Hello Beautiful Souls,
A slightly groggy happy sunny morning to you.
I just landed a few hours ago…
Instead of completing the Love Letter I started for you, I chose to revel in the wonderful privilege of accompanying my husband’s summer tennis coaching at the Wimbledon pre-qualifications. It was my first time there and a local friend gave me a tour of the enormous campus.
I was impressed by the understated elegance: the precisely manicured grass courts, the swathes of flowers floating in potted seas of dark green leaves, the living vertical walls with golden clocks sparkling in the sun (yes! it was sunny!), the sweeping terraces with vine covered trellises, the raised glass walkways winging their way across the skies so that the stars can get to their matches unhindered and on time…
It’s magnificent. A piece of art.
An enormous verdant garden, all for enjoying the art of tennis at it’s highest levels.
My husband, a former professional tennis player, is an elite tennis coach, and having watched many tournaments with him over the years, I can say that not many are staged in such an elegant fashion. And while tennis has a reputation for being a sport for the rich, many a high level player did not start out that way; just ask Andy Murray’s decidedly not rich single mom! More to the point, most really good tennis players started out life in small clubs far from these manicured settings.
Indeed the vast bulk of the life of a professional athlete is spent practicing and perfecting their craft in spaces and places that are far from glamorous. They are elite because of their intense, life long, day after day after day dedication to their craft… and that dedication has nothing to do with their surrounds and everything to do with their interiors. Luckily, that dedication is more related to their determination than to the amount of money they have, as many, many good tennis players have quite humble beginnings.
So I really appreciated being in this setting. I have a lot of respect for what it takes to get there, and so of course do many of the people helping put it on. There was a palpable excitement in the air, a quiet passion bubbling under the surface. I saw it in the two gentlemen helping each other get it ‘just so’ as they touched up the lines on a practice court (where Serena Willams was practicing!!), in the friendly young woman carefully watering the plants on the adjoining thoroughfare, in the jaunty gardener who saw us admiring the flowers at a court entrance and asked if we liked his arrangement, and certainly in the rows of finely trained ball kids proudly displaying their skills for the first time this year…
The love of the sport was evident, and even more so being there before the crowds arrived, to watch the space blooming and becoming… to see first hand the thoughtfulness and dedication that goes into creating this beautiful, finely crafted environment. Wimbledon, I realized, is a well loved canvas on which to brilliantly display the finest arts of tennis.
It felt amazing to be in a space so dedicated to honoring the level of skill it houses.
The privilege becomes circular.
The canvas honors the art displayed upon it.
Such a joy.
My husband’s team won in the pre-qualifications and will go on to the qualifications next week. He always says that we can’t predict the outcome in tennis, and that the point is not to try to win, but to play our very best game.
No matter the score, playing every point well is true mastery.
And, so to you, my friend,
as we honor the Solstice on Sun Day,
a day of astrologically inspired transition,
I invite us all to take a moment to reflect on our own mastery;
to celebrate what’s going well,
to let go or care for what isn’t,
and to appreciate the canvas we’ve created for our lives thus far,
and the living art we’re creating upon it.
May You Enjoy Your Precious Masterpiece,
Elena