badminton nom i played badminton with my sister in the alley last night 070525 ... raze i don't think i ever got any good at it. the plastic projectile i was meant to strike was such a bird-like thing. i always wanted to throw my racket down and watch it go about its business. the net must still be around here somewhere, tangled up in some other half-hidden memory. 250318 ... ovenbird After dinner the kids go down to the lawn to play badminton with their grandad. I sit on the upper deck with my mother-in-law and listen to them laugh and chase the birdie while my dog cries because he wants to eat that shuttlecock more than he’s wanted to do anything in his life. My mother-in-law relates. Her back has been bothering her. She wants to run around too and I can see the frustration she’s burying, the pain she’s refusing to show. The kids wear their grandfather out and he has to take a couple of breaks. I forget, sometimes, that he’s in his 80s. I tell my mind to get out the brushes and paint. I tell it to let this scene run through me—wet-in-wet, watercolour spreading out all over my memory’s pages. There’s going to be a last time and that last time isn’t far away. There will be a day when they play in this yard not knowing that they will never do it again. They will put away the rackets and fold up the net and those things will stay buried in a musty pile in the basement and we’ll have to clear it all out when it becomes our job to empty the house and sell it and watch it torn to rubble. My mother-in-law holds an unread book in her lap. I hold my fidgety dog in mine. My son is going into his second year of high school in September. How long will he want to play badminton with his grandfather? How long will he be willing to help pick the rhubarb and beg his grandmother for tacos for dinner? I sip a tea that’s gone mostly cold and my daughter laughs when the birdie bounces off her head. Don’t let this be the last time, I say to myself. I’m not ready yet. 260615 what's it to you? who go blather from