I remember those days like they were yesterday. The field stretched out wide, and the ball came off the bat like it had somewhere more important to be. I was just a kid in the outfield, glove open, legs churning, eyes locked on that white blur. And then it happened—the ball and I met. For a second, I couldn’t tell if I caught the ball or if the ball caught me. It didn’t matter. We were one in that moment, and everything else fell away.
It’s like when I turn my attention to a single sense—just seeing, just hearing. The world flickers, then steadies. Time slows down. A waterfall becomes not all the rushing water, but one stream I can follow from top to bottom. Touch, sound, sight—they stop being noise and become gateways. That’s what the catch felt like: one pure stream through the rush of everything else.
That’s how life feels now, when I stop long enough to notice it. The past sliding into the present, the present dissolving into what comes next. All of it flowing, like friends you swore you’d never lose touch with, but then the years pulled everyone in different directions. Gary, Stan, John… it’s been a long time since we were in the same room, laughing like nothing else mattered.
And yet, when the memories surface, they’re alive again. Like the catch. Like the sound of voices you haven’t heard in decades but could recognize anywhere. Maybe time moves faster than we think. Maybe all we really get are these small handbreadth moments—when the ball drops into the glove, when the laughter rings in your chest, when the now holds everything at once.
Looking back, it’s not just the plays we made, or the times we thought would last forever. It’s the meeting in the middle—the place where what was, what is, and what will be all touch, just for a heartbeat.
Spiritual Gravity 