It’s easy to like sports—so long as I don’t have to participate, which I dreaded in school when I had no choice.

In midlife, cousin Ninit and I decided to take up tennis under a well-known pro, who also happened to be a friend. After we completed the course, he took me aside and asked to please not tell anyone I had taken his course and not to wear the T-shirt he gave me and all the other students proclaiming he taught us tennis. Ninit, who was not bad, went on to play for a bit, but with a partner like me, who preferred dodging balls, she gave up eventually.

Dangers of participation

Like most college girls, I went to basketball games at the Rizal Coliseum. It was then that I discovered the joys of being a spectator: it allowed me to be part of the action, yet avoid the dangers of participation.

Now, at this age, even that has lost its attraction for me; I can watch all the sports I like from the safest, the most comfortable, indeed the best seat—right inside my own home. Ninit herself goes to almost every Ateneo game wearing blue from hat to shoes. But again, she’s always had more energy, and her sons all went to Ateneo.

In my case, the attraction to sports could only have been helped by my husband. He watches (if only on TV too—“Domesticity,” he says, “becomes us seniors.”) anything he comes upon with a ball in play. He and his children are so much into the NBA, for instance, they seem to know everything there is to know about it—players’ names, vital statistics, injuries, histories, specializations, even trades and the money involved.

Me? I can’t even remember the names of some of my own relatives!

Anyway, I’m grateful enough to TV for making it possible for me to watch the games right during their seasons, if not live.

Memorable injury

But I did have a taste once of being right there for an NBA game—the first home game of the Philadelphia Sixers for the season. Vergel and I, his brother and his wife, were visiting my classmate in Princeton, and were treated to the experience, since my classmate’s son-in-law happened to be a Sixers front-office man.

It was certainly a thrill. We watched Iverson and Nash take on each other from special perches in the owners’ lounge, while served drinks and short orders from a built-in bar. Primed for victory, the city set off its fireworks despite defeat all the same. I felt sheepishly guilty, recalling being in Boston myself for my daughter’s graduation when the Celtics, playing for yet another championship, also lost at home.

I also had a chance to watch live professional tennis in Washington, D.C., at Legg Mason, one of the pre-US Open tournaments. And, favored with good seats in the relatively small stadium, we observed with some closeness Monfils, Verdasco, Isner, and a character my husband loves, Stapaneck, himself the eventual champion.

But it was more memorable for the injury I sustained by simply spectating. On the way to the carpark, I tripped and skinned a knee on the gravel path.

The other day, watching a safari documentary, Vergel suddenly turned to me and said, “You know, there was a time I would have wanted to experience something as challenging and dangerously close to nature as that.”

Well, it never entered my mind—all that dust and heat, and what about bathroom! To my relief, he added, “Now, it’s not even in my bucket list.”

No thrill

There are things I’m quite content not able to physically experience—not anymore. Anything, for one thing, that requires climbing, like the Pyramids or Machu Picchu, I’d rather experience pictorially. Not even shooting the rapids of nearby Pagsanjan or paddling in the underground river of Palawan holds the slightest thrill for me.

About the underground river, my particular dread has to do with the road trip that they describe to be so bumpy it can cause a rickety senior to come apart.

Running now on residual time and energy (as my husband never fails to remind ourselves every time we tend to become over-adventurous), I’m content to live some of life vicariously. Even free movies can’t lure us out as much now.

But books I appreciate more than ever. I even reread some of the classics, and I surprise myself with a deeper, if not altogether, fresher appreciation. And with my eyes weakening, Kindle has become a thrilling prospect.

Stepping back

We’re definitely changing. We are entering a season we’ve never gone through before, one that, I believe, calls for stepping back and looking at life where life requires too much time and energy to actually live.

As a special teacher has taught me, the very perspective of wisdom consists in looking at life as a witness to it, yet without removing oneself from the scene. Well, the trick definitely gives Vergel and me a better perspective, and makes us take life not too seriously.

My Dad had his own take—not that different, really—on such things: “If you doubt whether God has a sense of humor, grow old, kiddo.”