#14: the ghost of summer past

22.08.2025 - Vienna

The ball crossed left and I followed the orange blur - but his body shifted right. By the time my brain caught up to my body’s miscalculation, he had two steps on me. I watched him floatingthe ball up past the rim, flat-footed.

I was at the tail end of a six-game win streak when he showed up. I was exhausted, but when winner stays on, I rarely leave without someone earning my departure. He was there to do just that.

We’d played before, and it was always the same: he’s shifty, quick, and he’ll shoot the lights out given half a window. Because it’s in my nature to insert some misplaced “petty” into “compettytion” - I took that personally.

After he snapped my streak, I hit my free throws, sulked whilst eating a commiserative falafel sandwich, and felt a small ball of resentment nestle into my stomach lining to incubate.

A week later, we arrived at the same time. Warming up in parallel, I noticed his form was sharp, silky practice shots dropping, while I felt heavy and sluggish after a week of skating. Soon enough, we teamed up and called next.

Whatever grudge I’d held began to dissolve. Maybe I’m shallower than I thought. Maybe being on the same side is all it takes to turn an enemy into a person. Maybe that’s why “Not Like Us” still hits like a victory lap on every re-listen.

Communication started with monosyllables - a quick read on whether he wanted a screen - then evolved off court into talk about basketball, the pickup spot’s culture, and a hot head hooper whose disproportionate rage once spilled into attempted assault via swinging elbow.

“I don’t get it,” he said. “I come here to clear my mind and hoop. I want to win, not fight. We’re playing for jokes out here.” He paused for a moment and thought.

“To be fair, it did help clear my mind.”

“And might have emptied it entirely if he’d connected,” I added.

By this point, he was no longer a villain to me. He spoke of a recent breakup that had stretched, stuttered, and finally ended. Of walking through rooms that now echoed with absence. Of time expanding strangely when life suddenly became solitary.

I told him, half-joking, that in clearing his mind last week, he’d also cleared me off the court. I couldn’t be mad about it anymore. What he described echoed my own life not long ago. History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes.

At this time last year, I was going to the same basketball court at the end of long days spent thinking about the end of my own relationship. I was trying to stay at the court as long as I could, to avoid going back to a home I had once shared.

He earned his place there, first off, but maybe more importantly, he needed it more than I did anyway.

We are so often more alike than we realize. Our positions - the context we’re dropped into - shape how we see one another. But beneath that, the parallels are everywhere. Discovery doesn’t take much more than actually looking.

Recognizing myself in him reminded me that it’s easy to imagine we’re living singular, unknowable lives. But the moment you dig deeper, the rhymes reveal themselves.

And that act of digging, setting aside presumption, opening yourself to surprise, is connection.

People are worth letting in.

blog the fourteenth signing off