It’s like a minor-key accompaniment to the modern American condition of not knowing what to do with yourself when not working: The Olympics are over. Now what?
The gratitude toward the Games from this quarter has to do not with abundant displays of sportsmanship or the emotional highs and lows of triumph and failure on the biggest stage there is, but with the simple act of drawing a family together to watch.
Who would have predicted that the atomized age of smartphone addiction and isolation would have so redeemed the old boob tube? That the idiot box could be such a force for cohesion?
Come school vacation time, any vacation time at all, your friendly neighborhood columnist can pitiably dream of invoking the spirits of long-dead grandparents by way of a game of hearts around the kitchen table — suitably outfitted with coasters and glasses of ginger ale and a bowl of pretzels — but between boyfriends and girlfriends, other friends and keeping up with phones, it never seems to come together.
Put the Olympics on the screen, however, and it’s like old home week, like gathering round a crackling fireplace, attention focused together in one direction, with comments and conversation.
My daughters instantly perked up with interest. And not solely for the sake of the Queen of Perk, the tiger-striped Alysa Liu, though she certainly deserves all the attention and off-the-charts accolades as our new national hero and poster child for mental health and happiness.
“I like your earrings,” she made a point of saying, barely picked up by the mic, to an aged presenter early in the competition as her team skating gold medal was draped around her neck.
She was even a quick study in handling the same dumb interview questions over and over again. Although Rebecca Lowe in the NBC Sports studio in Milan stood out as not dumb at all, and clearly taken with the 20-year-old’s modesty and levelheadedness.
“I’m going to be doing more interviews, I fear,” Liu said, chuckling, of her post-skate schedule. When she was done, the off-screen crew broke into applause.
It was almost like the media herd was being introduced to a curious subspecies that had long ago gone into hiding, the cool kid in school who flies under the radar and does her own thing and is effortlessly kind to even the outcasts, but in this case happens to be the most talented female figure skater in the world.
“That’s what I’m fucking talking about!” she shouted into the camera, pounding the padded wall as she exited the ice having won individual gold.
If only that exuberance could be captured in a bottle. While you’re at it, save me a helping of family time to take it in.