A perfect moment I’ve been thinking about
I’ve been reading Fever Pitch. I haven’t seen the movie, and I think I’m just going to refuse to, forever. If you’ve read the book, here’s a question for you. How far into the book did you get before you thought, “this book is about me. This book is totally, totally, about me, and most of the people I know?”
(The second page.)
I have been trying to explain, to myself as well as other people, why I love sports venues so much. Smelly, crumbly hockey rinks. Decrepit ballparks. The quiet, sterile Air Canada Centre. The Bell Centre, which is beautiful and loud and home.
Fenway.
Very shortly after I learned the meaning of a word I never wanted to know, my friends Andrew and Sarah and I jumped into my car and drove down to Boston for the weekend. I spent the weekend in my favourite city, with some of my favourite people. Most of it didn’t really register, for obvious reasons. I wish I’d been better company at the time, but I know that wasn’t going to happen.
There are lots of perfect moments, don’t believe anyone who tells you you can’t have them all the time. Mine happen everywhere, but disproportionately so in hockey rinks.
And a ball park one time.
That weekend, Saturday evening, in the middle of a game between the Boston Red Sox and the Kansas City Royals, of all teams. Between my lovably loud friends and a group of very nice, very drunk people from Maine. I don’t know what the score was at the time. I don’t even know what the score was at the end of the game, just that it went into a million extra innings and the Royals won. I’m pretty sure people on both sides of me were talking to me. I couldn’t hear them.
For the first time in two weeks, for the very first time in two weeks, for a second, one second, the grief let up a little bit.
Fenway.
The Active Stick 
Both of the Fever Pitch movies are a lot of fun if you allow them to be. There’s lots of reasons to find to hate it the second one, but I just really enjoyed it for what it was. I just finished watching Silver Lining Playbook and there’s a tinge of the same hilarious obsessiveness in it. And you can’t deny Fallon and Barrymore are really cute together.
All that being said, it’s a great post once again, Laura.
A moment of zen can find you anywhere, but it always helps to have a go-to place. 🙂
Yeah, I agree – watch the movie. It really is sweet and wonderful and yes, I can see bits of me in there too.
You should definitely watch Fever Pitch. It is a sweet movie- really – and for a Red Sox fan, it truly hits home. I love it.
You know why I like this site? You write from the heart and it’s honest and unselfconscious. It’s a pleasure to read.
Very cool article, I can relate to a lot of it, growing up in and around smelly hockey rinks. I’m planning on heading to Fenway for the first time this season and I hope I can have a similar experience. Because being in Toronto, the Rogers Centre doesn’t quite give me those goosebumps.