On being … a reminder about perspective

By Ingrid Sapona 

I took up lawn bowling this summer. Besides being fun, it’s reminded me of a few life lessons I hadn’t focused on in a long time. 

Lawn bowling is played on a grass field that’s divided into “rinks” that are 14 feet wide by about 120 feet long. The balls (known as bowls) weigh 2-3 pounds and are about the size of a large grapefruit. They’re round, but they have a “bias”, which means they’re slightly weighted toward one side. As a result, when you roll a bowl, it curves a bit. The other key piece of equipment is a little white marker ball called the Jack; it’s about the size of a billiard ball, but a bit heavier. At the start of each end of play, a player rolls the Jack to the far end of the rink. The object of the game is basically for your team to end up with more bowls closer to the Jack than your opponents’ bowls. 

The skipper of each team stands at the far end, near the Jack. Teams take turns rolling their bowls. Before each roll, your skipper tells you whether they’d like you to aim for the Jack or try to knock out an opponent’s bowl. After you roll, your skipper signals how far your bowl is from the Jack. This information is meant to help you gauge how hard to roll your next bowl. If your previous bowl ended up in front of the Jack, you didn’t give it enough oomph and if it’s way behind, you should go easier on the next one. After each team has rolled all their bowls, the score for the end is determined. Games vary in length from 10-12 ends. 

When I started playing, I found it odd that after I bowled, my skipper signaled to me where my bowl ended up in relation to the Jack. My distance vision is good and unless there’s a bowl that’s directly in front of the Jack, I can see where my bowl ended up in relation to the Jack and to other bowls near by. Even odder was that when my skipper signaled the distance, I often couldn’t believe what they were saying versus what it looked like to me. I wondered if they were exaggerating the distance because I’m new. Maybe they thought I’d work harder at honing my bowling if they said my bowls were more off than I thought they were. 

Curious, I started paying closer attention to other bowlers’ shots and the distance the skippers signaled to them. Most of the time, regardless of who bowled, the skippers’ signals seemed way off from what it looked like to me from the far end of the rink. That made me feel better about my own bowling, but it had me wondering about my depth perception.

The skippers bowl last. When it’s their turn, those who have bowled swap places with the skippers. This provides an up-close opportunity to see where the bowls are in relation to the Jack and to each other. I’m usually quite surprised about which bowl is closest to the Jack – and how ones I’d swear are just a foot or so apart are actually not that close to each other. 

I found it so disconcerting that my perception of where the bowls land could be so off, I began asking fellow players how different arrays of bowls looked to them. I was reassured when I found that, from the vantage of 120 feet out, most of us agreed about the placement of the bowls vis-à-vis each other. That said, everyone is also quick to point out that things can look very different from far away than they might look when you get up close. (I guess that’s why the skippers stand at the Jack end – so they have a better view of the actual positioning of the array.) And, I’ve also noticed it that even when a group of bowlers are standing right over the Jack, there may still be disagreement about which bowl is closest. Thankfully, in those cases, there’s a straightforward way to settle the matter: a neutral arbiter – a tape measure! 

Now when I look down the field to get a sense of what’s what, I remind myself that what one sees is very much dependent on where you’re standing. And, before coming to a conclusion, you should take a closer look. While these insights clearly are applicable to lawn bowling, I kind of think they have a wider application … especially during these turbulent times. 

© 2025 Ingrid Sapona