Soccer at the field

Monday 9/29/25

The day that my wife at the time, Molly, left without a word or a word of warning, after imploring me to trust her, and put large parts of my life in her hands--as recently as days before--before hiring multiple lawyers to take my house, as part of the affair she was having, or whatever she was doing--no answer or closure ever came, from about as evil, manipulative, deceitful, and cowardly a creature that there can be--I had to call my mother, of course. I didn't know how far things would go, only what had happened as what was tantamount to both a start, and, really, an end, because what was done had been planned and put in place already so systematically.

I walked out across this field--housing two baseball diamonds--which I go past now each day on my walk to Charlestown to run stairs in the Monument. As I was sharing this news. Which boiled down to a note less than ten words long, that I'd hear from her lawyer. The harbor is on the far side with the fence. I had my head pressed into the fence, leaning against it, like it was the only thing keeping me upright. It basically was.

There's never been a day I haven't thought about this when I walk past that field. Things are much worse now. Rather than give in, I worked harder, and became better in every way, which is why it's worse. I became more hated for this reason. Because people hate someone like that, and there is no one like me like that. Hence, more hatred. That's just how the world works. Especially now. I do some of my push-ups on this field, too.

Normally when I come back from running stairs, I take a different route than on the way there. That is, I don't pass this field--which now has that pellet turf, rather than the real grass, like it did back on that day in 2012--but I have mixed this up lately on account that the water fountain on what had been my regular return route doesn't work very well after having been worked on, for some reason, a few weeks ago. The water barely dribbles out and I don't like to get too close to the opening. But there are two water fountains near the field. You lose a lot of fluid running stairs in the Bunker Hill Monument. Should you happening to be reading these words, whenever you may be happening to read them, you should try it some time and see what I was--or have been, if I'm still here--talking about. Let's say you did and you're back now. It was hard, wasn't it? Like, wow, right?

Anyway...I called my mother on the way back yesterday. She had her gall bladder removed on Friday, so I've been checking in. My sister took her to have the procedure done and sent me updates, which I sent along to the Captain--my mom's oldest friend, of course, and the person, as detailed in an essay published somewhere, who helped me get through that horrible, worse-than-death day of going to Rockport and taking what remained of my possessions off of the property, though as I write this, I'm fully aware that I didn't get over that day, have never come close, and may never come close, even allowing that I get my house back, which is also the only way I would ever get over that day--in Middleton.

Normally when I talk, I walk. I don't sit and talk. I'll get another three miles of walking in. But yesterday, I didn't feel like stirring as I normally do in this regard. I had a headache. I was dragging some. You can't conceive of how hard it is for me to keep going. Everything is "forced" rather than "felt like." A massive mounting of will is required to do anything. And look at all I do. So think about the quantity of will, of "forcing," required. Where does that come from? Does it ever not just give out? The finding of the will, and the forcing, becomes harder and harder. God couldn't live like I live. If there is a God. He'd tap out. It's too much pain and hopelessness. With nothing that can be done about it. I can create the best work there has ever been every day--and I do, and there is no one who sees it who can argue otherwise in good faith--that could help the world the most, more than anything, and it doesn't matter. So what? Create more of it?

I sat on the concrete steps--there are several such steps that comprise the "stands"--as I talked to my mom. There were three little kids playing soccer against the nearby fence. Two girls--maybe eight, maybe nine--and a boy, we'll call him seven. He seemed maybe a shade younger. One of the girls could have been his sister. They had a green soccer ball. Behind them, near the fence where my head was once pressed, there were two boys, older than this boy, and a mom and a dad, playing two-on-two soccer against each other, mom and dad on the same team. They also had a green soccer ball, which made me think that the two groups were part of a larger, single group in some capacity--a family and a few of their kids' friends. All of the kids couldn't have belonged to the woman and the man--they were too close in ages, and the adults weren't old enough anyway (though dad was noticeably dragging, and wore a hat to cover up his balding head).

One of the girls closer to me was a very good soccer player. Better than her friend and the boy. She could go around anyone when she wanted to, and if she wanted to take the ball from you, she did that, too. Didn't even have shoes on, and it was just no problem for her. She wasn't trying that hard because she didn't need to. Sometimes she'd go further back and boom a shot, blowing it by the boy--who was scared of her shot--as easy as you please.

My mom is one of those people who will hear something in the background, never mind that I'm in a city, and ask all about it. Where are you? What was that? Are you at Haymarket? Who said that?

It can be...well...a little annoying, but that's more of a me thing than a her thing, I grant. As Orson Welles said, we must remember that our heart is God's little garden. Despite the rapidity of my mind, the pain and hopelessness I feel, the situation I am in, a situation which feels like there's no getting out of, only that situation getting worse, which itself ought to be impossible, given how bad it is, and yet also feels inevitable, I should be patient, or more patient. She had heard one of the girls as I walked past when backtracking to the water fountain, before I took my seat--I had been lost in thought, and forgotten to take my drink--which meant I had to answer her question as to who was that. You'd think I was on the moon or in a cave and someone had surprisingly popped out or manifested, rather than the streets of Boston, but so it goes.

These kids were serious about and focused on their game, which wasn't a game in the consistent, "these are the rules" sense of all, but rather a series of quasi-games. Like the changes in a jazz number. We pass through this, that morphs into this other thing, and on we go. Eventually, the three kids halted what they were doing and walked to the far side of the field, joining in the game that was going on there. The girl who was the best player among the three kids instantly became the best player in the bigger game. She toyed with people. Again, if someone had the ball and she wished to dispossess them of it, she did it at will. She made great passes in seams, sometimes putting the ball in space where the receiver of the pass was about to be. She would run without the ball, again through seams, putting herself in position to receive a pass in flight.

And again she was barely trying. Turned it off and on again, same as a faucet. There was life in what I was seeing. You see so little life now. I mean real human life. Human life isn't, "Look! It's ten people on the street corner breathing and waiting for the light to change!" I thought how rare this was that none of these people were looking at a phone, and for that to be the case--with all of them at the same time, I mean--this is probably the only way that could happen. Probably the only time since the last time they did this, which I felt certain that they'd done before.

Somehow the game seemed to get bigger, without me really noticing anyone else joining, but a couple people must have. I watched for a bit longer, then I got up, walked back to the street behind me, which I've walked so many times, stepping over the shoes that must have belonged to the girl who found the seams and boomed the ball, and went back to it.