I have this new habit of walking around the Los Feliz hills at night. Nearly every evening I get lost until eventually I recognize a familiar marking in the road. The returning part happens sooner the more that I walk. I recognize the wooden garage doors, the beat up fence. I see Radio Way and make a left.
There’s a crisp autumnal bite in the air, and it’s a week from Halloween.
Common decor adorns every other house – cheerful pumpkins and cottony cobwebs, clever cardboard tombstones and trigger-happy graveyard groans.
A man is stopped in the meridian. He carries a loaded bag of poop in one hand and a beat-up portable radio in the other. A small dog high-steps in the grass as he listens and patiently waits.
It’s the first game of the World Series. The Chicago Cubs haven’t won it all since 1908, a mere five years since the first-ever championship took place. The Cleveland Indians haven’t won since 1948. Both are underdogs, but only one has a curse and it involves a goat.
I ask, “Are the Indians still up?” The man turns his head. “Yeah, three zip. C’mon Cubs!” He smiles and I smile back.
I’m inclined to mention that I was born and raised in Cleveland, but sports alliances are overturned in favor of alliances with those who also roam the streets at night.
There will be no shit talking tonight.
I wouldn’t of heard his radio in the first place had my phone not died. Anytime it dips below thirty-three percent it shuts itself off. Normally I’d be massively annoyed in the way that only self-obsessed millennials can achieve, but I’m not far from home and have plenty of other things to think about.
These days though, I try not to think about anything at all.
I pass a crowded bar and hear cheers coming from within. I can’t see the screens and wonder who scored. I remind myself to stop in tomorrow night for a beer. Maybe I’ll meet some Cleveland fans.
Before my phone died I was listening to a song called “Choose” by Mz Sunday Luv. The lyrics go:
Choose your ending
Choose beginning again
This is your adventure story
So choose an ending or choose beginning again
Empty pages of the chapters of life
Choose your ending
Or choose beginning again
It’s been a rough few months but as any Cleveland sports fan knows, you stay all-in during both the good seasons and the bad.
I had thrown myself out of Oakland intentionally. I packed up my car with bags of stuff and drove to Los Angeles where I’ve been hiding out for the last month.
I’ll live in the Mission next month, and who knows where I’ll be in December.
Like the lyrics go, it’s an adventure story.
Visiting with old friends in L.A. has been like holding up a dusty mirror. All of the egos, the name-dropping, the b.s. For the past fifteen years I’ve been overly satisfied with myself and my career. I don’t want to be that person anymore.
Besides, I’m too busy walking.
I think about my next turn at bat. When that time comes, I’ll follow through on the swing.
And I’ll clobber the thing.
That’s what I’ve been working for at least, during all those games and darned scrimmages. I’m not ready yet but know from experience that we never are.
I approach the plate and kick at the dust with the ball of my foot. I square off, shift my weight, and lift the bat. The first pitch comes. I swing hard and miss. I miss the second pitch, and the third.
Instead of blasting it out of the park I strike out in three consecutive swings.
I retreat back to the bench where I scuffle around before taking a seat, silently waiting for my turn to go again.
I haven’t made it around the plates. Not once. But I’ll keep trying.
Every now and then my arms get tired. My form loses shape. Still, I swing even harder. I’ll never give up.
I try not to throw a fit, not to kick things or cuss. I’ll run the replay, make adjustments, and prepare for the next time.
After awhile I start to believe that I’m on the wrong team. That I had the wrong kind of training. Or maybe I’m too slow – my mind isn’t right.
I try playing other kinds of ball. I join an international team that travels and pay a visit to the little leagues. I play for charity, join the minors. I play slow-pitch and fast, wiffle ball and kick.
I throw myself out of more than one game.
I displace myself intentionally.
And just when I think I know everything there is to know about baseball, I realize that I know nothing at all.
And so, I walk.
I walk to find direction.
I walk to shed my doubts and fears and the pint of ice cream I ate last night for dinner.
I walk because I can.
I go up and down the hills and wander along windy streets with their lovely homes that are warmly lit from within.
I wander alone at night with my coat zipped to my chin, a solo tribe of the masculine and feminine combined, everything that I need and could possibly want.
It’s when I can mellow in the proceedings of today, the learnings of yesterday, and the hopes and dreams of tomorrow.
Because even if I never win, I’ll always have this: a rugged belief in myself, lost within the clean pages of either the ending or beginning of this story.
No matter when I get home.