Over, under, back and forth

Last weekend, I played ping-pong for the first time in nearly four years.

I was attending a conference put on by the Travel Media Association of Canada. Although I’m not a member, they had asked me to speak on a panel about how to make money online. I thought I was an interesting choice—while I do make my (insanely lucrative) living from writing, only a small portion of it is from a) food and travel writing and b) food and travel writing online.

But I’m not one to turn down such a privileged opportunity and spent the day out at the impressive (though confusing to navigate) Richmond Oval, learning about press tour tipping etiquette and how to pitch to MSNBC.

At lunch, we were invited to use the facilities and the Oval people had even reserved a section of their converted speed-skating rink for us to try out their top-of-the-line ping-pong tables.  Out of a group of 60, only six of us took up the offer.

My last encounter with ping-pong was an unsettling one. It was the summer of 2007, and my friend Jeremy Schmidt, who plays keyboard in Black Mountain, had a table in his backyard. In what I now realize was some sort of a dream indie-rock fantasy ping-pong league, his friends Dan Bejar and Ted Bois, of the band Destroyer, along with a few other regulars, would often come over and play very competitively.

When I came around to this place after the table was set up, I asked to give it a try.

I played against Ted and effortlessly killed it. I couldn’t believe it. I did a victory dance and challenged the next player. Won that round too. I quickly concluded I had a natural gift. Here were a bunch of dudes who took ping-pong very seriously, and I managed to come in and beat them like it was no big thang. I clearly had a natural talent. One that I would boast about often to whichever man dared to take me on in ping-pong. I had found my calling in life.

The next summer I ran into Ted. I asked when the ping-pong table was coming out, so I could start creaming the shit out of them again.

“Oh, about that…”

Then Ted dropped a reality bomb on me. He told me that the whole summer all those guys had gone easy and let me win. Every single time.

“You were really cute when we let you win the first time,” he said. “Then you got so big headed, it was really hard to turn back. We didn’t know how to break it to you.”

I felt absolutely ridiculous. For once in my life, I truly thought I had found my calling. The one thing that I was naturally good at, that I felt no shame in gloating about, was all in my head. I had overvalued my apparently non-existent abilities, to the point of delusion.

I stopped playing completely, until last weekend at the Oval. I decided to give it another go, without the intention of kicking ass. Instead, I used the time to chat with the other players/conference goers. We took it easy and had a pleasant and strangely therapeutic rhythm going. Both with the ping-pong ball and the banter. It was really satisfying.

The panel I was on closed up the afternoon. I sat at a long desk next to three other speakers, all of whom were way more ahead of me in their careers as travel writers. The day before the conference, I had a chat with a friend/former editor about what I should talk about. She mentioned a discussion we’d had a while back where we both concluded that I should stop writing for her website. The steps involved were timely for me and I felt that it was too steep of a learning curve, compared to my other gigs. In turn, she was spending a lot of her time fixing my mistakes. It just didn’t seem worth it to either of us. What I was surprised to hear was that she interpreted our mutual break up as me valuing my worth as a writer, whereas I saw it as me simply being slow and incompetent.

When I was given my five minutes to speak on the panel, I talked about how most of my writing gigs are based on solid relationships that were built on synergy, mutual respect and clear communication. Then I shared the anecdote about not undervaluing yourself as a writer. Then spent the rest of the panel, inside my head, undervaluing myself as a panelist.

I listened to the other speakers command the room with funny, confident, straight-forward advice and insight. Some points I came away with: Don’t expect to make a lot of money solely on travel writing. Have a goal. Timing and luck are pretty much everything. Know people who are connected.

I looked into the audience and wondered how many of them were questioning why I was up there. I went through all my credentials in my head, and the insight I’d provided, and how obvious it was and how I probably wasn’t adding much to this panel but at least I wore makeup and a pretty sweater.

This went on for about an hour. Me, facing the audience, in my head, not contributing.

That night I went home, sat on my couch and thought about my day.

Being on a panel was on my list of things I had hoped to accomplish in my writing career. Despite my insecurities, I had come away from it with a surprising amount of knowledge and insight.  I certainly hadn’t come away feeling like I did when I “won” my first ping-pong match. Being a panelist didn’t come naturally to me and luckily, I was self-aware enough to realize that. Then I thought about my time that afternoon at the ping-pong tables. I wasn’t in it to win it. I was there to have fun, chat with others like me, and try something different.

And though it didn’t feel quite as good as I imagine it would feel to be a God-given motherfucking superstar champion, it still felt all right.

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