Remember when you learned to play baseball? I do. At the beginning baseball was my only option. There were no girl teams until I was older. No matter. The revelation to me was learning how to hit the ball – to connect.

The first time I did it by accident. It was an eye-widening, giddy moment. The coached yelled at me as I rounded the bases – “Remember!” he yelled, “remember that feeling!”

At my next at bat I tried to find it again. The vibration in my arms, the open sky feeling in my chest. My body looked for that feeling – the passageway to connection.

Of course, I had to swing and swing to find it again.

That’s what I’m looking for now. That feeling when you connect. There’s almost a perfect stillness before it happens. A quiet that portends success. And then after hours in the batting cages and several at bats, without any thought, your body just knows what to do.

You swing and you make contact with a force that wants to pull you off your feet. You follow through and let the bat fall from your hands as the perfect clang of an aluminum bat (hey this was little league) hangs in the air and the ball rises so high and travels so fast you think you imagined it.

Then you celebrate – your body free, you run, you dance around the bases.

I remember that feeling. Which means I can find it again.

I am in the batter’s box. Waiting for the pitch.