You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.
― Plato

A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to spend a few days with my daughter and her family. Far too many miles separate us, and I miss them like crazy. They live just outside Washington, DC, which was one of our home ports when we lived aboard a boat, and it was my favorite. It’s such a beautiful and vibrant city, and I love going back there.

Over the course of the long weekend I played catch with my eight-year-old grandson, Bobby. A LOT of catch. I figured we would, so I was sure to pack my glove. Baseball is our “thing,” and he and I share a deep passion for it. During the regular season, we have long telephone conversations and analyze the Cardinals’ game from the day before. I email him links to YouTube videos of plays made by his favorite players, and I even cajoled his mother into getting him his own MLB.com subscription so that he could watch games and keep up with the latest news. I jokingly refer to Bobby as the child I never had, since neither of my own children ever developed a love for the game despite my best efforts. My daughter just rolls her eyes and shakes her head.

It didn’t take long to realize that playing catch with Bobby was keeping me firmly planted in the present, which is the complete and total opposite of “the past” or “the future.” It was wonderfully liberating! I didn’t think about anything else besides what was happening right then and there, nor could I. After all, it’s important to always keep your eye on the ball.

We talked about anything and everything: the positions he plays on his little league team (catcher, shortstop, second base) and which one is his favorite (catcher); his teammates and his coaches; piano lessons; having to move next summer; his enormous baseball card collection; how he broke in his catcher’s mitt; how excited he was to be invited to work out this winter with some of the kids from his team. You know…Stuff.

So much has been written about the importance of being present. Living in the now. Today. But, oh, it can be so hard to do, provided we even think to do it, that is. We’re promised that doing so will put us in harmony with The One in body, mind, and soul. Wouldn’t that be sheer nirvana?

Come to think of it, maybe sheer nirvana was exactly what I experienced while playing catch with my grandson. I was lucky enough to be transported away for a little while from being even remotely concerned about the future, a place I spend too much time anyway. Crass though it may sound, I recently heard someone say that when you’ve got one foot stuck in yesterday and the other stuck in tomorrow, you’re (take a guess) on today. Crude, but true. Kentuckians have a way of calling them the way they see them, I guess.