Ardor

It's that time of year

“Selbstbildnis Mit Sportmütze” (1923), Albin Egger-Lienz

Early Thursday morning, I listened to people talk about it on a podcast.

All week long, I listened to announcers talk about it on the radio while I worked.

Lunchtime or at night, I read newsletters, caught up on social media, YouTube, I texted with friends who were similarly enthused.

Twice, late afternoons, I even got to go out and do it for a couple hours.

This time of year, between the French Open and Wimbledon, it’s pretty easy as a tennis fan to live a life that’s all sport, all the time. Add on top the new Rafael Nadal series on Netflix—wow, Uncle Toni was rough—and Tuesday night I found myself sitting on the couch, tearing up. Not because of the documentary, it’s only okay, I just felt a smack of gratitude for the whole thing, getting to move through such tangible pleasure all week.

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Why the ardor, and what is ardor anyway?

It’s more than like, less than love. Something that can get stirred up. In my case, for tennis, it’s tied to how many ways I’ve found to enjoy it, and how the more ways I’ve layered in, the liking grows.

It’s fandom, too. Though a kind where you actually do the thing, also admire and study the thing, such that when you watch others do the thing magnificently, sublimely, you know enough about what makes their performance magnificent in order to feel yourself into their kinetics, even if you could never reproduce it yourself (much as you try).

Musician friends describe a similar appreciation: practice, admiration, addiction. And I know people who love other sports—basketball, golf—and play on a basic level while also tracking the pro tours closely, who sense a similar compass.

Is it beautiful? I think so. Beauty emerging when a human body does precise, balletic things. Which perhaps makes the act of being in an informed crowd to admire it, to talk about why and how it works, into a special kind of group consciousness. Not just ardor, but shared ardor. Crowd love. Perhaps the same for film nerds who go to the movies together, or Bravo diehards doing Summer House watch parties: a group of bodies pulled along by some moving thing’s gravity.

The French Open wraps up this weekend. At some point between sets, between points, I’ll remember my mother once taking me to hit on a court when I was in sixth grade. The court was on the grounds of my public middle school. We played for half an hour, maybe less. Cracked asphalt, a ratty net, ringed by metal fencing. My mom was the one who previously enrolled me in a couple summer camps, some tennis clinics after school—I’d quit in favor of skateboarding, and I wouldn’t take it up again until my late twenties. But I remember she told me that day, driving home from the court, I’d appreciate tennis someday because “it’s a sport for a lifetime.”

I didn’t know what she meant back then, but now I do.

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What the what

“Meditations in an Emergency” is a weekly essay from author Rosecrans Baldwin about something beautiful. Paying subscribers receive a Sunday supplement with three-plus things to love, plus a monthly travel-lust ballyhoo.

Rosecrans is a correspondent for GQ, a contributor at Travel + Leisure, and the bestselling author of Everything Now, winner of the California Book Award. Other books include The Last Kid Left and Paris, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down. His debut novel, You Lost Me There, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice.

For magazine articles, bio, contact info: rosecransbaldwin.com.

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