Romeo was aspirational. He saw others achieve greatness. He participated in things that made him feel worthy. He aspired to be great.
When he watched others do the things he wanted to do, he saw what level of talent they had. He wondered, were they born with this? He knew how awkward it felt when he would swing his own bat. He would hit the ball sometimes, but not always. When he watched the others, he would see such power and grace. He would see such effortless beauty in their swing, and the ball would pop off the bat like a marshmallow. But when he swung at the ball, it sounded like a brick, and the bat felt more like a club.
His father would tell him silly things like, “your habits determine your future,” or other bullshit he would read in self-help books. But Romeo knew better. He knew that these other kids must have been offered something different for breakfast, or taken a magic pill. What of it? How would he access the magic, he thought?
One day on a walk home from school, he caught a glimpse of the varsity team taking batting practice. These kids looked like giants of mythic proportion. Their coach’s “soft toss” was like a laser beam. When the players would swing at the ball, it was as if the game bent toward them, striking the ball like a star in the night sky. The motion was poetry-a symphony. It brought tears of wonder to his heart.
The texture of the sidewalk quickly brought him back to his reality. Walking home, head low, deep in thought, he told himself that he would access their secret. But how? Was there someone he could talk to? Internet searches brought up nothing, he was left to his own devices still. He would do anything to have what they had. He convinced himself that life was split in two: those who held the magic, and those who yearned for it. He had decided that what they had could not be taught, and he would sell his soul to the devil for it.
What Romeo could not let himself see was that the magic lived in the boring. He could not hear the 10,000 hours of “cracks” in the early morning hours within his neighborhood. He would not let himself understand that boring is beautiful, and that grace is learned through clumsiness. The truth was trying to reveal itself through the veil of ignorance. The magic was not a pill or breakfast, but in the thousands of swings that feel like clubs, until they don’t. It was in the thousands of invisible habits that make a swing look like music, and make hits sound less like bricks, and more like bells.
Nardis Prose 
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