Monday, July 6
Woods, 10:11
Sometimes photographing nothing reveals more about something than you might expect.
Every summer we hear the thwak-thwak of tennis balls from the single tennis court just inside the woods. The court runs as a club and for a couple of years we joined it.
This summer I have heard nothing. As I walk home I take a brief detour to explore, and I see this.
I see nothing: no net, no lines, no sign of recent maintenance. Has the club finally reached the end of its life?
This would not completely surprise me. I suspect it has continued only as long as the founders continued to live in Vartiokylä. I rather think that it never managed to replace the original members with equally keen newcomers, as the original members died or moved on.
Although I have not used it all for years I still, for some reason, find it a shame that it appears to have faded away. I would rather the facility existed than didn’t.
Perhaps I should offer to join/restart the committee. Except that I don’t want to sit on a committee and I don’t want to play tennis. I just want to hear the thwak-thwak of tennis balls.
That attitude, one might say, explains the reason that the tennis club doesn’t appear to exist anymore.