Tonight I am enjoying watching the opening ceremony for the Olympics. I have been a fan of the games–especially the summer games–since I was a child. I fact, I was going to be in the Olympics–I fancied that I’d be a sprinter or something like that. I would sprint around the driveway that circled like a racetrack around a grassy infield and throw up my hands as I broke the imaginary tape and crossed the invisible finish line. I would stand on the pretend podium and accept my gold medal and listen to the national anthem, my hand over my heart. Or perhaps I’d be like John Smith and Juan Carlos and lift my fist in a gesture of Black pride. Ah imagination. As I got older I realized that I probably wasn’t going to be an olympic athlete. And as I don’t believe they have a senior out-of-shape olympics, I think I’ve finally put to rest my olympic “dream,” but I can appreciate and enjoy watching the athletes from the various nations compete.
I am grateful for so many reasons when I watch the Olympics. It’s one of those times when you get to watch athletes from around the world coming together to compete…in games. These are the olympic games and even though it is serious business–billions of dollars, politics and all kinds of craziness–sometimes cause us to forget that they are about competing in various athletic endeavors. Sometimes bad things happen at the Olympics–those of us who were alive in 1972 remember when members of the Israeli national team were held hostage and many were killed as part of a plan to rescue them. There’s political drama, cheating scandals and a variety of negatively motivated bad things can happen. But by and large it’s about people from around the globe–large powerful countries as well as tiny poor ones–coming together in relative harmony to push their bodies in pursuit of athletic and physical superiority.
The physicality is another marvel to be observed through the process of watching the games. It reminds me of the incredible complexity of the human body. I am grateful and constantly amazed by the things the body can do. While I’m aware that as I have aged, it takes a lot more effort for me to do a lot of the things I used to be able to do with ease, I nonetheless have full use of my body. I can hear, see, smell, and taste. I can move and use my arms, hands, and legs. I can walk, run, climb. I play my guitar manipulating my hands and fingers to touch strings and produce wonderful sounds. I am grateful for the functioning of my body and while I am no longer much of an athlete, I can celebrate the beauty of the human body as on display over the next few weeks of the Olympics. I’m planning on enjoying the games and celebrating the various triumphs, near misses, tears and cheers of the games. And at night I’ll close my eyes and remember my child self running around the circle, breaking the tape standing on the pretend podium accepting my gold medal. There’s no statute of limitations on dreaming.
