one of the best moments
One of the best moments of my life was when Mr. Fed took me down by the lake and taught me how to play the Stick Game. It was an early Spring day--safely on the Spring side of winter. We were trudging through the fishy smelling mix of manmade and organic debris at the water's edge...leaves..bottlecaps...cigarette butts..discarded underpants....and looking for a perfect set of three sticks. The crack of branches breaking in Mr Fed's strong hands seemed sharper than usual, the muted hues of the damp pebbles were so much more beautiful than I remembered.
The speed and grace of his lanky body took me by surprise. My eyes widened and I clutched my catching stick too tightly in my cold fingers, feeling like a child again. My heart was beating so fast, first as I watched his incredible acrobaticism...and then as we began attempting to toss back and forth. I commented on how my performance improved when I expanded the range of my visual attention beyond the apparent balancing point of the tossed stick. Mr Fed was enthusiatically telling me about Kalman filters used in robotic vision/control...all the while he was doing this amazingly acrobatic balancing routine. I was nervous...but so radiantly alive...and he passed to me and encouraged me so gently and with so much tenderness in voice and expression...even when my passes back so narrowly missed the dark waves on his head...or landed and left muddy splotches on his forearm instead of his catching stick. He caught nearly every one.
The speed and grace of his lanky body took me by surprise. My eyes widened and I clutched my catching stick too tightly in my cold fingers, feeling like a child again. My heart was beating so fast, first as I watched his incredible acrobaticism...and then as we began attempting to toss back and forth. I commented on how my performance improved when I expanded the range of my visual attention beyond the apparent balancing point of the tossed stick. Mr Fed was enthusiatically telling me about Kalman filters used in robotic vision/control...all the while he was doing this amazingly acrobatic balancing routine. I was nervous...but so radiantly alive...and he passed to me and encouraged me so gently and with so much tenderness in voice and expression...even when my passes back so narrowly missed the dark waves on his head...or landed and left muddy splotches on his forearm instead of his catching stick. He caught nearly every one.