Kim Addonizio isn’t sure if it’s been three or even five years since she last hit a tennis ball. But on this spring afternoon in Berkeley, Calif., you can see in one minute that she has been taught to play tennis properly. There’s a graceful turn of hips and shoulders, racquet ready to smoothly shape the swing. When a looping topspin drive arcs her way, Kim adjusts, finds the proper spacing, and drives the ball deep. Though she’s rarely played tournaments, tennis is in Kim’s blood. “I just feel good when I’m around a tennis court,” she says.
Kim’s return to tennis is happening at the Berkeley Tennis Club, a Northern California venue just under two miles from her home in Oakland. Hall of Famers Helen Wills, Don Budge, and Billie Jean King are among the notables who have played there frequently. Only later will Kim learn that her mother, Pauline Betz, also competed there several times. No wonder Kim has such fine strokes. You might too if the only time your mother played Wimbledon, she won it.
Fuzzy and vague are words that best describe how we come to understand the lives of our parents. Scattered conversations, forgotten amid the tangle of daily activities. Faded black-and-white photos. Disparate, undocumented, inaccurate memories. The picture is impossible to complete, distant in time, children and parents often more eager to move forward than look back. It’s also usually highly private, distant from public history, perhaps even more so for a generation of mothers who primarily devoted themselves to matters of family over generating headlines.