm, too, a soft drumbeat that speeds up just before he serves. It’s a strange thing, isn’t it? To care so much about the trajectory of a small, fuzzy, yellow ball. To feel your breath catch when it clips the net.
I’m not a tennis mom, not in the way you see in movies. I don’t know the rankings or the tournament schedules. I just know the way his shoulders slump a little when he misses a shot he thought he had, and the tiny, almost imperceptible nod he gives himself when he gets it right. My world, for this one hour, has shrunk to the size of this court. I am completely invested and, at the same time, utterly powerless.
This isn’t the high-stakes world you see on television. There are no roaring crowds, no pristine white outfits, no prize money. This is the quiet, neighborhood court version. You could call it a kind of layman's tennis, I suppose. It’s a game played between the hours of school and dinner, a game of learning how to be okay with trying and not always succeeding. It's a game where the biggest prize is often just a shared smile on the car ride home.
And I think, maybe, this is where the real work happens. Not just for him, learning the mechanics of a backhand, but for me, learning the mechanics of letting go. My job here isn’t to coach or to critique. It’s just to be a quiet, steady presence on the other side of the fence. A safe place for him to look when he needs to remember he is more than his last serve. 🧸
We focus so much on the big victories, the trophies, the visible signs of success. But life, like this game, is mostly played in the spaces in between. It's in the packing of the water bottle, the listening ear after a tough match, the simple act of showing up. It’s in the quiet understanding that our love isn’t tied to the scoreboard.
What are the small spaces in your day where you find yourself just watching, just being there?
Scuff, squeak, thwack. Scuff, squeak, thwack. It’s a rhythm I’ve come to know by heart. My own heart has a rhythm, too, a soft drumbeat that speeds up just before he serves. It’s a strange thing, isn’t it? To care so much about the trajectory of a small, fuzzy, yellow ball. To feel your breath catch when it clips the net.
I’m not a tennis mom, not in the way you see in movies. I don’t know the rankings or the tournament schedules. I just know the way his shoulders slump a little when he misses a shot he thought he had, and the tiny, almost imperceptible nod he gives himself when he gets it right. My world, for this one hour, has shrunk to the size of this court. I am completely invested and, at the same time, utterly powerless.
This isn’t the high-stakes world you see on television. There are no roaring crowds, no pristine white outfits, no prize money. This is the quiet, neighborhood court version. You could call it a kind of layman's tennis, I suppose. It’s a game played between the hours of school and dinner, a game of learning how to be okay with trying and not always succeeding. It's a game where the biggest prize is often just a shared smile on the car ride home.
And I think, maybe, this is where the real work happens. Not just for him, learning the mechanics of a backhand, but for me, learning the mechanics of letting go. My job here isn’t to coach or to critique. It’s just to be a quiet, steady presence on the other side of the fence. A safe place for him to look when he needs to remember he is more than his last serve. 🧸
We focus so much on the big victories, the trophies, the visible signs of success. But life, like this game, is mostly played in the spaces in between. It's in the packing of the water bottle, the listening ear after a tough match, the simple act of showing up. It’s in the quiet understanding that our love isn’t tied to the scoreboard.
What are the small spaces in your day where you find yourself just watching, just being there?
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