Dumb question, right? You would say, gosh, Carol, nobody, if you put it like that. But what are we talking about? Defeat is the flipside of success, and both defy definition. After you've seen both sides and all points in between, what does winning or losing, defeat or success, have to do with anything?
Speaking of winning and losing, yesterday I stood outside the chain link fence at the Rillito Race Track, twenty feet from thundering hooves. What a unique way to spend a Saturday afternoon, standing in the blazing sun trying to get my phone camera to focus through a chain link fence. A big dude in a sweatshirt trotted by just inside the track as the horses were going down to the gate. He saw me and yelled, "Miss, no cameras." As if I were a person who knew how to use a smartphone camera. Jeez. I should be so lucky.
Each thirty-second quarter-mile race is followed by thirty minutes of track grooming by a fleet of noisy trucks towing farm implements, so it's a long wait between races. I wilted after one race. As I baked and tried to get my camera to focus, I wondered how many of the racegoers were betting? I had no idea. I never heard loud cheers or groans from the stands, and leisurely racegoers in blue jeans and cowboy boots seemed to arrive and depart at all points during the half hour I stood there, as if winning or losing or even watching the track didn't matter. Maybe they came for the hotdogs, popcorn, and Mariachi music.
The race track published the results of the first race day on their website. March 12. Temperature: 75°F. Track condition: Fast. Two horses were in the doghouse: Izanami veered in sharply after the start, jumping the inner rail and losing its rider, and Zinmagic shot the backside gap and unseated its rider. The stalwart stewards of the track reviewed the race and decided each horse caused its own problem and placed both horses on the Stewards’ List. Not sure what that meant. Probation, probably. One step from pony detention.
Today I walked 2.5 miles along the bike path to the sun circle. It's a Stone Henge kind of structure, surrounded by scrubby desert trees, prairie dog holes, and housing developments. There was no sun at the sun circle. We seem to be stuck in a cloudy, cool, windy pattern. However, to make up for the lack of sunshine, there was a man named Ken, who was resting on one of the brick seats next to his fat-wheeled bicycle. He saw me and launched into a story about the soltices and how the light comes through openings in the standing brick columns and shines across the circle onto columns on the opposite side. I rested my legs and listened to my new friend natter about sunlight, wishing we had a little more sun and a little less wind, and when he started telling me about his parents and their high school yearbook picture, I took my leave and walked the 2.5 miles back to the trailer.
Is it really complete defeat? I think just continuing to publish this blog means I have not given up. This blog is my Kilroy was here, my lifted leg, as it were. This blog is my modest contribution to the zeitgeist of existential angst over bank meltdowns, too much snow, and not enough civility. Yes, I read the news. If I had more money, I might actually care. Meaning if I had more to lose, if I had more skin in the game. However, I rarely rant about anything beyond my all-encompassing preoccupation with self. I'm in a closed loop of fretfulness. My main fear these days is that my brain is permanently broken and nowhere on the planet will the barometric pressure be stable enough restore balance to my inner ears.
Am I winning or losing or somewhere in between? Is it possible to know?
On a geological scale, we are all losers. Blip, and we're gone. Who cares? People in the future will not know most of us existed, except in aggregate, nor will they care. They won't know you, they won't know me. They won't miss us at all. However, on a spermatozoamaniacal scale, we are all winners. After all, we are here. The proof is in the pudding. And there's no denying somebody is pooping in the bed, and I'm pretty sure it's all of us.
Now is it time to admit complete defeat?
