Tennis Child

<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFCC00" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#FFFFFF" VLINK="#FFFFFF" ALINK="#FFFFFF"> <TABLE BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0> <TR><TD ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=455 height=14 ALT=""> </TD><TD ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP COLSPAN=41> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=450 height=14 ALT=""> </TD></TR> <TR><TD ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <TABLE WIDTH=455 BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0> <TR><TD WIDTH=455 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <TABLE WIDTH=455 HEIGHT=42 BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0> <TR><TD WIDTH=326 HEIGHT=42 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <TABLE WIDTH=326 HEIGHT=42 BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0> <TR><TD WIDTH=326 HEIGHT=42 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <img src="imgs/title.gif" width=326 height=39 ALT="TENNIS CHILD"> </TD></TR></TABLE> </TD><TD WIDTH=124 HEIGHT=42 ALIGN=RIGHT VALIGN=BOTTOM> <TABLE WIDTH=124 HEIGHT=42 BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0> <TR><TD WIDTH=124 HEIGHT=42 ALIGN=RIGHT VALIGN=BOTTOM> <A HREF="../../bios/highland.html" TARGET="_top"><img src="imgs/byline.gif" width=110 height=14 border=0 ALT="By C.E. Highland"></a> </TD></TR></TABLE> </TD></TR> <TR><TD WIDTH=450 HEIGHT=87 ALIGN=RIGHT VALIGN=TOP COLSPAN=2> <img src="imgs/caption.gif" width=301 height=67 VSPACE=10 ALT=""> </TD></TR></TABLE> </TD></TR></TABLE> </TD> <TD ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=45 height=97 ALT=""> </TD> <TD WIDTH=450 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <font size="3" FACE="HELVETICA,ARIAL"> I was contaminated by tennis. From age nine onwards, I grew up in Southern California's highly competitive junior tennis world with the goal, in my father's brain, being Wimbledon.<BR><BR> At twelve, I was traveling the circuit with my obligatory two racquets, my jug of iced tea, a towel and a few dirty wristbands. From Anaheim to Riverside, we roamed every weekend (and more in the summers); a station wagon full of three plump adolescent girls--my sisters and I--up to Bakersfield and back down to San Diego, including all the saint cities in between: Santa Barbara, Santa Monica, Santa Ana, Santa Clara, San Juan Capistrano. A different saint a week, said my mother, a harried people-pleaser who spent her life driving. Every stop had two things in common: tennis tournaments and rampant smog.<BR> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=450 height=1 ALT=""> </FONT> </TD> <TD ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=35 height=97 ALT=""> </TD> <TD WIDTH=450 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <font size="3" FACE="HELVETICA,ARIAL"> In Southern California, first degree smog alerts are a cause for concern. Sometimes, they'd cancel school, and the mayor or some radio announcer would suggest that it wasn't such a good idea to jog, or even stick your head out the window that day. But for competition-crazed dad, the show had to go on. What's a little smog? Some parents responded to these alerts by yanking their children from the court. Mine never did. Though my dad had three girls, his motto was what many men told their boys: "Don't be a sissy. Just play." It took a tournament committee to call matches off for the day before I could take a rest.<BR> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=450 height=1 ALT=""> </FONT> </TD> <TD ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=35 height=97 ALT=""> </TD> <TD WIDTH=450 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <font size="3" FACE="HELVETICA,ARIAL"> So, looking like a little bank robber with a bandanna over my face (and a parched throat and itching eyes to go with my racquets, wristbands and ice tea), I'd venture out to duel some other twelve-year-old girl to near death. Fifteen minute rallies--eighty shots back and forth--were not unheard of. Chrissie Evert was our model and baseline was our game. I quickly changed models. Ilie Nastase became my man and I started rushing the net. It's called serve and volley. Boys were taught to do this, not twelve-year old girls, but my son-less father was raising me as a boy, so I played like a boy. I went for winners down the line, passing shots, anything to get to that net, desperate to get the stupid match over quickly.<BR> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=450 height=1 ALT=""> </FONT> </TD> <TD ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=35 height=97 ALT=""> </TD> <TD WIDTH=450 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <font size="3" FACE="HELVETICA,ARIAL"> I was a fierce competitor and had a temper to show for it. I broke a lot of racquets. I'd get mad because I missed a backhand, so SLAM, I'd SMASH my racquet on the concrete. My dad said I was going through tennis racquets like candy bars, which was also an issue at the time (to my father's great consternation, I didn't have the lean physique of an adolescent boy). One time I was so mad, I smashed a racquet to pieces--the strings turned into spaghetti. Two minutes later, a string snapped on my second racquet. Well, that was that. Match over. I had to forfeit. My dad was furious and made me apologize to the girl's family because, in addition to the smashing, I had cussed a lot. Granted, I was a brat, but I was only imitating my idol Nastase. I felt so humiliated, though, at having to apologize to a stupid girl from Whittier (who was worse than me!) and her bald-headed dad.<BR> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=450 height=1 ALT=""> </FONT> </TD> <TD ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=35 height=97 ALT=""> </TD> <TD WIDTH=450 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <font size="3" FACE="HELVETICA,ARIAL"> I look back at this all, and I think the swearing and smashing at age twelve were signs of incipient rebellion. I really didn't want to be out on that court. I didn't want 6:30 a.m. call times on a Saturday mornings, when other kids were sleeping in until whenever and then eating pancakes for breakfast, and maybe taking the bus to the beach or going to a movie. I had done all of those things myself until I started playing tennis at age eight. Before tennis, I was a regular kid with a variety of normal kid interests: piano, gymnastics, ballet, friends. I think I was happy then.<BR> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=450 height=1 ALT=""> </FONT> </TD> <TD ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=35 height=97 ALT=""> </TD> <TD WIDTH=480 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <font size="3" FACE="HELVETICA,ARIAL"> Once I turned nine though, and Wimbledon became my father's mission for his three daughters, that life just disappeared--even church went out the window. My dad said going to church meant three hours of practice down the drain. Tennis became our family religion. My sisters and I were given marching orders to play after school each day and each weekend from 8 a.m. until after dark (unfortunately, there were lights). And my father oversaw and controlled everything. So for most of my youth, my daily life amounted to this: tournaments and training. Each day I was expected to jump rope 500 times, run at least two miles, hit hours of cross-court forehands, then cross-court backhands, serve baskets and baskets of balls, play at least two matches--plus tennis tournaments, tennis lessons, and the high school tennis team (I played with the varsity beginning in 7th grade.) Furthermore, my father demanded that my sisters and I play against each other and give an account to him each night at dinner. He thought this in-house competition was great. We were fortunate, he said, that we didn't have to set up matches with others, didn't have to rely on other people showing up, worry about them canceling, etc. We didn't need anybody, and that was dad's motto, endlessly repeated: "Don't count on anyone but yourself, because everyone will let you down."<BR> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=480 height=1 ALT=""> </FONT> </TD> <TD ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=35 height=97 ALT=""> </TD> <TD WIDTH=450 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <font size="3" FACE="HELVETICA,ARIAL"> In hindsight, I think that this was just sadism on my father's part. I mean, as if there wasn't enough competition and jealousy in a household of three girls--each a year and a half apart in age--my father thought we needed to play tennis against each other every day of the week! Dad talked a lot about competition and how great it was, but I think what he really wanted was to see blood. And he got what he wanted. At first, we played against each other, muttering loudly things like "I can't believe I'm losing to you! You suck!" Then the words became less about tennis and more personally abusive: "You are so gross and disgusting, you fat slob!" And worse, much worse.<BR> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=450 height=1 ALT=""> </FONT> </TD> <TD ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=35 height=97 ALT=""> </TD> <TD WIDTH=450 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <font size="3" FACE="HELVETICA,ARIAL"> After a few months of this, we stopped playing against each other altogether and just made up scores. As my older sister was the biggest and had the most vicious mouth, she usually got to win and score it how she wanted. My younger sister and I sat dutifully listening to the account at dinner. Dad was never a great conversationalist, but once tennis mania saturated our family, dinner with him became utter hell. Every discussion concerned who was best: who had the best backhand, the best topspin, the best second serve, the best forehand volley. Mind you, there was only one best (the rest were slugs), and no disagreement was permitted. Everyone else, including my mother, simply nodded their heads and sweated it out.<BR> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=450 height=1 ALT=""> </FONT> </TD> <TD ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=35 height=97 ALT=""> </TD> <TD WIDTH=450 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <font size="3" FACE="HELVETICA,ARIAL"> The most painful thing of all, though, was dad's obsession with "unforced errors." At every tournament, he played coach and compiled a long list of how many of my backhands went unnecessarily into the net; how many times I double faulted; how many first serves I missed and how many weak second serves I made (which usually led my opponent to hit a winner); how many easy volleys I hit into the net; how many of my forehands went long, and on and on and on. As if losing weren't enough, I had to hear the whole dismal account at dinner. And even if I won the match, I still had to swallow a somewhat shorter list. It's not surprising to me that at age thirty-one, those hateful words UNFORCED ERRORS still run through my head. No longer attached to tennis, I now apply them to everything: why I don't do well in a job interview; why the film I made isn't more successful; why a friend is no longer calling; but most of all, why my relationships with men don't work out.<BR> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=450 height=1 ALT=""> </FONT> </TD> <TD ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=35 height=97 ALT=""> </TD> <TD WIDTH=450 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <font size="3" FACE="HELVETICA,ARIAL"> After a recent failed romance, I itemized a long list of my unforced errors to bully myself with: if only I'd been more honest; if only I'd told him it bugged the shit out of me that he displayed the hundreds of letters from his ex-girlfriend on his bureau like a shrine; if only I hadn't acted like everything was okay when I was frustrated as hell; if only I'd listened to my dream in which the dress he gave me for Christmas shrank (which I took as a sign that he'd stopped giving, which he had.) If only, if only, if only. Even if someone cheats on me, I bully myself thinking that it's due to some error on my part. If only I were more beautiful, more fun, less somber, more crazy, less crazy, more loving, less self-involved, more self-involved, more calm, exuberant, peaceful, blah, blah, blah.<BR> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=450 height=1 ALT=""> </FONT> </TD> <TD ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=35 height=97 ALT=""> </TD> <TD WIDTH=450 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <font size="3" FACE="HELVETICA,ARIAL"> Most tennis-knowledgeable people will say that the game is primarily a mental one. What they mean is that once the strokes are down (after years of backhands and forehands and buckets and buckets of serves) and once you are in prime condition (after similar years of jumping rope, running and other hellish exercise)--after all that, tennis is mental because then it's all about mental stamina: the ability to focus and concentrate after two hours in 100 degree heat, or to be down a set and losing the second and still believe you can turn the match around. This may be true, but the most difficult mental part for a kid playing competitive tennis is dealing with the parents. I was not good at this. With my father scribbling away on his "unforced errors" list outside the fence, I would miss a shot, and my immediate thought was, "Shit. What's he gonna say about that one at dinner?" Riddled with fear and anxiety about losing, I began to play head games, telling myself that if I lost the first point, then I'd lose the match, and if I won it, then I'd win. I became superstitious. I'd see a woman in a red sweater and I'd think, "Okay if she turns and walks my way, then I'll win the next point." After a while, I think superstition became a game just to keep myself company out there on that lonely court.<BR> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=450 height=1 ALT=""> </FONT> </TD> <TD ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=35 height=97 ALT=""> </TD> <TD WIDTH=450 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <font size="3" FACE="HELVETICA,ARIAL"> Of course, things eventually fell apart. My sisters and I all grew angry with our father, but our anger manifested itself differently. My sisters turned theirs outward and the battleground became the tennis court. (Yes, dad played.) My older sister used to make him run from one end of the court to the other: a forehand in the right corner, then a backhand in the left, then a dropshot, then a lob. She might have been trying to kill him. I don't know. My father would huff and puff, while my sister remained calmly and coolly in control. On other occasions, if there was a hole in the fence, she'd turn him into a retriever by sending the ball through that hole every other point, thus forcing him go out of the court and get it. He almost died of irritation on a few occasions.<BR> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=450 height=1 ALT=""> </FONT> </TD> <TD ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=35 height=97 ALT=""> </TD> <TD WIDTH=450 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <font size="3" FACE="HELVETICA,ARIAL"> My younger sister took her aggression out more directly. She'd lure my father to the net with a not-so-difficult drop shot, and then go for the jugular. She'd hit the ball as hard as she could right at him. She nearly hit him right between the eyes a few times. If my father knew she was trying to blind him, he never let on.<BR> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=450 height=1 ALT=""> </FONT> </TD> <TD ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=35 height=97 ALT=""> </TD> <TD WIDTH=450 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <font size="3" FACE="HELVETICA,ARIAL"> My rebellion, however, took a different form--anorexia. I think I simply got tired; tired of being told what to do, tired of having tennis crammed down my throat. One night when I was sixteen, everything came to a head after my father told me to lose weight. He said if I were ten pounds thinner, I'd run better and be a better tennis player. I was angry and thought, "You want me to be thinner, I'll show you thinner, I'll even be thinner than you want me to be. I'll show you." And so I basically stopped eating. Within three months, I'd lost 35 pounds, weighed a wispy 95, stopped menstruating, and was even too weak to play tennis a lot of the time. I had knocked out everything from my diet: bread, sugar, milk, eggs, cheese, meat, butter--everything except broccoli, celery and apples. Starving myself was easy. I simply applied the same zeal, discipline and focus that I had put into tennis for the last seven years into food control. And the same competitive outlook.<BR> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=450 height=1 ALT=""> </FONT> </TD> <TD ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=35 height=97 ALT=""> </TD> <TD WIDTH=450 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <font size="3" FACE="HELVETICA,ARIAL"> For me, anorexia was really just another form of competition. I wanted to be the thinnest girl in the land. Like the Queen in Snow White, I was looking in the mirror and I was never satisfied. In a state of derangement (hunger will do that to you), I think I was telling my father, "You've been controlling me all these years, but you know what? You can't make me eat. I'm in control of my own fate, even if it is starving to death." So what was initially a healthy rebellion quickly became a disease because the only tools I had were control and competition. I merely replaced one disease with another and, unfortunately, the new disease was potentially lethal. I did get out of competitive tennis, though, when my condition led to a severe back injury. Playing with almost no fat and strained muscles, I tore all the ligaments across my back, and was out of commission for six months.<BR> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=450 height=1 ALT=""> </FONT> </TD> <TD ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=35 height=97 ALT=""> </TD> <TD WIDTH=450 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <font size="3" FACE="HELVETICA,ARIAL"> As for the anorexia, people often ask me how I got out of it, and I don't really know. I figure I just didn't get what I wanted--which ultimately must have been love and attention. "Hey, look at me," I was saying, "I'm starving, have I pleased you yet? Am I worthy of loving yet?" It didn't really work, because whereas teachers and my friends and their parents were aghast and worried about my well-being (and my state of mind), my parents, living with it on a day by day basis, didn't seem to notice, or simply didn't know how to deal with it, and so pretended it didn't exist. In fact, to this day, my mother tells me, "But you looked great then."<BR> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=450 height=1 ALT=""> </FONT> </TD> <TD ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=35 height=97 ALT=""> </TD> <TD WIDTH=450 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <font size="3" FACE="HELVETICA,ARIAL"> Needless to say, my sisters and I never made it to Wimbledon, to my father's great dissatisfaction. Today he views us as failures and, since the only connection we had to him was our tennis, there isn't much for us to talk about. He retains his expectations, though (now that I write and want to make movies, he hopes that I'll be the next Steven Spielberg). And he still believes in tennis. One hot day last spring, he called and I started talking about the fact that things weren't going so great for me (I was hating my life and my friends, and agonizing over a film that I had finished which had consumed two years and didn't get the 100% love response that I wanted). After listening to my long list of complaints, my father said maybe I should enter a tennis tournament. He thought it might make me feel better. I nearly threw the phone out the window. <BR><img src="imgs/space.gif" width=450 height=1 ALT=""> </FONT> </TD> <TD ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=35 height=97 ALT=""> </TD> <TD WIDTH=450 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <font size="3" FACE="HELVETICA,ARIAL"> But then, instead of telling him that that's the root of my problems--my high expectations for myself and everyone else, my perfectionism, my workaholism, my competitive high-strung personality--instead of telling him all this, I said, "Yeah maybe." <BR><img src="imgs/space.gif" width=450 height=1 ALT=""> </FONT> </TD> <TD ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=35 height=97 ALT=""> </TD> <TD WIDTH=450 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <font size=3 FACE="HELVETICA,ARIAL"> Having failed with his daughters, Dad has now turned his competition maniaon his dogs, Alberto Grande and Lily, two huge Great Pyrenees who tour theWest, picking up blue ribbons in various shows. But it seems thatcompetition is ruining even their relationship (Lily is Alberto's mother). Dad says Lily is down in the dumps because Alberto is winning more thanher. And to his great irritation, Lily, being a female, is in heat, andsimply isn't obeying as well as she should, which is one of the reasonswhy she is not winning more. I nearly laughed when I heard that. Nearly. <BR><img src="imgs/space.gif" width=450 height=1 ALT=""> </FONT> </TD> <TD ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=35 height=97 ALT=""> </TD> <TD ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <A HREF="../index.html><img border=0 SRC="../../icons/habitbak.gif" ALT="back to habit"></A> </TD> <TD WIDTH=100 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=100 height=1 ALT=""> </TD> </TR> <TR><TD ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP COLSPAN=42> <img src="imgs/space.gif" width=1 height=14 ALT=""> </TD> </TR> </TABLE> </BODY>