The Om Field: Anticipation

[-Om-]

Anticipation
July 22, 2009

Every year around this time there comes a certain day–a certain moment–when the reality of pro football being just around the corner hits home. I had mine two evenings ago, standing on my deck in a light drizzle (cell reception’s a joke inside my house) talking to a Left Coast friend about the upcoming season and its prospects for our favorite team.

What I think actually triggered it was articulating aloud, for the first time, the finite number of days left before training camp opened (ten, then), and days left until the Washington Redskins first preseason game (24) against the Ravens in Baltimore.

Or maybe it was the drizzle, I don't know. Either way, it was like a light switch being flipped on.

So yesterday I sat down to write about it ... because this is the part of the game I think I might love the most, the part that sends me back to my keyboard year after year rekindled, refreshed and renewed; the escapism, the unselfconscious ritual, the breaking out of a familiar inner burgundy and gold tapestry and pulling it on lovingly, a favorite heavy sweatshirt against the first fall chill.

And so there I am, typing away ... until about halfway into paragraph two, when ...

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