Today I was able to play picklebll again. All my peeps were available and game was on. The new Oxford University Dictionary defines serendipity as “the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.” That we are able to play is certainly serendipitous. The stay at home orders had eliminated almost all our venues for play. We had found several tennis courts that were open but the sequence after the closing order was given was to take the nets away and then lock the courts. We had been evicted at one point from a tennis court by the sheriff after a local narced on us.
My Pickleball partner had to go to So Cal to help her daughter move. I was bored out of my mind so I spent the 3 weeks visiting all 42 of the local parks with tennis courts in the off chance the city had forgotten and it would stay open. I found 2 but the next day they were closed. I was in a funk. My Pickleball partner was due back the next day and I had failed. I went to the park where I had been walking for the past 3 weeks, and as I went past a small parking lot adjacent to the walkway I saw a woman I knew from a pickleball venue beginning to lay a stripe of blue painter’s tape and I asked if she was setting up a Pickleball court. She replied to the affirmative. I hurried to my car brought out 2 rolls of brightly colored duck tape and we proceeded to construct the court. She had a half size net so we agreed to meet the next day.
I alerted my partner and play started the next day.
I have been considering the events of the past week, attempting to determine how this serendipity happens. I had the tape because when we were playing on a tennis court I bought the tape with the intention of taping off a Pickleball court. But the sheriff had other ideas. I only identified this park because I spent a large amount of time and several tanks of gas searching. I returned to this particular park because I thoroughly enjoyed walking the area more than any other. Little did I know that the unused parking lot had been closed for a number of years and would meet with no objection.
There is a line of a song from the Transiberian Orchestra “Change 1 note, change 1 line, and nothing will remain the same.” I have to wonder how often I miss connections that would be beneficial? We will never realize how close we came to something that would please us or others. I believe that if I am stuck in my own world, focusing on my own life, I will never have another serendipitous moment like this. I vow that I will attempt to attend to what goes on around me from now on.
Jack's Mind 