The sun glints over revolving stitches. On its directed path, the ball rotates forward, to the side, downward spiraling as man-driven momentum hurls its form from pitcher’s hand toward catcher’s glove. I clutch my bat tightly, drawing my spear closer in my fixation on the ball’s hurling, rotating motion. No catcher’s mitt, no pitcher contorted, falling sidewards on one twisted leg, no anxious fielders with crouched stance and lowered gaze, no ground, no sky, just bat and ball.
No. A game.
The pull of my wrist and arm propels the wooden spear inexorably on its glide against driven ball, cutting through air. I angle its frame to collide rotating stitches. The force of wood against leather melds for a scant instant like soft lead on bone. The ball follows the guidance of shoulder, elbow, wrist and bat as motion engendered of human vigor reaches beyond third base into left field.
A point in time with momentum in space creates its own direction. This event of bat against ball is the beginning of a new journey, a new pathway through time and life.
This journey would be a circular one. In running the diamond figuration of a circumference, the tour would itself become a figuration of circularity. Its form would encompass a whole, infinitely connected and harnessing within its two-dimensional compass the whole of experience and the whole of understanding. Enclosing a circle. A circular vision. Encyclopedic contemplation. Unlike cities of the sun, this inclusive circle could not be exclusive. Like the city, the diamond-circle is surrounded by external elements. But to insist on exclusion - to accept that exclusion as desired fact - is but folly. The ball returns from the outfield. I watch myself, and I see myself in the diamond, the diamond invaded by the ball at second base.
I run past the bag, halting my frame in acquiescence to the pause of my journey. Pulling back, sauntering to the bag, I accept respite. There is another - another time and another figure. He follows in the batter’s box, stepping gingerly into the footprints I left in the dust and my predecessors left before my time.
He looks to me - a foundation that has been laid before him, ready to use for further advance. Without my groundwork, he has only a shot to the rafters.
He steps to the plate and I crouch low, my initiative ready to overpower the mere whims of chance. As the pitch drives low, he feints a bunt. The moment is a small gift to be seized. I thrust myself upward into a run, knowing it is time to harness inner strength at the sacrifice of outer perception. The catcher scrambles. I do not see him. I run. This is a challenge placed into my journey not only of space, but of time. Arrival at second will not occur without the run, the distance, the time spent, the sacrifice of energy. The crowd roars, I glory in the run, I draw the effort into greater strength.
The distant island in a sea of terrors. Second base. Looking across the mound, the batter, plate, catcher, umpire are at their smallest in my eye. First base behind me, third ahead. Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita. The run to first, the sojourn on that first island, and the desperate run to second are remembered. The run to third and home blooms in imagination like a nascent petal. My perspective is my own view, myself, my identity, my limitation. At second, I am given the gift of centrality, the ability to climb up and down the ladder of life, to create my being.
But I am not me without the diamond. I exist in the game. To know me, to know second base, to know my vision is insufficient. What I see must merge with all lines of seeing. What I do must meld with all actions. Only then do I play the game.
A hit and a jump toward third. I see the ball fly low and training - not instinct alone - drives me forward. Action is the pursuit of desire. To climb or descend the ladder is to follow a quest for motion. But desire must exist within the diamond. Desire for the bag must follow a route - established or not, right or wrong - a route defined by anti-chaos. To pursue a mere circle is to dive into the chasm of insanity. The dirt path. Signals. I think and I open my eyes, ears, nose. To be alone is the scourge of glory.
Past third, leaving the bag without remorse on a journey that demands no pause. Draw passion into concerted, focused extension of distance. In the diamond. In the ballpark. I see my destination/origin close approaching in my vision. A desire open to thought. I slide. Easily safe, but more sure for the sliding.
The return home is the purpose of my journey. The run scored is a token of the richer reward of an ability to look back, to see where my journey led me and where it could have gone. A voyage, an epic, is the encompassing motion of departure, trials, and return to the point of beginning. Knowing the player is knowing the player’s stance and the player’s run. How can a story of my run - my story of my run - be understood in full before the journey is over? The voyage itself and my place on that tour can now be contemplated in its whole and the story retold.
Heist at Scone palace