Last weekend, I was able to do something I enjoy that I haven’t done in a year and a half. For those of you who have navigated to the attorneys page on our website and read our bios, you may have noticed that I list three sports that I play. This post is about one of them—curling.

Curling has always been my favorite sport to watch in the Winter Olympics. The combination of strategy and precise execution drew me in even as a child. The finer points of why they swept the ice or yelled so much eluded me, but these provide atmospherics if nothing else. I probably could have tried the sport while I lived in Boston, but the thought didn’t even cross my mind and that town is more into its hockey anyway. In DC, I didn’t have a car and so couldn’t easily get to the curling club out in the Virginia suburbs. When I moved to Charlotte, I finally had the opportunity to play. I attended a learn-to-curl event and became a club member that evening.

I eased into the sport only playing a single league during the fall but signed up for two leagues in the spring. In the fall I was the lead on a four-person team, so I got a lot of practice throwing the same shot over and over again (since I threw the first two of the eight rocks my team threw each end) and then even more practice sweeping my teammates’ rocks. It felt like an apprenticeship. In the spring I was the lead on a three-person team so I threw three rocks instead of two and I also played doubles, a different form of the game that requires different and more challenging shots to be successful and that I enjoy more. We may not have been the best doubles team in the league, but we weren’t the worst either. We also had more fun than anyone else, always trying the high-risk-high-reward shots and with an age difference of at least thirty years. The spring season was cut short by lockdowns, just as I was finding my rhythm and improving.

Now I am in a new city with a new curling club, a different schedule, different people, and a slightly longer commute. I have signed up for two leagues this fall and am eager for the season to start. It felt great to be competing again on Saturday, even if it was just a pickup game where everyone was trying to shake off the rust and the real competition was against the expectations I set for myself. Winning wasn’t bad either. Being on the ice again felt like another big step on the road back to a new normal, even if there have been some setbacks in recent weeks. So no exhortation from me this week, no connection drawn between something I saw and something I read. Nope, just some positive news that I was able to do something again that I enjoy and had missed. And if you ever get the chance, give curling a try. Almost anyone can play and it is a lot of fun once you learn the basics.