booandbunny

Almost a whole Sunday later and the Scribblers still have me thinking about time. For whatever reason, playoff games always make me think about time. For instance, when Adam Vinatieri kicked that last-second field goal to win Super Bowl 35. I remember staring at the TV … “Surely there’s more time? That can’t be how it ends!” But time had run out and the moment was gone. More than the other situations in the average day of an average American, I think playoff games offer us a true appreciation for “That one moment in time.”

My husband used to be a volunteer firefighter. He’s seen people die. He’s touched the dead. People with such jobs have a taste of time us regular folk don’t get. In an immeasurably small moment the life energy stops flowing and, after that, nothing is the same.

I’m not trying to compare life and death to a playoff game. I just have no other reference. It’s a means to explore my appreciation of the infinitely small measure of time that can change circumstance completely.

The actual contact point of bat on ball is a fraction of a fraction of the entirety of either surface. The time that the two spend in contact with each other is infinitely small in the scope of a two-and-a-half hour game. The consequences are irreversible. There’s an absolutism about those tiny playoff moments that offers new understanding to life in a larger scope.

Moments aren’t always what we make them. Sometimes they are made for us, as when the opposing player puts that fraction of bat onto that fraction of ball and launches it 400-plus feet in the ninth inning of Game 7. Then we are left wishing we could stop time and change a few things … put more spin on that pitch … boost that outfielder another half inch into the air … take back those hurtful words blurted in anger … stop that bullet … fasten that seatbelt … say “I love you,” or “I’m sorry,” or “Stop!”

Life turns on immeasurably small moments. But is it possible we might stretch them out a bit? Put down the phone? Turn off the computer? Close the entertainment center and block the TV from view? (Not during a playoff game, of course!) Is it possible to make the technology stop flowing and rejuvenate the life energy flowing through us and around us?

Of course it is.

We don’t have to sit in the stands with our hands over our mouths, tears in our eyes, wishing we could have made that slugger swing rather strikeout looking in the bottom of the ninth. We can pick up a bat; take a swing and leg out a double. We can dive for the foul ball, pull it from our glove and hear the cheers. We can stand in the cold autumn rain and smile as it splashes our faces, dance like little children and bottle that moment so we can drink it in again on a less glorious day.

A fraction of bat on a fraction of ball for a fraction of a second can change everything. Where did I leave that metaphorical bat and ball, anyway? It’s time for some B.P.