Casseopia touched on this earlier this week, but in Lech Lecha, Abram is just told to go. (Genesis 12:1) He's given no specifics, just a big picture promise that it's going to work out in the end, despite the possibility for complications in between. A blogging buddy of mine, Jess of What? The Curtains? recently pointed out this is an attitude that applies when it comes to baseball, particularly for fans of the New York Yankees:
It's like the Yankees and Red Sox play out almost every season this choice of how you can view your life. The Yankees are all optimism and certainty that things will work out in the end. As my friend Aaron once said: 'The Yankees are God's team.' The Red Sox are all insecurity and uncertainty and neediness. In constant doubt they are worthy of winning.Complicated, but worth it ... that's life. And it's an outlook I share. I got facetiously annoyed at Jess because she successfully married my attitude on living to the one professional sports team I actively despise.
The cliche about baseball is that it's a marathon, not a race. In April, the Sox swept and then took two of three from New York. In August, the Yankees swept and now just wrapped up their two-of-three at Fenway. Perfect symmetry to prove how baseball gives everyone a chance at redemption (like Giambi on Friday after his botches), a chance to balance wins with losses when there are enough opportunities to play.
Sometimes I think we believe life is supposed to unfold in a particular fashion of wins and losses. That it is supposed to be a sprint to be the win we want. But usually things unfold in a much more complicated fashion. At least, the things worth fighting for do.
And this is relevant more than ever for me right now. I graduated college more than two years ago, holding an internship at MLB.com that I only scored after being rejected and then run through the ringer a month later, before I ended up covering the Mets and the Yankees. (It made no sense to me either.) They extended me through the playoffs (plus), but then only needed me to freelance four articles the entire offseason (minus). So I put my passion for reading to good use and got a job at Barnes & Noble. And was working there for eight months. Living at home. Applying unsuccessfully to the few sports journalism openings I came across.
And *WHAM*
My former editor tells me there's a new job at the Baseball Hall. I apply and within six weeks, I'm living in the Boondocks, not a person I know within four hours. But it turns out there's a spoken word poetry scene. And an unofficial chapter of my fraternity. And I wing it until it makes sense.
A year and five months later, I'm organizing the local poetry scene, have met enough people to claim 73 Facebook friends at SUCO, moved in with two people I met up here, and only get back to New York every few months, because I'm well established enough that it's an inconvenience.
And two months after I had finally refocused, preparing myself to be here through August 2008, and a college friend tells me to keep an eye out because some stuff is going down at NBA.com. And a few weeks later, there's an official job opening. And a week after applying, a friend hit me up on GChat for the first time in a while, mentioning she was searching for a job. I mentioned the NBA application, and she lets on that a former coworker and friend is now working in HR there. My stuff gets forwarded through again, with a CLUTCH referral, and I get a phone call the next business day, setting up an interview for this coming Monday.
Honestly, I have no idea what's going on. And it's still an offer away from being really real. And it's a position that could evaporate at the end of the NBA season next year. But the situation screams "GO!" Get to the Dirty Jerz, do how I do at this interview, and let the situation play itself out. All I can do is trust that one day, it'll all make sense.
And just like Jew No. 1, I'm down with that. Word to Old Abe. Knew what was good 6,000 years ahead of the game. He did how he do. I can only keep trying.
1 comment:
the thing that consistently gets me about life is that you never know anything until it happens. and i know there's some un-reality about all this but i think, sometimes, things that we want we do get -- not out of some weird balance of good and bad. but because we've persevered through the tough stuff, and this was what was waiting all along for us.
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