I had such an epiphany last Saturday watching the Saigon Heat game. This sentence has been in my mind till now, and I know that I need to write it out, otherwise it will loop in my mind till I write it down.

Saigon Heat is the first Basketball team in Saigon, I had the privilege to watch them play the first game when I was “kinda” dating anh Hieu, because he was working for the venture capital that setup this Basketball game. We got free ticket all the time to go, it was great fun.

I have a special relationship with Basketball. Well, I had a relationship with a person who has a relationship with Basketball. My first serious boyfriend, Marlon, is a Filipino and a very good basketball player. I’m not so sure if he was a good basketball player or not because I didn’t pay any attention anytime I was at the court with him. Sitting on the bench watching the Saigon Heat game last Saturday, I tried so hard to recall the memory of that time but I just couldn’t. During that two years, I went to countless game, watching him play but I was never there. Truth is I didn’t even know the rule of the game till now. The dreamy girl would say: You were so in love with your boy, that you could not see anything. It was not my case, at all. Actually, I don’t know what my case was, all I know is that after 2 years of watching countless games, I still don’t know the rules or how many rounds are there in a games. Not sure if it’s called rounds or games. That’s I think is the best example of what ignorance is.

So on Saturday, I was sitting on the bench with my legs crossed like a big boss. I came from a girl watching her boyfriend played, then a girl of an organizer and that day, I’m sponsoring the game. That’s a bit far fetch. I was sitting there, and flash of memory just kept coming back to me.

The last time I was sitting on this bench, I was about same age with the players, now I’m their mother’s age. I came with a different set of ears, a different set of eyes and a whole soul. I was able to move fluidly from the observer to the player.

Sports stadium is not so much different from an Opera house, the players are just as same as musicians and lastly, the sports fanatics is not so far from the music lovers. A sports game belong to both the fans and the players, as much as the musicians and the listener share the same stage. It felt as if time doesn’t exist in these spaces. It felt as if we were running faster than time. I guess this is why people including me enjoying going to be the participant, because we were break free from time.

I was travelling on so many different level of time on that day, the time when I was younger, and more naive, to the me today that might be a bit wiser. I was also travelling from to micro seconds when the ball was almost touching the basket. I was in awe of the awesomeness of the world. I was in love with life, and with the experience that I was being able to feel in this lifetime.

I was experiencing the epiphany of life, old but so new. I wish that I have more words to describe the thing that I see and observe, but there are things in life that we cannot use words. Like music is not a language, it’s more than a language, it’s an experience.

Some of us have lovers that we can love only under certain moons
and that’s okay
some of us are waiting for others with uncertain blooms
and that’s okay
some of us are creating, making and shaping rooms
to make room for us