Excerpt from Sticky Karma: Meditations on Meaning and Madness in The Time of COVID (Latah Books, 2023)
I woke up this morning from a dream of dancing girls that had morphed into challenging golf holes I might never play again. But are they really out of reach? In golf, one can move up a tee box or two to still be able to reach where a younger self would have landed.
Along the way, one can revisit the markers of past shots, measure loss by the need for ever-longer clubs to gain the same distance. Acceptance and ego duke it out. If ego wins, the game is over. Clubs will gather dust or be handed down to another. If acceptance becomes the invisible partner, one might leave both cart and scorecard behind, carry half as many clubs, walk into a different yet still perfect green moment.
How far could it be from there to that embrace, from where what is precious is held close and dear without consideration or concern for how it may appear? It seems that is who I am becoming with my small bag, a handful of clubs, and less concern about score than ever before.