“I will try to take another step forward in Madrid, then in Rome, and, if in a tournament it is worth going out there to give everything and die for it, then it is Paris.”
Rafael Nadal on preparing to play Roland Garros (“The French Open”) after his second round loss at Barcelona
When I read these words, I had that feeling you feel when you read someone who can write well. My head turned to the side, my left eye squinted, and I read it again. Shivers.
Even to someone who doesn’t know anything about tennis, or what this tournament means to this man, by reading these words, you can perhaps understand a little. Think of what you would give up for one last chance at something that has defined your life for many years, something that you have always been successful at and have been above and beyond the competition. You don’t have to be a professional sports player to get this analogy, you could apply any industry or undertaking. Anything in what you have invested your soul and your body which is now breaking down, counts.
I’ve never touched red clay. I’ve never felt it under my feet. I have seen green clay and tried to walk on it with regular sneakers. I almost fell. The surface is terribly slick. There’s a reason why they wear spiked sneakers. Playing tennis on the clay – it’s not simply tennis, it’s ballet and gymnastics, too. It’s a feat of elegant endurance. It’s magical.
Rafa is the King of Clay and will always be the King of Clay. Roland Garros will always be Rafa’s home.
My wish for Rafa is that he is able to walk out onto center court – Philippe Chatrier – to the sounds of cheers from tennis fans, and fight to the end, no matter the result. I can’t say it any better, any more eloquent, precise nor perfect than he.
Just kidding. Watching curling is like watching paint dry. I don’t watch the Olympics. But since they are being held in Paris this year, I just might start. I recall in years past I watched the Winter Olympics’ skiing and ice-skating competitions, but that was a long time ago, and I was a kid.
Anyone who’s been reading my blog since the beginning knows what I’m going to say I will most likely watch present day: tennis. The Summer Olympics are being held in Paris this year from July 27-August 4, Rafa Nadal is probably playing his last season of professional tennis, and Roland Garros (The French Open) is his jam (he’s not called the King of Clay for nothing), so I am deducing he’s going to aim for the double play: Roland Garros and the Olympics – which will be played on the red clay, the same courts as Roland Garros. There are current rules in place, however, that may be a bit of a hurdle for him to be able to do this. Without getting too complicated, he will have to appeal to the ITF (International Tennis Federation) to be able to be allowed to play in the Olympics. Fingers crossed.
Rafa Nadal hoists La Coupe des Mousquetaires, in his first of 14 French Open victories (to date), 2005Rafa Nadal won men’s singles gold at the Beijing Olympics, 2008
I suppose you know where I’ll be for Summer Olympics Paris 2024. I will not be in Paris. But I will be watching from my couch at home, wearing a beret, eating croissant and sipping un Café. 
From the first time it was said to the present, I am truly humbled and appreciative. There is no greater feeling than releasing what lives in your mind and heart to the outside world, and having people identify, relate and enjoy it. Even if it’s not feel-good reading material – perhaps especially then: when the subject matter is dark and from deep within, yet people absorb, reflect and are sometimes without words – stunned, overwhelmed. It is a risky venture to share one’s work. It can be met with unfavorable comments. There is a level of vulnerability that one must accept as a writer. In the beginning it was very difficult to be vulnerable, to risk being not enough, and to accept criticism as well as praise. I appreciate everyone who reads my words, regardless of their opinion of them. But for the ones who do enjoy reading my words, and for those who do identify with them, it buoys my soul. There is no greater compliment.
Thanks, everyone. I appreciate you all.
* featured photo is of me holding the author’s proof of the first version of my book. I made many changes and from those changes became what the novel is now. But, boy was I so proud to have that book in my hands.*
Me specifically *not* watching Feliciano López play tennis, Cincinnati 2006.
Apart from me rapping Eminem lyrics in my head right now, this feels like a rehash of a former prompt. I’m answering it, but barely.
I like to watch tennis. I can always get engrossed in a good match (see photo above). And no, I do not have anything personal against Feli. He is quite nice. I don’t know why I wasn’t watching he and Rafa play doubles, but I do know someone from Getty Images (?) caught me (not) doing it.
I like to write. Time seems to slip by when I’m in the writing zone. I think most of us here can relate to that.
Have a great day, everyone.
My book LOVE MATCH waiting with good company for an online review, circa 2005.
US Open, 2005. I was on a mission to deliver a US Open Bear to Rafa Nadal. Just a small token of appreciation for hours of tennis entertainment. Though I had followed Rafa’s career up to this point, I had never met him. Read on for my observations and probably some hijinks, because…me.
Tuesday, August 29:
Hmm…today feels different. It’s a curly hair day. I’m gonna wear my pink cowgirl hat today with my multicolored belt, Hello Kitty hot pink flip flops and my new hot pink tank top. I load up my Hello Kitty tote bag: sunblock, water, food, bear.
We board the bus and head off. Feli* is first on Court 16 or something, and luckily traffic out of the city is better this morning. We arrive and the line to get on the grounds is short. The girl inspecting my bag is nice – “Oh, cute bear!” she coos, as if she hasn’t seen them all over the grounds before.
“Yeah,” I say, “I hope today is the day I send him on his way.” She laughs and I laugh. As soon as I say that, I know today is the day.
We check the practice courts: nobody good. Wait. That sounds really bad. What I mean is nobody that we are interested in watching. We wait for Feli outside of the side entrance. He will come through these doors with his opponent and a couple of security guards. My friend L. is chain-smoking. I’m lounging on a bench, relaxing. She is pacing. I am looking around at all the people who are here at 10:30. A little after 11, I announce I am going “over here” to another spot on the grounds, and I hear, “OhmyGodAmythereheis!” I turn, and yeah, it’s Feli. He’s cute, sure, but I’m still calm. L. is in a full run, following Feli to court. We get there and sit down in the first row, behind the player chairs. He glances at my fabulous hat a few times, and L. is smiling like a loon, clicking photo after photo, and the match hasn’t begun yet.
Did I mention she washed her shirt that reads, “Where’s Feli?” last night so today is also “Where’s Feli?” day? Yes. So the match has begun and she, L., is planted there like a tree. (Fyi, she eventually had that shirt signed by the man himself.)
At 12 o’clock, I feel the need to get up and check the practice courts again. I wander over through the maze of tall bushes and finally come out to the screened off practice courts by Ashe**. There are a lot of people there, so I take a peek all the way down. No, no, no…Wait. Who is that on the last court. Ah, ha.
It was Rafa, wearing tan shorts and a backwards white hat. I walk the blacktop sidewalk down to the very end. There are bushes and privacy screening up so the public can’t watch. At the end, though, there is a gate with some gaps, and that allows a view to where Rafa is practicing.
Rafa Nadal, US Open practice courts, 2005
There are ten people there, and nowhere for me to stand and watch. I see that there is a kid in the bushes, leaning against the fence. I don’t think twice. “Hi,” I say to the kid as I enter the bush space next to him and kneel in the very dry dirt, taking off my hat and putting it over my bag that now lies on the ground. I know the pink of the hat is very visible from court. Feña***is two feet from us at times, and so is Almagro****. Rafa is on the far side, but I can still see through the grommet holes, and Rafa is instantly recognizable.
“You like Nadal?” he asks me sincerely.
“Yeah,” I say pleasantly.
“See, I have this poster of him.”
“That’s a good poster,” I say. A few seconds pass and Feña is in front of us picking up balls. The kid speaks Spanish to him, but Feña ignores the talking bushes.
“You speak Spanish?” the kid asks me.
“A little,” I whisper.
“You know Nicolás Lapentti?” he asks me in his cute accent.
“Yes,” I reply, trying to watch Rafa and listen to this kid at the same time.
“I am the best friend of his brother,” he says proudly. I smile and nod. What can I say? I don’t really want to talk too much, especially with Feña and Almagro right there. And my knees are hurting from kneeling and my jeans are getting dirty and damn, it is hot. Toni*****is there, I see, but sitting in a chair. There is some guy patrolling the court perimeter, but he hasn’t spotted us yet, or maybe he doesn’t care that we are in the bushes. Suddenly, from nowhere, the kid whistles a catcall, making it seem as if I, the girl in the bushes, whistled at them!
“Hey! They think I did that!” I chide. He laughs, thinking that is pretty funny. Soon after, an errant ball directly off of Rafa’s racquet rolls and stops in front of me. I dangle my finger through the bottom of the fence and give it a little nudge so that it goes a foot or so. Kid next to me thinks that is worth a chuckle. I laugh too, wondering if anyone else caught it. Shortly after, kid leaves the bushes in a mad dash. I stay for a while until my knees hurt so badly I must get up. By now, Rafa is tidying up the court. Practice is over. I press the side of my face against the open portion and watch Rafa tidy. He is sweating profusely and he looks as he always does in photos.
Agassi******comes in and they shake hands. I don my sunglasses, my cowgirl hat, and calmly walk the tree-lined path to the front where I know he will soon sign autographs.
I check on the bear. He’s on top, easy access and today is the day – I just know it.
I reach the front and see swarms of kids with big tennis balls waiting for Rafa to sign. I’m calm, the swarms are not. “Back it up, people!” I hear a woman say as I continue to press forward to where he will come out. It’s not that I don’t hear her, it’s that I am ignoring her. There are a few kids in front of me, but no adults anywhere. I am the tallest one, and I’m wearing a pink cowgirl hat. He walks over to where I am and is maybe three feet from me — it would have been closer if not for the kids in between. I study his face, taking in as much detail as I can in such a short amount of time. It’s not every day that a person can get this close to a professional athlete, so taking mental notes is important for memory reflection later. He’s dripping wet with sweat (NYC in the summer – oof!), he is not as darkly tanned as he looks on TV or in photos, his nose is a bit wider than on TV and in photos, and his lips are large (not that there is anything wrong with that – I’m taking mental notes). His face is large, too, but he is not overly tall. He seems much taller on television. I would study his hands but I can’t see them. He looks down immediately and signs one, then two items, because he is, of course, well-rehearsed in the task of signing his name. It is when I say “Rafa” over the noise of the kids that he looks up and then at me, mildly surprised. I reach in to get the bear and I lift it above the kids’ heads. I hear a man’s voice behind me repeating, “I’ll take it. Give it to me. I’ll take it for him.” I ignore the man’s voice behind me because I want to. I will be delivering this bear. Rafa looks at me. “For you,” I say quietly as I hand the bear to him. And his eyes have already begun smiling. “Thank you,” he says sweetly and takes the bear from me gently. I nod and give him a small smile, but my attention is entirely on his eyes. His mouth is not smiling, his eyes are, and they are so kind. I hope my eyes smiled back, and didn’t do any weird twitching, blinking, winking thing.
And then the moment was over. Bear was delivered. He looked down to sign more and I turned, held my head high and walked back to Feli’s match where L. was still was seated. I had a content smile on my face the whole walk over. Mission: Accomplished.
I found out later, quite by accident, that only kids 12 and under are allowed to stand where I was standing. Sometimes lady luck is on your side, but it doesn’t hurt to be a bit of a rebel.
*Feliciano López, Spanish tennis player
**Arthur Ashe Stadium, USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center
***Fernando González, Chilean male tennis player
****Nicolás Almagro, Spanish male tennis player
*****Uncle Toni – Rafa’s uncle and coach (at the time – I mean, he is still his uncle, he’s just not his coach anymore)
******IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHO ANDRE AGASSI IS, I CAN’T HELP YOU
I got the sandals circa 2005. The featured image is a close representation of them but not exactly. I couldn’t find the exact model. I should have bought two pair, but I never do that. I never think of it until I no longer have the item.
Above is a photo of me opening birthday presents wearing The Sandals. Two months later I would be at the U.S. Open enjoying a night tennis match wearing these same shoes. If you’ve ever been to New York City in late August, you know it’s hot and it’s humid. And when you’re watching Rafa Nadal in a night match at the same time a baseball game and a concert are going on in the same complex, and there’s exactly one late bus to take you back to the hotel in Manhattan, you know what is about to happen.
We were watching the match in Arthur Ashe stadium. At the time, there was no roof. Arthur Ashe Stadium is the largest tennis stadium in the world. Just some random trivia for you there. I’m putting off telling you what happened to my shoes.
So, as I was saying, we were watching the match on a humid night in a stadium with no roof. We were staying in Manhattan, not Queens, where the stadium is, so I didn’t pay much attention to the weather forecast for Queens.
When it rained the first time, I wasn’t too nervous. It rained off and on throughout the match. My shoes were OK. Rafa won the match. We (herd of cattle) were all moving out of the stadium. At the same time, the baseball game and the concert were moving out of their respective building and stadium. Then it started to thunderstorm.
By the time my friend and I reached the parking lot, it was pouring. Remember I said there was one late bus to get us back to Manhattan? We couldn’t find it right away and it was about 2 AM. I believe the depart time for the bus was 2:15 AM, We were running toward the location where we thought it would be. Yes, I was running in my sandals. My beloved sandals.
We finally saw the bus. We reached it and we were drenched. I thought of my shoes, but I thought I could dry them out and everything would be fine.
And for the most part, they were. But over a few years, they started to dry rot. One summer day, I reached for them, took them out of their shiny box. It was white with black lettering. The sandal straps were stretched out. And rotted.
I said goodbye to my strappy sandals that day. I never tried to replace them, but there are a few out there that look similar. But they will never be my Nine West strappy wedge heeled sandals that sat through a night match at the U.S. Open and ran through a thunderstorm to a bus waiting to take me back to Manhattan.
My perfect day, from start to finish, was the day I received the first batch of my book in the mail. A close second was doing book signings. The process of writing a novel took much longer than one day, of course, and it wasn’t perfect, but the feeling of handling a solid book that contained words I strung together, was unlike any other feeling previously or since. I could think of other ways to spend a perfect day, but none as profound as this for me, as a lover of words.
I started writing this book in 2003, and the idea formed over a fairly short span of time. I have been a tennis fan since the age of 15, and I am not going to tell you how many years ago that was, but it was approximately 102 years prior to 2003.
When I write, I see images. I see the scene playing out between the characters, where they are, what they’re wearing, their facial expressions, if the air is still or breezy, hot or chilly, and I see it start to finish just as a film or on a real in my brain.
The novel started with a small seed of an idea that turned into an image in my brain. The scene was the end of the book. I hand wrote most of this book in a black, hardbound canvas covered book that was probably meant to be a journal. I have journaled my whole life and I have written my whole life as well, although not for public consumption.
So the image that I saw in my head of the scene, playing out of the end of the novel, I wrote at a feverous pitch, on the first page of my black bound book. I then had to form character names, settings, and all the good stuff that goes along with novel writing. Which I had never done before. I bought books, I researched how to outline, but basically I winged it. I wrote the novel in about three months. The scenes played in my mind, and I was able to extricate the best out of the story that I could. I edited and re-edited the novel. I pitched my manuscript to agents and publishing houses for a full year of my life. I had some interest but never any yeses. Frustrated and emotional as I was, I refused to accept defeat. I decided to self publish. Back in 2005, when I finally got past trying to find a publisher and an agent, self publishing wasn’t as acceptable as it is these days. Nor was it as accessible. It was, however, much more affordable. I chose to use lulu.com, which probably was due to the fact that that was one of the only self publishing houses available at the time. Uploading the novel was a fairly simple process. I chose the cover, the font type, the color of the font, and the cover is from stock image. Formatting the pages was a bit difficult and the first print proof of the book was too many pages, too large of a font, not the right cover, not the right title or font – not the right anything.
So, I went back to the drawing board and finessed it into what it is now. I paid extra for the international ability to sell on Amazon, and once I received the first shipment of books myself, I couldn’t believe that I had done this. I had a book with an ISBN and it was registered at the Library of Congress and it was available for sale on websites. I held this bound grouping of words in my hands, and it came out of my brain. It was surreal.
Because I did not have an agent I had to hustle my own promotions. I held book signings at local bookstores, I made sure all local bookstores had copies of my book from the warehouse, I promoted it as much as I could through word-of-mouth and through online sales. Shortly after I wrote the book and launched it, I switched careers that involved a lot of training, and the creative part of my brain went dormant. I am still in the career that I switched to all these years later, but I have recently found joy in writing again. I owe it to a muse I found in the most peculiar place. I lost my muse long ago, so to find another one in a weird place, and completely unexpectedly was a shock and a joy. So thank you muse, and I will see you at the park in 2033. Until then, I’m pondering ideas for a second book, but I have no solid kernels on which to build yet. For now I continue with daily prompts, poetry and short stories, about some of my favorite things, which include Paris, cats, dogs, pigeons on the lamb, and Sometimes relationships.
For those of you who have considered writing a novel, or working on a novel, or have finished a novel, what are your experiences with the process? For example, I started at the end and worked my way back to the beginning. I worked pen and paper. I edited my own book with the pages looking like a murder scene had taken place. There was so much red pen. I didn’t tell anyone I was writing a book until I was done the book. I felt like it would be breaking a spell I was under. For me when I write I get in a zone. Does anyone else experience that? What are your experiences as you are writing whether you are working on a novel or another piece? Please comment below!
*I originally posted links to my book on a separate page on WordPress, but it has disappeared. I don’t think WordPress likes tennis.*
The song I thought of today is Unwritten, by Natasha Bedingfield.
I am unwritten Can’t read my mind I’m undefined I’m just beginning The pen’s in my hand Ending unplanned
Staring at the blank page before you Open up the dirty window Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find
Reaching for something in the distance So close you can almost taste it Release your inhibitions Feel the rain on your skin No one else can feel it for you Only you can let it in No one else, no one else Can speak the words on your lips Drench yourself in words unspoken Live your life with arms wide open Today is where your book begins The rest is still unwritten
Oh, oh, oh
I break tradition Sometimes my tries are outside the lines We’ve been conditioned to not make mistakes But I can’t live that way
Staring at the blank page before you Open up the dirty window Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find
Reaching for something in the distance So close you can almost taste it Release your inhibitions Feel the rain on your skin No one else can feel it for you Only you can let it in No one else, no one else Can speak the words on your lips Drench yourself in words unspoken Live your life with arms wide open Today is where your book begins
Feel the rain on your skin No one else can feel it for you Only you can let it in No one else, no one else Can speak the words on your lips Drench yourself in words unspoken Live your life with arms wide open Today is where your book begins The rest is still unwritten
Staring at the blank page before you Open up the dirty window Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find
Reaching for something in the distance So close you can almost taste it Release your inhibitions Feel the rain on your skin No one else can feel it for you Only you can let it in No one else, no one else Can speak the words on your lips Drench yourself in words unspoken Live your life with arms wide open Today is where your book begins
Feel the rain on your skin No one else can feel it for you Only you can let it in No one else, no one else Can speak the words on your lips Drench yourself in words unspoken Live your life with arms wide open Today is where your book begins The rest is still unwritten The rest is still unwritten The rest is still unwritten
…is how I will be answering this question. Just kidding. It’s tennis. This prompt has been asked and answered before. I have nothing new to add. Maybe I could play tennis while performing interpretive dance? But not today. For now, my responses to previous prompts are below. Happy Monday!
When I am creating another world through writing, showing a glimpse of a world through photography, sometimes combining the two. Making basil pesto pasta sauce from scratch. Baking brownies. Spending time with animals. Wrapping Christmas presents.
Creating something or some things that will be perceived by or given to others for their hopeful enjoyment is usually when I am most happy.
Watching tennis makes me happy. I’m not creating anything but noise for anyone else, but I enjoy watching tennis, especially from the stands.
I am also most happy in the summer. When I can walk through the soft, cool grass, with bare feet and feel like the warm air is an enveloping calming blanket, I am content – the combination of happiness and stillness.
“It's Amy,” I said. 