2016/08/17

Mini Golfing


Mini golf is the great equaliser: no one is good at it and everyone is bad. It breaks the tension, diverts the focus, creates a third entity. A few years ago when facing a difficult conversation, I received advice to approach it as a story outside us both.

"So, hypothetically, the knight is really trying to help the fair maiden, but he now sees why the maiden could have misunderstood his motives. If the fair maiden discovered his true intentions, how do you think she would respond?"

Tension between two poles is broken when the third entity is introduced, not by distracting from the pressure, but by creating a common ground to focus on issues that actually matter. One person's hobby or a coffee shoppe the other frequents would never suffice as well. Mini golfing can be such a common ground, outside the norm of both characters, a tie-breaker, if you will. And I will.

The short clubs and multi-coloured dimpled spheres are tools of restoration, even in the uncertainty that there ever was an ideal state to restore to. Hole after hole, goofy strokes and green carpet sloping wickedly toward water. A hole-in-six feels just as good as a hole-in-one with new-found old friends. Uncertain expectations give way to a little thing we call Hope.

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