Drifting
My mind has drifted these last few weeks. I’m no longer grounded in time, it proceeds without me acknowledging it. One week is the next week, is the week before. Anger, bitterness, compassion, death, hope all swirl around in the world outside the front door. In this moment I am no longer sure what I am aiming for, what any of us aims for.
There has been a darkness over the last few weeks that is hard to shake. Life changes, it feels different now. People I know look different, act in ways I didn’t see before. My perspective has changed, perhaps theirs has too. In my gut I don’t know if I relate to all of them anymore. Will that change? It is hard to know. Once my gut has decided the brain usually falls into line.
Cricket is still distant on the horizon. A sadness sweeps over me when I go past our ground, any ground. I think back to better times. Summer is slipping by, week after week and nothing changes. My mind drifts forward.
I am an outsider. I always have been.
I think back to my childhood and playing cricket at home. Watching Australia play test and one day cricket. Always believing, always expecting. I stand at our gate, bat in hand, looking back down our driveway waiting for my sister or brother to bowl.
I’m ready in that moment. No pain or loss or hatred exists in the moment. It is me, with the bat, white metal stumps behind me.
I have a sense of power, a belonging, with bat in hand. In my head I am Geoff Marsh. I will open the batting and the runs will come. It doesn’t matter that I am gay.
Today I look out over our oval. The ground beckons me, beckons all who love the game. Come back to your home. I can see myself walking out, bat in hand.
I can see it, all of it.
Clearly.
The world melts away and I wait. Bowler at the top of his mark. Rainbow grip firmly clenched. Ready. I want to be back there. That is where things were simpler. It is where bonds are made.
It will happen. One day, it will happen again.
Until then I drift.
This story is a response to Prism & Pen’s writing prompt Stifled Summer Travels.
