Gravity

An effective swing of the polo mallet requires a partnership with gravity. You can jerk it around, fight the natural process, but that wastes energy. I was gaining an appreciation for that in horse country. The afternoon light was remarkable, lighting the hills of Faquier County in emerald. The breeze was fresh and the humidity had broken and the smell of new-mown grass was intoxicating.

Hunter had dragged the gang lawn-mower array around the field behind someone’s borrowed Range Rover. A hundred thousand dollar car hauling a hundred dollar mowing rig. That is the way it is out there. High tech and low all in one place.

He swung his cut-down mallet and explained it to me. He was dismounted, a husky young man with a deep tan on his face and a wide grin. He was filled with life and North Carolina energy. He teaches polo, or at least the fundamentals of it, to the novice class on Saturday afternoons before the twilight matches of the masters teams at Great Meadow.

You can’t teach riding skills and the mechanics of the swing in one lesson, though some of the neophytes from Washington were wanting in the riding department. The ponies were patient, even when they got the occasional whack of the mallet on something tender. The stoic forbearance of the animals was quite remarkable, and the way a few of them responded to gifted riders was impressive. My friend had a good mount that accelerated off a tight turn, forelegs kicking out in anticipation.

Hunter was on foot, and his mallet was cut to the length of a golf club, so he could illustrate his teaching points to the riders with their regulation-length clubs.

“You need to let gravity do its job,” he said. “You don’t have to force it. You let the earth bring the mallet to the point behind the ball and then accelerate through it. No force. Natural.” He swished the grass in illustration, the mallet an extension of his arm, perfectly aligned.

I admire Hunter. He is a man who is attached to a way of life and not a particular patch of earth. He follows the horses and the season. He is up in Faquier County to ride and teach during the polo season. When the weather changes, he will load the trailer and follow the warm breezes south to the islands of wealth in Tobacco Country. He will trade horses and ride hard and teach those who want to play the game. He will drink beer at the end of the day and he will laugh. He has a multitude of skills, and he uses them all to live where the horses take him.

Not like me. I’m anchored like a barnacle to Washington , where the government does its business. I could live elsewhere, I suppose. There are those who live in the country and accept the pain of the commute fifty miles to the congestion of the city. I can’t do it. I like living close-in at Big Pink. If I could crack the financial issue of affording a gentle-person’s estate out in the green hills I would do it. I have my schemes.

But at the moment, the best I can do is accept the snarled roads on the weekends and stand in wonder at the beauty of horse country.

Tantilizingly close, and yet a world away.

When I got back the dusk was closing over the pool, and there was just time to infuriate Ted-the-Lifeguard, who thought he might get a few minutes dispensation at the end of his ten hour shift. No chance. I plunged into the water that was cool against the dying heat of the day.

I was out and toweling off when Iago walked up the walkway from the parking lot. He bought the efficiency unit next to me a couple months ago when The Kiwi moved out for digs closer to his embassy in the District. There was something about a failed relationship with the personal trainer, who lived next to me on the fifth floor, and it was a bit of a relief, frankly, since the New Zealanders partied loud and hard in the Spring when the windows were open and made me an unwilling party to their merriment.

Iago is a quiet man, and a busy one. He was coming back from Gold’s Gym, which he visits religiously. He takes dance and prepares for it with yoga. If he is wearing shorts and a wife-beater shirt, he could extend one leg and grasp it in his palm adjacent to his serene smile, and the muscles under the new ink of his wolf tattoo would flex smoothly, perfectly in balance, defying gravity.

Iago wouldn’t do that at the Senate, where he works for an influential Senator. He is one of those scary-smart young people who actually do the people’s work up there, brokering compromise and generating point papers. I like to quiz him on the issues of the day. Terrorism, of course, since he is a man who lives his beliefs and takes public transit from Big Pink down to Capitol Hill.

After the Madrid bombings I eschewed the Metro. I made exceptions for non-rush hours travel, but as a general rule, I prefer to die in the safety and comfort of my own vehicle. Iago is more of a fatalist in his approach, and trusts in a higher power to intervene. The second wave of bombings in London did not dissuade him, nor did the bombings at Sharm el Sheikh on the Red Sea . Big Pink could be as likely a target, since the murderous bastards have now made a specialty in slaughtering the non-combatants in the most accessible places. We have no Jersey barriers of adamant concrete, as they do downtown.

Something will happen here, sure enough, but that is not the issue of the moment. I asked Iago if they had got the nomination to the Supreme Court all squared away, since everyone is buzzing about Judge Roberts. I saw in the paper they were attacking his wife, as if she was going to be some sort of Clintonesque two-fer on the high bench.

Iago gave me his Cheshire Cat smile. “No,” he said. “There is much less excitement than you would think. When you get five point papers delivered within a half hour of the first leak of his name, you can rest assured that there are other people who are much more excited than we are.”

“So the public fight is a bigger deal than it is in the Senate?” I asked. “There seems to be a lot at stake for all sides.”

“This may be one of those things in which we have much more insight than the interest groups. My Senator is a Democrat, as you know. But when I worked for the Attorney General, we hired Roberts to argue a case for us. We were universally impressed with his rectitude and his intellect.”

“Did you sense any partisan agenda?” I asked.

Iago shook his head and shifted his gym bag. “I did not. Only a man with an outstanding legal mind and an unwavering moral compass. He is a devout Catholic, but that has never determined the outcome of a case before it was argued. You can’t say that about Clarence Thomas, or Scalia. Thomas is a second-rate mind, and Scalia is a very smart one who lacks the compass.”

“I heard both of them take desired outcomes and fit the precedence to make it happen. Scalia is a little more artful about it. O’Conner was a little like that, too.”

“Having worked around him, I do not think that Judge Roberts has that temperament. I think he is absolutely inviolate in his legal reasoning, regardless of his faith.”

I frowned, grappling with the process. “So, as a Democrat, you are telling me that Roberts could be one of the great ones? A fine legal mind tempered by devotion to some higher truth?”

“I’m afraid so. We don’t know what he will do on the Supreme Court, but as of the moment, I do not see anything that will derail the nomination, for good or for ill. Chairman Specter said confirmation hearings will be full, fair and complete. Which to me means an anti-climax unless someone finds a smoking gun.”

“That doesn’t seem likely, given the impeccable credentials and short public record on the appeals bench. Sounds like this will happen as sure as gravity.”

“Probably,” said Iago. “That is the way I see it now, anyway.”

“I guess we have to hope that gravity is our friend, then.”

“It is at least inexorable in its attraction.” He turned to go as the breeze made the green leaves dance, momentarily defying the pull of the earth.

Copyright 2005 Vic Socotra

www.vicsocotra.com

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