The Gap Between Heart and Body

For the first time in ages, I played basketball mixed in with my son’s friends.

In my student days I was in a hardcore athletic basketball club, and if I may boast, I belonged to a powerhouse school that won the Tokyo championship.

Back then the vertical-society code was strong, and in an education where, even one grade apart, “the ball and your seniors are gods,” I endured unreasonable hazing and bullying, and I feel nostalgic for that youth of daily good sweat and cold sweat.

Through this experience I gained some good things—a heart that cares for one’s comrades, a mind that values greetings, the wisdom to overcome trials—or so I think, now.

Now then, as for the basketball I played with my son: my student-day mental motivation and my present body somehow don’t match up.

I’m raring to go, but I can’t run, can’t jump, can’t move—out of breath, oxygen-starved—and no matter how much I think “it can’t be,” reality is honest.

Battling a feeling of not wanting to admit it to myself, the conclusion I reached was: with humility, let me devote myself to a bodily makeover.

I found my sons’ light movements and their breath-that-never-runs-out enviable, but in the fact that my voice alone was the loudest, hurling jeers, I felt a Showa spirit—I’m not done for yet. Still, my sons told me my voice was loud and annoying, and amid a feeling with nowhere to go, huffing and puffing with stars floating before my eyes, I secretly vowed revenge: “Just you watch—I’ll show you.”