By Shaan Sachdev
Nov. 28, 2024 12:00 pm ET
Photo: iStock
When I was 5 years old, my father asked me to play catch for the first and last time. After shielding my face from the oncoming ball, I burst into tears and demanded we do something else.
“Sure,” he said gently. “Shall we play music or make a puzzle?”
I’ll never forget his forbearance. A gifted athlete himself, he coached Little League softball and soccer, and yet he felt no need to drill his son in the hardy arts of throwing and catching objects. He didn’t once push me to try out for either team.
My lifelong sfairesphobia (which apparently is the correct term for a fear of airborne spheres) accompanied my fear of all things ostentatiously masculine, whether building toy helicopters, wearing backward hats or peeing in side-by-side urinals. I even found the greeting “Hey, man” to be intimidating.
The truth is, I was given to delicate, wholly unrowdy activities. I loved reading, drawing and playing musical instruments. I reveled in the intangible, especially words. I’d spend my recesses indoors, talking to teachers.
But despite my father’s cool, I couldn’t avoid balls. It got worse in high school, when boys could throw farther and farther and gym class grew proportionally terrifying. I’d slip to the back of the kickball line, one student at a time, until the teacher would notice and blow his whistle, forcing me to exhibit my feeble, discoordinated kicks for a snickering crowd of adolescents.
Upon graduating high school, I vowed to never again throw, catch, kick or even touch one of those dreaded circular playthings cherished by men the world over. At this, I succeeded. Well into my 20s, I exercised at gyms or went running daily, but I almost never came into contact with a ball.
Then a pandemic swept the world, and gyms shut their doors. I found myself doing calisthenic routines at playgrounds and parks. And there, for the first time in a decade, I also found myself in dangerously close proximity to throwers and catchers.
Suddenly, balls of all stripes were rolling in my direction. Baseballs, tennis balls, basketballs, volley balls, soccer balls. Each stray advance was accompanied by a look of expectation: “Hey, man, mind tossing it back?” I’d pretend to neither see the ball nor notice its owner’s dawning irritation. But I knew how it looked, and I felt as if I were back in high school.
Yet, by my late 20s, I’d learned that I could surprise myself, that I was more powerful and resourceful than long-lodged self-conceptions might permit. One drizzly afternoon at a playground in Manhattan, a basketball whirled toward me as I was mid-pull-up. A kid about age 10 glanced my way. He had no idea that he loomed as large as an NBA player in my imagination. I knew by then that I had three seconds to act.
I let go of the bars and walked over to the sinister orange orb. I picked it up. It felt lighter than I’d remembered. I rolled it back. Not quite hard enough—the kid had to walk a few steps to get it—but he nodded appreciatively at me, and I felt a rush of affiliation. Maybe this wasn’t so hard after all!
On that day, I made a small but weighty pledge of self-reformation: From then on, I would roll back the balls. Soon I was dribbling, even throwing them. And even when I failed to send one on an efficient or accurate course, I was met only with those gloriously fraternal nods of approval.
Had the world changed? Had I? Either way, I felt like I’d earned re-entry into the gruff cabal whose code word had eluded me since I could walk. Maybe I’d never known it.
This summer, while visiting my sister at her farm in Virginia, I picked up a stick and threw it as far as I could.
“Since when do you throw?” she asked as we watched her dog run after it.
I shrugged and didn’t answer. Just one of the boys.
Shaan Sachdev is and essayist and cultural critic based in New York.
Source (Archive)
Nov. 28, 2024 12:00 pm ET
Photo: iStock
When I was 5 years old, my father asked me to play catch for the first and last time. After shielding my face from the oncoming ball, I burst into tears and demanded we do something else.
“Sure,” he said gently. “Shall we play music or make a puzzle?”
I’ll never forget his forbearance. A gifted athlete himself, he coached Little League softball and soccer, and yet he felt no need to drill his son in the hardy arts of throwing and catching objects. He didn’t once push me to try out for either team.
My lifelong sfairesphobia (which apparently is the correct term for a fear of airborne spheres) accompanied my fear of all things ostentatiously masculine, whether building toy helicopters, wearing backward hats or peeing in side-by-side urinals. I even found the greeting “Hey, man” to be intimidating.
The truth is, I was given to delicate, wholly unrowdy activities. I loved reading, drawing and playing musical instruments. I reveled in the intangible, especially words. I’d spend my recesses indoors, talking to teachers.
But despite my father’s cool, I couldn’t avoid balls. It got worse in high school, when boys could throw farther and farther and gym class grew proportionally terrifying. I’d slip to the back of the kickball line, one student at a time, until the teacher would notice and blow his whistle, forcing me to exhibit my feeble, discoordinated kicks for a snickering crowd of adolescents.
Upon graduating high school, I vowed to never again throw, catch, kick or even touch one of those dreaded circular playthings cherished by men the world over. At this, I succeeded. Well into my 20s, I exercised at gyms or went running daily, but I almost never came into contact with a ball.
Then a pandemic swept the world, and gyms shut their doors. I found myself doing calisthenic routines at playgrounds and parks. And there, for the first time in a decade, I also found myself in dangerously close proximity to throwers and catchers.
Suddenly, balls of all stripes were rolling in my direction. Baseballs, tennis balls, basketballs, volley balls, soccer balls. Each stray advance was accompanied by a look of expectation: “Hey, man, mind tossing it back?” I’d pretend to neither see the ball nor notice its owner’s dawning irritation. But I knew how it looked, and I felt as if I were back in high school.
Yet, by my late 20s, I’d learned that I could surprise myself, that I was more powerful and resourceful than long-lodged self-conceptions might permit. One drizzly afternoon at a playground in Manhattan, a basketball whirled toward me as I was mid-pull-up. A kid about age 10 glanced my way. He had no idea that he loomed as large as an NBA player in my imagination. I knew by then that I had three seconds to act.
I let go of the bars and walked over to the sinister orange orb. I picked it up. It felt lighter than I’d remembered. I rolled it back. Not quite hard enough—the kid had to walk a few steps to get it—but he nodded appreciatively at me, and I felt a rush of affiliation. Maybe this wasn’t so hard after all!
On that day, I made a small but weighty pledge of self-reformation: From then on, I would roll back the balls. Soon I was dribbling, even throwing them. And even when I failed to send one on an efficient or accurate course, I was met only with those gloriously fraternal nods of approval.
Had the world changed? Had I? Either way, I felt like I’d earned re-entry into the gruff cabal whose code word had eluded me since I could walk. Maybe I’d never known it.
This summer, while visiting my sister at her farm in Virginia, I picked up a stick and threw it as far as I could.
“Since when do you throw?” she asked as we watched her dog run after it.
I shrugged and didn’t answer. Just one of the boys.
Shaan Sachdev is and essayist and cultural critic based in New York.
Source (Archive)
