Unfinished Business

My bucket list is filled with goals to achieve and places to go, someday. Over the last few years I have been thinking of things not done, goals not reached, places not visited and concerns. Do I still have twenty healthy years left to finish everything? 

Last year the Women's Oklahoma Golf Association announced that Golf Club of Oklahoma in Broken Arrow would be the site for the 2020 Women's State Amateur. Pouncing like a cat on a mouse, energy and drive filled my body. I knew  I must find the stamina and strong back to play in the four days of competition in the Oklahoma heat and humidity of July, because I had some 'unfinished business' to take care of on that golf course.

In 1988 I played Golf Club of Oklahoma for a USGA Women's Mid Amateur qualifier. With three teenagers at home, and a golf coaching job at NHS I set out to qualify. I knew from the practice round that I must learn how to hit out of the sand and straight up an embankment of 19'. Thank you Tom Fazio, Course Designer, who found ways to challenge a golfer mentally on every shot.  That summer my husband, Jack, drove me to the sand banks of the Canadian River where he shagged balls for me as I practiced hitting.  My visual was to pretend I could hit the ball as high as the highway bridge. 

#17 a par 3 at Golf Club of Oklahoma

My plan was nearly flawless. When I teed off  The Golf Course of Oklahoma that morning in August 1988 against Susan Basolo Kennedy and Deena Dills Nowotny I lost all focus. Jack tried in every way to help me swing and hit the golf ball squarely, but my mind and body would not work together until I faced the 17th hole, a par 3 with water to the right and deep sandy bunkers to the left. I had practiced that shot. I knew that shot like the back of my hand, and I performed that shot to perfection. Instead of landing the ball on the green with my tee shot, I pulled it into the deep bunker on the left and found myself faced with the shot I had practiced on the river bank. My body sprang into action. The sand wedge lifted the ball up, onto the green, where it promptly rolled into the hole for a birdie 2. I failed to qualify but I did have ONE fantastic shot that day. 

*Dena Dills Nowotny is in the Oklahoma  Golf Hall of Fame

*Susan Basolo Kennedy was a talented dynamic golfer Herstory

Thirty-two years later, I grabbed the opportunity to play that course once again in competition. On June 6, 1966 I shot a 76 at Ponca City Country Club and qualified for Championship Flight. Never again have I played that well in competition, especially not in a qualifying round. So those two thoughts filled my mind and it became my driving force, even through the panic of Covid. 

hole #10, the climb toward my goal

I worked out in the gym with weights, focused on strength and balance with Yoga and Tai Chi classes, and swung the golf club in my backyard to keep my body in shape all winter.  Older bodies do not perform like younger bodies in anyway except we can still focus and persevere, like an old mountain goat.  

This spring Dr. Beth Brown, sports psychologist, introduced me to "SupHer Power Golf for Women." The mental focus helped me push ahead and set a firm pictures of how and what I planned to achieve. 

SupHer Power Golf for Women

Did I do what I set out to do? This became my driving question instead of scoring as I played in May, June, and July. Did I set out to play 18 holes in thirty putts or less? Did I set out to hit my Driver down the middle and at least 160 yards (I may not out drive you, but I will beat you around the green!) Did I set out to chip the ball within 10' of the hole? My scorecard this year has a scores and + or - if I played to my goal on a hole. 

The process of being mentally prepared paved the way. Every shot I performed the same routine: 

1) see the line vividly (take a snapshot)

2) stand over the ball and fully visualize the shot (the snapshot I took earlier)

3) slowly take my club back

Did I do what I set out to do? YES. On July 20, 2020 I set out to play my best qualifying round of golf since 1966 and I did it. I did it at Golf Club of Oklahoma where I didn't have any fantastic shots, but I hit only 84 shots on a course of 5,300 yards. My body and mind know that I climbed my Mt. Everest and have seen the view. It felt damn good. 

Earl Woods successfully taught his son, Tiger, to 'PUTT THE PICTURE.'

Letty has Literally learned to "LIVE THE PICTURE."

Footnote: My timer went off at 4:00 today so I would take a break, mix the meatloaf, and bake it 45 minutes while I wrote. I took the break outside, felt refreshed and walked back to my studio to write. I never glanced at the kitchen! So we are having spaghetti and meat sauce. Life, just like golf sometimes gets off track. 

Life By Wandering Around

Sleep E Corner

The title of this blog, "Life By Wandering Around," could just as easily be "Life By Wondering Around in my Brain."  I have been enjoying life both ways for the last few weeks. I worried for a couple of weeks wondering why I couldn't sit down and write when indeed I could sit down outside and drift away in the heat of the summer with a breeze in the trees and the buzzing of locust, beetles, and bugs. Sitting down inside at my computer in my newly painted room, no.

In this photograph of our shading corner I can see two major problems. The first being the swing. Jack and I may very well wear this swing out before the summer is over. In Oklahoma we have experienced an unusually comfortable breezing summer (except for the week of July 19-23 when it was a humid human scorcher.) On the days when I have not played golf I have found comfort in or own backyard.

In that swing I traveled back into the time of Jesus, through the words of Sue Monk Kidd. Oh, such an insight to the neglect and foul treatment of women. My stomach nearly turned over a few times when I compared their lives to my own experiences. What If I could not work?

What if I could not support myself or my children? And then of course, the television made sure I saw the results of my what if's in the present day. No, I rarely watch the news these days, reading is so much better and I can react based on my thought, based on my previous experiences, my point of view. Back to the book that my mind just wondered away from--I recommend it because it does ask you to think. Could Jesus have had a wife? 

Now the outside recliner, the Sleep E Chair, has gifted my mind with other types of wanderings. Sleep being the greatest gift, of course. Listening to the buzzes this morning from the fluorescent green June Beetle, and Cicada's I wonder in my mind back to the summer Monday's we spent at Roaring River in Missouri. Dad was not a camper, but we did leave early on Monday's, his one day off from the golf course, and would drive to a lake or watering hole somewhere.  My sister and I played all day long on the rocks and in the cold water. Dad and Mom sat fishing and sometimes played with us in the water splashing and laughing like children themselves. Always overhead was the noise of the insects, the screeching of birds of prey high in the sky, or the squeal of my sister's voice when I splashed her.  Funny how sounds and noises take us back to our childhood memories. 

There are so many ways to wander through this world. From the comforts of a recliner chair by the fireplace this winter or from a rocking chair outside. Before Covid 19 struck our world this year like a laser light, I decided to read novels that were translations. The University of Oklahoma host the International Literature Award called the Neustadt Prize, one year for adult literature, and the next year for children's/young adult. I became enthralled with the stories these authors have shared when I have taken the opportunity to attend their programs, so this year I decided to explore a new world of reading. https://www.neustadtprize.org/ 

Now a map on the wall of our hall shows the places I have visited this year through translated books and situations that I cannot imagine.

For instance, Poland on the Czech border after WWII in the book Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead; Chili through the words and eyes of Isabelle Allende in the book The Long Petal to the Sea.  I've also explored Cuba before the time of Castro (Enchanted Air), and The Ghetto of Frankfurt, Germany when The First Mrs. Rothschild tells her husband's story of developing a worldwide banking system in the 1790's. 

Our backyard is alluring in more ways than shading spots. I love color and it matters not the pattern. It does help to be 'Oklahoma Proven' if the flower plans to live through the summers and the baby rabbits who eat their favorite greens no matter what the grower intended. Yes, I spend many hours wandering through the hardy flower gardens we grow, picking flowers, pulling weeds, and decluttering my mind.

Anything Grows Garden

In reflection it may be 'in the time of Covid' and like the dynamic novel Love In the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, that in the end we come to learn and better understand ourselves and our relationships.