I Need a Hero. Or a Banana Forehand.

 Yesterday, I watched the final set of the men's final at the Australian Open three times, knowing the outcome before I saw a single point. No suspense, not even a shred of skin in the game, but for almost an hour, three times in one day, I watched, transfixed, holding my breath as I waited to see whether another seemingly wide ball would descend in some impossible arc onto the fuzzy edge of a line. 

Greatness is refreshing. I have not written in a while -- at least not for the sheer joy of it -- because, quite frankly, joy tends to be elusive these days. The kind of joy that infects your days, reminds you that everything will be all right, that makes you not toy with the idea that "it's five o'clock somewhere" at ten o'clock in the morning. Sure, happiness pays a visit every so often, and I still laugh (a lot), but it's so hard to keep the despair from creeping in, even with a quasi-moratorium on cable news. 

We are desperately in need of heroes, and I have believed for a long time that athletes are good candidates. As a Jewish girl growing up in Brooklyn, I was not exactly raised to value athletic prowess, at least not as a virtue that would benefit me in my own life. (I like to think I could've been a "contendah" in some sport or another, if only my parents had poured themselves into it, but they were probably right to assume that was not my best path to success.) Still, I discovered, when I was nine, the inexplicable and unadulterated joy one feels as a fan when athletes become heroes. The Mets beat the unbeatable Orioles. The Miracle Mets. The Amazin' Mets. Against all odds, they were the champs.

At some point, it's less about the athletic gifts than the sheer mental fortitude, and, as I spent more than three hours yesterday on the edge of my seat, I wondered why we don't have more heroes like Rafa (or my beloved Roger) or any of the others who have that rare combination of genius, integrity, grace under pressure, and faith in themselves that the rest of us can only dream about. Even for those among us without genius or gifts, the grace under pressure and faith in oneself is certainly a goal worth achieving, one that, for me, remains elusive. Shame on "Novax" and others like him who possess the genius but don't make the most of their gifts. For the rest of us mortals, who were not born with it, it's the chicken soup we need for our souls. 

I need a hero. We all need heroes. Maybe we need to be our own heroes, if we want to see how this is all going to play out. We are not alone in this, but we are supposed to be exceptional, and we find ourselves  at the mercy of evil, ignorance, cowardice, and greed. Evil, because the worst among us have crawled out from under rocks and have risen to the top, displacing the cream that's supposed to be there. Ignorance, because we have half a country that believes abortion is comparable to the Holocaust and books in school are bad but guns in school are not really a problem and the workings of a free market to eradicate hateful or dangerous speech equates to a violation of the First Amendment. Cowardice and greed, well, looking at you Republicans in power. 

We are spinning wildly out of control, and we need to be a bit more than good ball strikers. We need passion, and fortitude, and the belief that we can change the arc, bring ourselves back inside the lines.
We need a banana forehand.