Friday, April 17, 2020

Days of Petanque: Stones

Date: January 30, 2020 at 9:52:25 PM PST



It is game two, the score 10-11. Hans has the point, but Peter is in the circle. Three boules in hand. The game and the match are in the balance.
Hans bends down, reaches into the gravel and picks up a stone. He examines it for a bit. Turns it over in his palm. Rubs it with his thumb. Satisfied he does not drop it but carefully places it on the railing to be retrieved later. Finally he looks up to see if Peter has achieved the point.

Where I see a gravel path, he sees he sees a gathering of stones. Where I see half-inch blue chip base rock, he sees quartz, feldspar, magnetite, actinolite and jade. He may not wear his heart on his sleeve but one look at his wrist tells you where he wears his art.

And when I look at his son Wolfie, I see a killer petanque player with a deadly shooter's arm. When Hans looks at him he must see so much more, his carefree adventurous spirit as a child, his struggles with the transition to adulthood, the mantle of responsibility he wears as a man. He sees his son. He sees a man.

When he rides up on his black motorcycle and scans the courts, he sees not just the club, the gravel, he sees individuals, the gem stones. He sees some of us bound up tightly, some giving and open, some fiercely competitive, some searching and some lost.

I think Hans is a man assaulted by life who remains an artist, a raconteur, a medicine man, a businessman, a father and a friend. He is a lion of a man.

In his own way. 

i don't think he would have it any other way.

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"Think where man's glory most begins and ends and say my glory was that I had such friends."
― William Butler Yeats






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