Pickleball

Michael Bettencourt | Scene4 Magazine

Michael Bettencourt

The Marvelous Mar铆a Beatriz has found pickleball.

Which means that I have to, in some way, find pickleball as well, which I do not want to find. (Luckily, I am recovering from a left groin pull suffered while going for a shot I had no business going for, so I am absolved of the search for the moment.)

It's not a bad game, a scaled-down version of tennis and racquetball (or a scaled-up version of table tennis), perfectly sized and geared for an aging boomer generation. It certainly draws people out of their chairs and funks to flex rickety joints and charge undercharged hearts and lungs – all to the good.

The MMB also loves the camaraderie of the court, the community that gathers, if only briefly, to share and laugh, the occasional real friendships that bloom out of chance encounters with strangers.

But something about it just doesn't draw me in. Perhaps it's a leftover resistance from a childhood in the sixties to a movement that, politically, has caused many problems for many communities. Or perhaps it is a touch of Groucho Marx (not wanting to be part of club that would have me as a member) or a touch of Thoreau (beware of enterprises that require new clothes – and shoes and a proper racquet and so on).

But really, I think I don't want to accept the "out" from aging that pickleball offers. Here is a game that won't tax you too much either physically or mentally, offers your senior self a simulacrum of your mobile younger self to soothe your fear of death, and buys into the growing market for healthy aging that demands that 80 be the new 60 and you better get on board with getting younger as you get older.

I really don't mind aging. Yeah, the aches and gripes are not a barrel of monkeys, but I find something grounding in dealing with them, and the way I have to adjust tempos to fit what the body can and cannot do is the gift of a deeper self-awareness and, more importantly, a more loving self-acceptance: this is it, buddy, until you reach the end zone, so make it work.

Perhaps pickleball can be a part of that, but not the pickleball of the courts. The MMB recently purchased half a pickleball net (one half the width of the standard 20-foot width of a regular court). We can set this up in the driveway and practice short shots, dinks and lobs, and backhands. I love doing that with her because it's just for fun with no tinct of competition, and we can lob and whack chip and drive without any fear of consequence or judgment. Sharing that with her is sharing life with her, and I am all on board with that.

So far, the injury is still keeping me off the court though it doesn't slow me down when we're in the driveway – funny thing about that, how the body opts for gentle sharing over the test of a game, with a gin and tonic on the side for refreshment and the last lob perfectly placed as the sun goes down on the house and life we've made for ourselves.

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 June 2025

 

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Michael Bettencourt is an essayist and a playwright.
He is a Senior Writer and columnist for Scene4.
Continued thanks to his "prime mate"
and wife, Mar铆a-Beatriz.
For more of his columns, articles, and media,
check the Archives.

©2025 Michael Bettencourt
©2025 Publication Scene4 Magazine

 

 

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 June 2025

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