The Timeless Torches

I tried hard, I really did, to get pure and selfish joy from my yoga class. But a presumptuous teacher annoyed me to the point of leaving class in the middle. I moved on from that, and sweated my way through a work day in Brooklyn and Manhattan, and got myself to the World Trade Center PATH train at the end of the day, experiencing post traumatic stress from the years in Jersey, the years on PATH, but then my friends arrived, and then we were on the air conditioned train, and then we were in Newark, and then we were walking over to see the New York Liberty opening game of the season, and then there were some hoops set up outside and lots of young people were shooting, and then I was shooting with them too, and sinking free throws - swoosh, and then we were inside the air conditioned Prudential Center, and arriving just in time to hear the announcer say AND NOW. YOUR. NEW YORK LIBERTYYYYYY! And on cue, I get all teary because I get all teary when stadiums full of fans cheer for women athletes. And then we see Jay-Z on the court floor, and I'm happy he's also cheering on the women (and then later we see Rasheed Wallace and some other Knicks), and then the game is on and the women are good, and the Liberty take a strong lead and it looks like it will be a blowout, but it turns into a real game, and then the moment comes. The halftime show. A bunch of people run out onto the court, and I see that they are the Timeless Torches -- a group of dancers of size and of age, and they start to shimmy and shake, and that's my moment. Seeing a fat, fit, 63 year-old wonderful dancer shake it shake it baby, shake it shake it baby. And not just one, but a whole troupe. Sometimes corporate (sports) America gets it so right.

The game went into overtime, and then came down to the final seconds. With 11 seconds, down by 2, we got possession and evened the game back up. With .5 seconds on the clock, the Shock got the ball, inbounded and scored! Looked like we were heading into another overtime, when the refs overturned the basked because it had actually gone in after the buzzer.

We went down onto the floor—not to meet the players, but to meet the Torches. Here we are meeting Gloria. Gloria, I can only aspire.