Tag Archive | cricket

The Importance of Bliss

I love cricket! And cricket season in the US is almost here! In fact, my cricket team, British Officer’s Cricket Club, held its annual Curry Dinner and Ridiculous Raffle/Auction on Saturday night as a warm-up to the season! It was fantastic to see all of my cricket guys and their wives and families again. I always miss them in the winter. But never fear, cricket is almost here!

For those of you who haven’t heard me talk about cricket before (there are probably two of you left out there), I am a scorer for a local club team, BOCC, here in Philadelphia. We have a thriving cricket community made up mostly of ex-pats from South Asia, Australia & New Zealand, and the UK. Oh, and we have a few token Americans on our team. I stumbled across cricket a few years ago by way of Bollywood, and it was love at first sight. Now I’m inches away from becoming an officially certified scorer, and my club president last night was encouraging me to become an umpire.

Seems a bit incongruous for an ordinary American girl to be so interested in cricket, doesn’t it. And yes, it’s delightfully unlikely. But cricket fills a place in my soul that I didn’t even know existed or was missing anything a few years ago. It’s fun, it’s exciting, and it’s led me to form some fantastic friendships. In fact, I feel like I could depend on my cricket team members to help me out in a pinch more than some family members! Who would have thought?

Yes, for me cricket is bliss. And everyone needs some bliss. But bliss is tricky. It seems like it should be obvious when really it’s elusive. I think there are a lot of people out there in the world who are searching for something, some kind of fulfillment or validation. Maybe they’re just looking for something to do on the weekends or for someone to go out to the pub with on a Saturday night.

Then again, I see a lot of people who find that kind of bliss and fulfillment in their families. I know so many women around my age, give or take a decade, who are in love with their families. They talk about their kids, their husband, their siblings, their dogs, all the time and with a glow in their eyes that makes them beautiful. They find such selfless happiness in these things that it elevates them, body and soul.

But not everyone has the luxury of a healthy marriage or a tight-knit family. And I’m not saying that bliss comes exclusively with the people you share a roof or a name with, just that I see a lot of people who find bliss there.

Me and some of my cricket buddies when we were on tour in the UK

What really makes me happy is when I see people who have gone out there and found their bliss in an unlikely place. I have a friend who is in a similar situation to mine in that she is not married and doesn’t have a lot of close family who has found her bliss in martial arts. How cool is that? She has found an activity she enjoys with people she feels close to, and she has welcomed that bliss into her life with full enthusiasm. You can see the sparkle in her eyes when she talks about it, and it’s awesome!

Bliss is so important! Without it, what do you have? Reality TV?

Actually, I’m kind of not kidding about that. I think it’s safe to say that I fall into the category of people who believes that TV is the drug of the masses. From my point of view, it is a pale imitation of the enjoyment that can be found in getting out there and finding your bliss. Bliss is active, it involves you, it keeps you alive. TV asks nothing more from you than your butt on a couch and your brain on cruise control.

Which life sounds more interesting? A life of bliss, of course! Getting up, going out, and giving your whole heart to something is absolutely the way to go. Is it easy? Not necessarily. It’s a big stretch for me to give up one entire day per weekend in the summer to go to cricket. Time is valuable in this modern world. Is it cheap? Some people’s bliss might be, but cricket, even for me as a scorer, comes with a price tag. One I struggle to afford sometimes. Is it fun? Absolutely! And I’ve made friends that I hope to keep for life.

So what’s your bliss? What gets your heart pumping and your spirits soaring? What do you look forward to in the off-season?

And once you’ve answered that question, get up, get out there, and do it!

Why I Don’t Have a Blog Post Today

Sep17

Blogs are an essential part of the writer’s experience. I think most writers have them these days, which makes perfect sense. Our blog posts are aimed to entertain, educate, and keep in touch with our readers. They’re also here to find new readers by providing a sampling of what we have to offer in our books free of charge to people who randomly stumble across us while searching the internet.

Blogs are the one thing that I feel like most writers are doing right. Twitter is a dismal wasteland of people barking, or rather tweeting up the wrong tree. Facebook is something most writers almost have right, but at the same time I’m not sure if all of us know what we’re doing with the tool. Everything else, from LinkedIn to Google+ to Pinterest, is sort of catch as catch can but mostly head-scratching on the part of writers.

But blogs are something we’ve got right. And it makes perfect sense. Blogs are all about writing. Strangely enough, that’s what we writers do best. I’ve come across some of the most fascinating bits and pieces about everything from the writing craft to up and coming books to slices of wisdom about the particular writer’s area of expertise or interest. I’ve learned so much and been so entertained just by reading blogs. So bravo for the writers out there.

If I had one complaint about the way that writers write their blogs it would be the same complaint I have with the rest of the way we do social media. Too much of what I see is aimed at other writers instead of at the reader. It’s an easy trap to fall into because other writers are the “low-hanging fruit” of the social media audience world. Other writers are looking for attention, readers aren’t necessarily. Writers are like the people at the airport hanging around baggage claim with signs that say “Smith” as they try to attract the attention of their audience. Readers are just there to get their bags and move on. They’re much smarter than we writers are.Anyhow, blogs are the best way to attract the attention of the people we’re trying to reach. Here in this forum we can be ourselves and we can do what we do best. And we don’t have to go out and aggressively recruit readers the same way we would with Twitter or Facebook. We do have to reach out, but not as invasively.

Yep, blogs are important, but today I didn’t have time to write one.

You see, I usually write my blog posts for the week over the weekend. I aim for three blog posts a week these days, four if I’m feeling chatty. I try to include one about history, one about writing, and one fun or silly post about me each week. But this weekend I just didn’t have time to write.

Saturday I spent more than six hours working on revisions for my next book, The Courageous Heart. See, I wrote the first draft under less than ideal circumstances, gave it to my trusted beta readers, who kind of quirked their eyebrow at me and said “Really?” and then I rewrote the entire first half. In the process I changed so much of the plot and focus of my characters that it’s kind of a whole new story. Which would be fine under normal circumstances, but I have a deadline. It’s due at my editor a week from today. So my nose was firmly to the grindstone of work on Saturday. I don’t think that the majority of the world understands how hard writers have to work to produce something readable. Remember writing term papers in school? Multiply that by a thousand and you’ll begin to have an idea.

I also ended up grocery shopping on Saturday, which was depressing because of how much money I don’t have. And I ended up buying twice as much meat as I needed because I got distracted talking to the nice butcher guy at The Fresh Market who I like. What? Merry distracted by a man? NEVER!

Now I would have had time to catch up on my blog writing on Sunday, but once again I had to work on the book in the morning, then I went to help my friend Kristine move some of her stuff into my brother’s apartment (they’re getting married in December). My brother, Stewart, lives on the second floor. He has a wonderful balcony up there. We had to hoist a mattress and a sofa up over the balcony and into the apartment and move two chairs and a different mattress out over the balcony and down. We did this by backing the U-Haul up to the side of the house and working in teams to lift stuff. Note to anyone who might want to try this in the future: the roofs of U-Hauls are made of very, very thin sheets of tin foil. Be careful.

This wasn’t yesterday, but that’s what yesterday looked like

After that I went to a cricket match. My team won pretty easily. But the best part about that was that my “cricket daddy” Mike had come down from Boston, where he moved last year. I haven’t seen him since April, and it was SO wonderful to catch up with him. After the game I went to the pub with the guys and ate nachos and drank a shandy while watching the end of the Eagles game. Then we talked loudly about cricket for over an hour. So much fun.After that I had to go to my aunt’s house for a family dinner. I didn’t get home until well after 8, and I was so exhausted that I couldn’t look at the computer, let alone write a blog post.

So that’s why I didn’t write a blog post today, even though blogs are essential for writers. Oh well, the week is young yet. I’m sure I’ll get something out there by Wednesday.

Medieval Monday – Games and Sports

Jul30

The Olympics are in full swing in London here in the year 2012. I’ve always been a huge Olympics fan from as far back as I can remember. But sports competitions, even international sports competitions, are nothing new. They have existed as far back as the original Olympic games of ancient Greece and even farther. And sports competitions have continued to be a major part of life from that time up through the middle ages and into the present.

So what kinds of games did people play in the middle ages? Did they have strange and fantastical medieval sports or did they enjoy the same activities as we do now?

The answer is, of course, yes.

In the middle ages any given male past childhood could be called into military service at any time. The feudal system required all able-bodied to serve their king on the field of battle when they were called for, whether as a knight or a common foot soldier. Since hardly any training was provided for these calls to arms all men were expected to have refined the skills of combat before a war ever broke out.

So how did one do that? By playing games.

One of my favorite scenes from the movie Braveheart involves the men of William Wallace’s village partaking in stone-throwing contests. They do this, it is explained, as a way of increasing their strength and preparing to do battle with the English, who had forbidden them to own or train with arms. That pretty much sums it all up right there. Medieval games and sports were designed to develop skills that would be needed on a battlefield.

For your average everyday peasant this meant simple games that involved tests of strength and agility. Contests like throwing stones, hammers, and spears for accuracy and distance were popular. So was wrestling in all its various forms. … And all of these sorts of competitions are included in the Olympic games of today. Hmm.

Several medieval team sports were widely played both in the country and in the city. A sport with the descriptive name of “Gameball” was played by teams representing various schools in London and beyond. It involved two teams and used a round ball that each side tried to kick across the field in an attempt to score a goal by shooting it past the opposing team’s defender into a target area. … Gosh, that sounds familiar.

Yet another team sport, Shinty, had its origins in Scotland. Shinty was played long before the middle ages, actually, dating back to antiquity. It involved two sides attempting to hit a small, hard ball from one end of a field to another and through a goal using sticks that had a flat or curved foot at one end. … Wait, that sounds familiar too. In fact, the only thing that separates Shinty from modern field hockey was the fact that you could use both ends of the stick to keep the ball in play.

Not period, but it made me laugh

Stoolball was another medieval team sport that gained popularity in the countryside. It was thought to originally have been played by milkmaids who would set up their stools on either end of a long, narrow strip in the middle of an oval field. The game was played with two sides made up of eleven players each. One team would field while the other would bowl. Balls were bowled underhand without hitting the ground, and a batsman would defend their stool by attempting to hit the ball away. If the ball rolled over a predetermined boundary the batsman scored four points, whereas if it sailed airborne over the boundary they would score six points. Runs were also scored by running between the stools. … It sounds a lot like another game I know and love.Yep, you guessed it. The games and sports that were played by the common people in the middle ages were the precursors to the sports we play today. Stoolball evolved into cricket. Baseball was derived from cricket. Shinty and Gameball were simpler versions of hockey and football/soccer. Other sports that might look familiar to a modern person traveling in the middle ages are Skittles, which is a version of ten-pin bowling, Bowls, which bore a distinct resemblance to Lawn Bowling, and Colf which was like … well, I think you can figure that one out.

But perhaps the most popular sport for common people in the middle ages was archery. Archery is still an Olympic event. People still engage in it worldwide. In fact, my nice was the state Archery champion for her age group in Alabama last year. True story. But in the middle ages, Archery wasn’t only popular, by 1252 in England is was required for all men between the ages of 15 and 60. This was the beginning of the era of the English longbow, remember. Those archers that took down thousands of French soldiers and knights in The Hundred Years War didn’t spring up overnight. They had been practicing with a bow from the time they were children.

The Olympics of the modern world reflects another aspect of medieval sports. People came together to play with and against each other at special times and in special locations. Winning at sports brought pride to your town or manor and prestige for yourself. Peasants could win serious prize money and gain status through their skill. And nobles could gain wealth, land, and titles through their skills in the joust.

Ah, the joust! That’s a blog post all to itself. Come back next week to hear all about it!

Cricket for Americans

Apr13

“Wait…. You’re an American … and you’re a girl … and you’re interested in cricket?”

Thus began my first ever experience with the game that would become one of my three greatest loves in life. The Gentlemen’s Sport. Cricket.

Me with Indian cricketer Sunil Joshi

I came to cricket in a wild, round-about way. Back in the fall of 2009 I was directing a production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night that I had set in India. When I went online to look for music to play during scenes I stumbled across the soundtrack to a Bollywood film, Salaam-e-Ishq. I fell in love with the song and after the show had wrapped I got the film from Netflix. I fell in love with Bollywood, and through that with Shah Rukh Khan. Shah Rukh owns a cricket team, the Kolkata Knight Riders. Of course I had to be a fan, but I knew nothing at all about cricket. So I went online, typed “Philadelphia” and “Cricket” into Google, and was directed to the website for the Philadelphia Cricket League. A friend and I went to watch a match at what we thought was the closest pitch to where I lived. And that’s where I met BOCC, British Officers Cricket Club.

Aside from being startled that an American girl like me would be interested in cricket, the guys were super happy to have a supporter. During that very first match, in the second innings, they encouraged me to score for them. I didn’t know anything about scoring, but Tahir, who is my “cricket uncle” taught me the basics. I enjoyed it so much that I kept coming back again and again and again.

Me with a tiny fraction of BOCC on our UK tour 2010

Almost three years later here I am, a card-carrying member of the club, studying to be an internationally certified scorer. I’ve traveled to England with the club and every year we go to Toronto for a tour. I also help out with the Philadelphia International Cricket Festival (in just three weeks!) and have been known to score for Merion Cricket Club and Staten Island Cricket Club.

And most Americans probably have no concept of what I’m talking about here. Well, that’s because Americans just don’t know what they’re missing. So let me tell you about cricket….

Here is my favorite explanation of cricket:

“You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that’s in the side that’s in goes out, and when he’s out he comes in and the next man goes in until he’s out. When they are all out, the side that’s out comes in and the side that’s been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out.”

Believe it or not, that makes sense when you know what you’re talking about. But if you’re American and you’re confused, let me simplify it….

You have two teams of eleven guys. One team begins by fielding and one team by batting. Sound familiar? In the center of the pitch is a long rectangle called the wicket. At either end of the wicket you have… wickets. I’ve always been a little confused on the terminology here, so someone might have to correct me. Anyhow, the wickets are made up of three stumps with two bails laid across the top. Each of the two batsmen who are “in” stand in front of these wickets wearing what looks like battle armor made out of mini mattresses. Why all the coverage?

Because the bowler (think pitcher if you’re American) comes running full speed towards the pitch and hurls a small, rock-hard ball (usually red, sometimes white) overhand at the batsman in an attempt to smash the wicket to pieces. The ball bounces several feet in front of the batsman, who is protecting the wicket. At least it’s supposed to.

The batsman’s job is to protect the wicket. As long as it remains intact he can stay in. But points are scored when the batsman “on strike” hits that ball and the two batsmen run back and forth between the wickets. There are large boxes drawn around the wickets in chalk and the batsmen just have to get part of themselves, which includes their bat, inside of that box in order to turn around and run back for another run. If the batsman hits the ball and it rolls on the ground over the boundary (usually a large oval marking the far edges of the pitch) then he automatically gets 4 points without having to run. If he hits the ball and it goes airborne over the boundary he automatically gets 6 points.

Batsmen get out by having their wicket broken, either by the bowler when he bowls, by the wicket-keeper (think catcher) who can knock the bails off of the stumps if the batsman steps outside of the box but doesn’t make a full run, by a fielder who hits the wicket with the ball before the batsman runs into the box, by having the ball caught after he hits it (just like baseball), or by this nutty thing called LBW or Leg Before Wicket which I don’t entirely understand but has to do with the batsman blocking the ball from hitting the wicket with his body or leg pads instead of the bat. Oh, or if he steps back and knocks his own wicket over, which I have never seen happen but have been learning about in my scorers course.

Unlike baseball, each batsman stays in as long as he can, scoring as many runs as he can, until he’s out. Once he’s out the next guy on the team goes in to replace him. In most cricket one side goes in and scores as many runs as they can, then in the second innings the other team bats and tries to beat the score of the first team in the first innings.

Which brings me to innings. There are two of them (unless you’re playing test cricket, which is still a bit of a mystery to me). Innings are made up of Overs. An over is made up of six deliveries of the ball. Meaning the bowler bowls six times. Unless there are “Extras” (think Balls in baseball). An inning is made up of a pre-established number of overs. We generally play 40 over innings, but there is a new form of cricket growing in popularity called Twenty20 that is only 20 overs per inning. Cricket purists scoff at the very notion as an offense to all things good and holy in cricket.

Well, if I haven’t confused you enough, there are two other VITAL parts of the cricket match that make the whole thing the most wonderful experience ever. After the first inning but before the second innings is something called “Tea”. Tea is lunch. When BOCC hosts matches we usually provide a stellar spread of home-cooked food. Because we have a lot of Indian members of our club, sometimes Tea is a full-on curry. After the match is over it’s time for the Pub. We don’t always go out to the pub afterwards, but it’s just not quite the same when you don’t. Because cricket is a social game.

So there you have it. Americans, this is the sport that most of the rest of the English-speaking world eats, sleeps, and breathes! It is here in America, but you have to hunt to find it. Look in communities with a strong ex-patriot population. It really is a lot of fun.

Heaven on earth

Are We Having Fun Yet?

Jan20

Every morning I read this column by writer Cary Tennis published at Salon.com. Cary answers letters from various troubled souls, and he does it with his own unique blend of personal wisdom gleaned from his own struggles with depression, addiction, and life instead of some dry college degree. It’s like the uber-intellectual hippie version of Dear Abby. In answering the letter of a stressed-out and anxious soul recently he proposed the very simple solution that that person go out and do something fun. Then he asked the letter-writer the question “What do you do for fun?”

As usual with Cary Tennis’s letter-answers, I sat there thinking about how profoundly his words applied to me as well. I too have been stressed out. I’ve felt like I have too many things to do, too many responsibilities to handle. But of course I have fun too, right? Wait a minute, what do I do for fun?

My view from the scorer's table at cricket

I’ll tell you what I don’t do. I don’t watch a lot of tv. I don’t have cable and while I do have a television set, it’s only hooked up to a DVD player … which I also don’t use anymore. I don’t play sports either. I’m not athletic. I do score for a local cricket team or two in the summer when the weather is nice, but I’ll get to that in a second.

There are a lot of things I would like to do that I can’t afford to. I would love to go to the movies more often, but not at $10 a ticket. I would love to eat out at really nice restaurants, but really nice restaurants are super expensive. So are concerts, plays, and the ballet, all of which I would also do if I could. Then there’s travel. Oh man, if I had money I would be all over this globe of ours! But alas, I am poor (buy my books!) so I can’t do any of these things.

Fun or (gasp!) work?

Okay, so now I’m back where I started. What do I do for fun? Here’s the thing. Like a lot of other people, I’m sure, a lot of the things that I used to do for fun have become more like fun responsibilities. Obviously I write for fun. But writing, whether books or blog posts, has turned the corner into being something I do with a purpose as opposed to something I do to relax and unwind. It’s still fun, but daily word count goals and editing makes it feel a little like work. I used to do a lot of theater … until I ended up in charge of things and it was suddenly very, very un-fun. Even cricket has morphed into something where I go to perform a job and fulfill a responsibility.

So wait, what happened to fun?

Well, those things are still fun, but not 100% pure relaxation.

At this point I started to panic. Do I even have fun anymore? Have I slipped into a pattern of hopeless efficiency and competence? What am I going to do? I mean, even reading, the classic thing to do for fun, has become something I just don’t have time for. Uh oh.

My current knitting project - a lovely pair of very fancy black socks (trust me, they're fancy, but you can't see the pattern in this pic)

There is one thing though. Knitting. I knit on my lunch break. I just finished a scarf for my BFF last week and I’m working on a pair of socks this week. That’s fun. It will be even more fun to walk around in a pair of warm, fuzzy, pretty homemade socks. And as much like work as writing has become, I do actually have genuine fun handwriting notes on stories I’m either working on or may or may not write someday. Whew! I have something fun in my life.

But it makes me think…. I tend to feel just a little guilty when I’m doing something that has no constructive purpose or quantifiable results. Maybe it’s the feeling that I shouldn’t actually be having fun. There’s no time for it. If it’s not productive it’s a waste of time. I sit around feeling guilty about all the things I should be doing instead.

Good God, perish the thought! There has to be fun in the world! Even for responsible, competent adults.

So as I sit here a while longer and contemplate what I can do to kick back and relax and enjoy myself without feeling like I’m being irresponsible, let me ask. What do you do for fun? How do you relax and unwind from the business of life?

Merry Farmer

An Historical Romance