comeback kids

Without cliches, sports would just be another endeavor for me to watch on television--the Almighty.

Americans love comebacks. And they seem to be everywhere. The Tour of California is marking the comeback of Lance, Flance (Floyd Landis), Tyler Hamiliton, and Ivan Basso. The Oscars are marking the comeback of Mickey Rourke, Meryl Streep (she hasn't won an Oscar in 16 years, and Robert Downey Jr. Richard Jenkins (he's never even been nominated before this year) marks a comeback variant just by being in a place he's never been before after 40 years in the craft. Next week golf marks the comeback of Tiger Woods. Bruce Springsteen is trying once again to be the Boss. Congress is marking its own brand of comeback, that of passing bills by Democrats and trying to get the country to work together once again, although the jury still seems to be out on this one.

Hope? Change? It was no accident those shibboleths drove the election juggernaut in a different direction. They worked because we identify with the comeback. Comeback marks familiarity, but one slightly redefined so as to suggest renewal. A comeback is not an overthrow of the status quo, it's an affirmation. We demanded our own comeback last November. And change came. Or at least we hope it will.

We are all in a state of comeback. We are coming back from defeat. Or victory. We are coming back from injury - mental and physical. We are coming back from growing old, or older, or losing the magic touch, the mojo, the magic. We are coming back from lovers - those lost, those gained, and those imagined.

Lent begins on Wednesday. A period sacrifice so that we can mark a comeback. I'd say it's time, isn't it? Time for a comeback.