Pitch Perfect

Paying tribute to 7,208 square meters of progress, power, and pride.

“You know, I used to play rugby,” I muttered into warm leather, most of it slick with my sweat.

“Oh? I can see that,” came the reply, soon punctuated by the snap of a belt held taut beneath my chin and laid across both cheeks.

“Wiggle your toes.” Pop! There was a residual crackling as my head settled back on the chiropractic table. It costs $60 per visit to consent to this torture — I would have paid any amount of money not to admit I needed it.

“Ugh,” I moaned. With every contortion, a piece of me folded inward. Where there was once pliability, this body was now stiff. Once used to reaching, pivoting, bending… I now felt I would break. I was used to laying prone this way, just never in a position of submission.

Before, there was no need to acknowledge brokenness or limitation. My body used to be a vessel of potential; the pitch a platform for self-assurance and unyielding opportunity. That field was a place to be whole, to be unfettered.

Now, I’m learning to make peace with a future without that sacred space.

The pitch gave me space to discover my capacity, in both body and mind.

It was there — between those painted white lines stretched across 110 yards of viridescent…