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    • Basketball and Icarus

      “Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew…
      I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell, but just coming to the end of his triumph.”
      – Jack Gilbert, Failing and Flying

      Last night I watched the last regular season basketball game of my son’s career. With four teams bunched up in the standings with the same conference record at the start of the game, there was a lot to play for, the winner of this game would move on to the playoffs, the loser would go home.  A similar reality was playing out in gyms in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Maine.  This was the end of some players’ triumph.

      As a parent you think maybe your kid will make the travel basketball team.  If they have some skills you think they may make their High School team, and play AAU ball on a team with good coaching.  And in the back of your mind you calculate the odds of your kid playing in college.  For the record, the odds of a High School basketball player playing in an NCAA college basketball program – that’s Division I, II and III, is 3.4%.  So for the thousands of kids playing basketball and rising through the ranks, only a very small percentage actually play in college.  Crazy small odds when you think of it.

      For my son, basketball was an obvious choice.  He’s always been a head taller than everyone else, he’s always been athletic and he’s very “coachable”.  He’s never been the leading scorer on any team after Middle School, but has always been a leader on the court and a strong defensive presence.  I’m slightly biased, but the team seems better when he’s on the court most of the time.  He had one hurdle that limited him; he had a tendency to pass up shots and open lanes and pass the ball instead.  In a game that’s played more and more at the perimeter, centers are less prioritized than they once were on the offensive end.  But put him on the defensive end and watch him shine.  He’s in the top five in blocks in the conference playing a third of the minutes of the others on the list.

      He grew up playing ball in the Merrimack Valley in Massachusetts.  The Merrimack Valley is a mix of tough city kids and suburban kids.  When you play in the Merrimack Valley you quickly grow a thick skin or you fade away.  I’ve watched a lot of wild college games with hostile home crowds, but I’d put an Andover-Central Catholic or Lawrence-Lowell game up against most college games for level of intensity and the passion of the crowd.  Basketball players are either baked or burned in this environment, and college coaches know it.  Recruiters started talking to my son and many other players during fall league games at “The Barn” in North Andover during fall ball games, and would pop up at games throughout the rest of the season.  College recruiting is a game in itself, and you feel both honored and at times bewildered by the experience.  Where’s the best fit?  Will he actually play there or are they stacking players?

      The best advice we ever heard was to choose the college first and the program second.  If your child doesn’t love the school, they won’t want to stay there.  If they don’t love the program they can still stay at the school and get a degree.  When you get a school they love with a program they like, playing with teammates they love, that’s the best scenario. And that’s where we found ourselves over the last four years.  It carried our son through major injuries and a change in playing philosophy in the program that emphasized shooters on the perimeter over big guys in the paint.  He loved his school, loved his teammates, and respected the program and stuck with it.  No regrets.  His last two points on his home court were an emphatic put-back dunk, his first dunk after two years of building his ankle strength back up.  His last dunk was on this basket two years earlier when a player came down on him as he grabbed a defensive rebound. He wouldn’t play again for a long time, and wouldn’t dunk again until this, his last home game. It came with exactly one minute left on the clock, and it was the perfect cap on those last two years of struggle.  It’s a grainy screen shot from the game video, but I love it because it shows him in flight, near the end of his own journey in this game.

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      For any basketball player to be playing college basketball at any level is a triumph.  A very small number will move on to the NBA or to coaching, but this is the end for almost every one of them.  It’s the culmination of years of playing and learning, injuries and setbacks, making teams and not making other teams, growing as people and learning important life skills like time management and mutual respect and unselfishness and risk-taking.  As with every game, it gets harder as you grow with it, but you do grow with it.  And as a parent I’ve grown with it too.

      And so we found ourselves in a gym in Maine on Senior night for the team we were playing against.  They were ahead of us in the standings walking in, but both teams knew that the winner wrote their ticket in, the loser had to hope others lost for them to move forward.  As it happened those other teams won their games while our teams played each other, setting up the win or go home scenario.  Parents watched scores on their phones, knowing more than the players did.  But the players knew the stakes.  I found myself drawn to a guard from the other team as the clock ticked down and our team holding a tenuous lead in the game.  Tears were in his eyes, and he’d pull his jersey up to wipe them away.  His coach, seeing his emotion, shouted at him to be ready for the ball should he get one more shot to win it.  That chance disappeared as time ran out on the game and the regular season.  One team moving on to the playoffs, one team at the end of their triumph. But surely a triumph for all of them, being here, playing this game at this level.

    • Chaos Hates Simplicity

      The humidifier hasn’t been filled for days and the house plants looked just as thirsty so I finally corrected the water situation today. A dry house isn’t good for people either, but inevitable in winter if you don’t keep up with it. And that’s the thing, I’m not keeping up. Things I might have done routinely in the course of a day are getting put off. I noticed the dishes stacking up next to the sink. Clutter is stacking up in other places too. And it slid sideways the moment I started demolition in the bathroom and laundry room. The washer and dryer are sitting in my son’s room. The cat boxes are in my daughter’s room. Cleaning supplies and shelving sit in the master bedroom. Tools and tile are stacked in the hallway waiting their turn. I feel like a hoarder wading through the house. I need a haircut. Chaos has found us.

      My theory on chaos is that it lurks right behind you, waiting for an opportunity to pounce into your life. Once it arrives it resists leaving. Chaos is a stubborn thing indeed. If the goal in Yin and Yang is to dance along the edge of chaos and order, then my home and its residents are stumbling into chaos. One of the cats, finding the litter boxes moved to another room, chose to make a deposit at his old bank location. The house, and their world, is upside down. No, this won’t do at all.

      The remedy is simple. Make a list in my bullet journal and start drawing an X through each one as I complete the task. Ah, but I’ve slipped on the journal too. The only place that I’ve seen order is in work, which has proven a welcome distraction from the chaos of construction. I’m under some time pressure to get things done with the kids home for a few days during spring break in March. Business trips coming up fast. A new dryer getting delivered and installed soon too. Tick, tick, tick… stop! Now is when you pause, write down everything that needs to get done, and knock things off one at a time. Get things out of the head and on paper. Make order from chaos. Too analog? There’s beauty in simplicity. Chaos hates simplicity. I hate chaos.

      This sauce I’m stirring is a blend of David Allen, Greg McKeown, Admiral William H. McRaven and Ryder Carrol. They all point to simplicity kicking the ass of chaos. Get things out of your head and on a list, prioritize and knock things off one at a time. Making order out of chaos, one step at a time. Eventually the list shrinks and you no longer have appliances in your son’s bedroom. But it does require some sweat equity too. Now seems a good time to wrap this up and grab a paint brush. I’ve got X’s to make, and chaos to evict.

    • French Lessons

      I’m currently learning French using Duolingo. I’ve dabbled in the language before, but dabbled is the key word: never fully committing to learning French… until now. Novice level? Oui. I’m 49 days into a streak of Duolingo French lessons, trying to spend a minimum of 20 minutes on it every day. Sure, I won’t be on the French lecture circuit anytime soon, but those 20 minutes add up over time (100 minutes or 16+ hours) and I can see progress. Repetition penetrates the dullest of minds, and slowly I see it making a difference. As with reading I catch the bug and wanted to jump into Spanish, Portuguese and German too, but I’m holding them all at bay and focusing on incremental improvement in French. You master nothing when you’re distracted by everything.

      Learning as an adult requires an open mind, patience with yourself, discipline and a good sense of humor. It’s become another part of my daily habit routine, admittedly not at the level of immersion but good enough to move forward in a busy stack of days. Duolingo is a better version of a game on your phone; some days I’m clicking right along getting everything right, some days it’s a struggle, but every day I learn something new. Perhaps I’ll book a trip to Quebec City or Paris as both incentive and reward for sticking with it if I start to slow my pace, but for now 20 minutes a day seems to be moving me along the path to fluency à la vitesse d’un escargot.

      I read the book Atomic Habits just over a year ago, and it’s remained hugely influential for me. Habit formation is either conscious or unconscious, but we all have them. I’ve removed some bad habits, unfortunately kept a few I need to separate myself from, and added some great habits that offer tremendous upside to my life. I’d count my Duolingo sessions as a great habit addition, just as reading more and writing every day have been. Novice level for sure, but I’m keeping the streak alive and we’ll see how it goes. French, un pas après l’autre….

      “L’attention est le début de la dévotion (Attention is the beginning of devotion.)” – Mary Oliver

    • It Has Potential

      Looking out the window on a brisk morning on Cape Cod. Streaks of dark clouds mix with blue sky. Faint orange hints at the possibilities of the sunrise. It doesn’t look like a 10 right now, but it’s not a bust either. This sunrise has potential.

      Isn’t that the feeling we look for in every morning? We woke up, hey that’s a 10 right there! Aches, pains, ailments and troubles subtract from the score. Broken promises, setbacks, slips of the tongue, angry drivers and blatant disregard for others subtract more. But right now, what might go wrong in the day doesn’t matter a lick. This day has potential.

      “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”—Henry David Thoreau

      It’s a lot easier to start with a 10 and work to keep it there than to wake up with a 4 with a pit in your stomach dreading the day, trying like mad to build something of it. Each day has potential, and so do we, if we’ll make something of the opportunity. So I weave together habits of reading and writing and a bit of movement and great coffee and try to keep the 10 going as long as possible. Sometimes just making it through the day is all you can hope for, and this isn’t a call for blind optimism. But it is a call for gratitude, for starting the day on a positive note and working to keep the streak alive instead of endlessly pushing uphill like Sisyphus.

      My coat is too thin to linger out in the wind chill so I cheat and look out the window at the brightening sky. The sun crested the hills and I walked across the crunchy, frosted lawn and down to the water. The sky is a light blue streaked in faint pink. Pretty, but not a 10. But I’m grateful for the opportunity to see it, and to reflect on the potential this day brings. No day is perfect, but every day can be great, or at least pretty good, and that adds up to a great life.

      “The key to a great life is simply having a bunch of great days. So you can think about it one day at a time.” – Peter Adeney

      “They say: “Think big! Have a compelling vision!” I say: Think small. Do something super cool by the end of the day!” – Peter Drucker

      There you go, start with a 10, do something super cool by the end of the day to keep it a 10 (or as close as you can get it) and string together as many great days as possible. Seems a worthy challenge, and the best opportunity to make something of this potential.

    • Listening Differently

      “When I was walking in the mountains with the Japanese man and began to hear the water, he said, “What is the sound of the waterfall?” “Silence,” he finally told me. The stillness I did not notice until the sound of water falling made apparent the silence I had been hearing long before.” – Jack Gilbert, Happening Apart From What’s Happening Around It

      When my children were younger and my career path meant something different, I didn’t listen as well. I was focused on other things, or perhaps distracted, or just trying to make sense of it all. I’m not sure an extra decade or two makes much of a difference in listening, but reading a poem early in the morning seems to help. The nest is empty now, but the walls still echo, and the kids are out there in the world. You know they’re out there; you can hear them in the silence. When you see them again the essence is the same, but they’ve changed and so have you. And that’s as it should be.

      When Bodhi was still with us back in those days of chaos, I’d get him stirred up by looking out the window and asking loudly “Who’s that?!” He’d pop up and run from window to window to see what he was missing, and not seeing it scratch at the door to be let out. He’d burst outside, bark his presence, realize he wasn’t missing out on anything after all and go pee on the lawn and go lie down. There are days when my writing feels like the Bodhi ritual. The thoughts have always been there, looking to break free and see the light of the world. Writing every day forces me, reluctantly at times, to let them see the light. And in the writing other thoughts grow, like a seedling breaking the ground and reaching ever upward. We all have so much to say, don’t we?

      Outside I hear my friend the Carolina Wrenn singing her now familiar song. Other birds are singing as well, and the feeder is busy with chatter and flurry. The sun has broken over the horizon and announces that it’s best to move on. The roar of things to do today grows louder in my head. I know this sound too, and push forward before the spell is broken once again. Too late; the roar of the waterfall has broken the silence.

    • February Tomatoes

      February is when I really start missing the smell of tomatoes. Ripe tomatoes for sure, but also the smell of the vines as you tie them off on stakes. Market tomatoes have never captured the essence of fresh summer tomatoes. Better than nothing? Sometimes nothing is better. This was all triggered by a Caprese salad, with the basil dominating the senses, the olive oil and balsamic drizzle playing complimentary roles, but the tomato was a silent partner; like white bread it had no soul. Such is February in New England: the senses get shorted.

      A mild winter so far doesn’t translate into the garden. There’s still 3 inches of frozen snow clamped down in the lawn, the garden and the pool, like a hand over the mouth whispering ominously; not yet. Precipitation forecasted for the day includes the “wintry mix” we all hate. Rain or snow? We’ll deal with that. Wintry mix? Make up your mind already!

      But there’s light at the end of the tunnel. The days are longer, there are lawn mowers and seeds on display in hardware stores, and the first day of Spring is four weeks away. February is flying right by, the way the rest of life does. It’s only a matter of time before the soil warms up and unlocks the smells of spring. In the meantime, there’s always a greenhouse or two to explore to get that flower fix. But tomatoes are going to be awhile here in New England. Part of living here, but that doesn’t mean we have to like it.

    • Stubborn Gladness

      I woke up early today, looked out the window and saw an orange Waning Crescent moon rising through the trees. How do you go back to sleep after seeing something like that? I re-read this Jack Gilbert poem in the dark, debating the time, and finally got up to make something of the day.

      “We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
      but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
      the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
      furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
      measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.”

      There is no delight in listening to the outraged, but it seems that some people prefer it. The world can indeed be a ruthless furnace, but you can know that and work to make it less ruthless and get along quite well in this world.  I’m inclined to avoid the people shouting about the furnace from the pulpit, on social media or at the roundtable on your preferred flavor of 24 hour news.

      I’ll risk delight, thank you.  That’s not sticking your head in the sand, it’s choosing not to dwell on the misery.  There’s no doubt the world is teetering on the brink of chaos:  climate change, pandemics, the three amigos of Trump and Boris Johnson and Putin, scandals and scarcity and millionaire sports stars playing in other cities than the one you want them to play in.  But there’s also no doubt that the world is better in many ways than it’s ever been.  You think we have problems?  Read some detailed history from the 16th or 17th century.  We have it pretty easy by comparison.  The furnace of this world is ruthless, and deserves our attention.  But it’s so much better than it was 78 years ago, or 102 years ago, and can be better still.

      “If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
      we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
      We must admit that there will be music despite everything.”

      Fight the good fight, but don’t forget to dance too.  I think if people danced more they’d have less of an excuse to be angry all the time.  Go on, turn up the music and move.  You know you want to.  You can watch the news tomorrow, it’ll still be the same mind game horror show.  Or maybe skip it then too.

      “We stand at the prow again of a small ship
      anchored late at night in the tiny port
      looking over the tiny island…
      to hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
      comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
      all the years of sorrow that are to come.”
      – Jack Gilbert, A Brief For The Defense

      I’m not naive, I know that none of us get out of this alive. I know there is suffering and sadness and struggle in the world. Life isn’t fair and is often unjust. But, to make injustice the only measure of our attention is to praise the Devil… no, I’ll take stubborn gladness, thank you. I’ll take solace in routine and purpose in pursuit, delight in the magic of being alive, and joy in music. The quiet magic of listening to the thump, plunk and squeak of oars in a dark harbor or watching a rising moon when the world is asleep. I’ll risk delight, despite everything. And you? Want to dance?

    • Buddy, Can You Spare a Mask?

      I’m currently renovating a bathroom in my house, the second time in a year I’ve tackled a bathroom renovation. I’m either ambitious or a slow learner. But for now let’s call it the pragmatic use of acquired skills and available time. Why pay someone to do what you can do if the task is worthwhile?

      Step one in renovation (after confirming permit requirements) is demolition of the old bathroom. Demolition is the process of taking what used to be in your everyday life out of your life forever, using reciprocating saws, hammers pry bars and a lot of sweat equity. With the right mindset this can be a fun workout, like a reverse jigsaw puzzle with power tools. This is pure bliss when things are going right. But for things to go right you need to take a few precautions along the way. Things like turning off water supplies and circuit breakers for areas that you’re working on. Using drop cloths to protect areas not being demolished. And wear safety equipment.

      And that brings me to the strange way that coronavirus in China disrupted my bathroom renovation in New Hampshire. It seems the world has gone mad, and something as mundane as a dust mask for protecting your lungs from fiberglass dust have disappeared from the shelves of box stores and local hardware stores alike. Construction dust masks don’t even filter out viruses; viruses are too small and mock these dust masks as they fly into your lungs. That’s why they call them “dust” masks. But tell that to the zealous hoarders of all masks, sure that the apocalypse has arrived, snapping up shopping carts full of dust masks not matter what they’re rated for. On second thought, don’t bother, they’re not listening anyway. If you’re buying that many masks you’re uniquely focused on anything but reason.

      The quest ultimately ended successfully even as it delayed my start time. I did find a box of dust masks rated for general construction dust, not optimal but good enough for the task at hand. With a mask and safety glasses affixed to my face I cut the fiberglass bathtub into pieces and removed all the debris to the dumpster bag outside. Having done this before I knew the most efficient process and completed my demolition in time to clean up and go to dinner with friends. As a bonus I had an ice breaker story about the lingering elastic marks on my face and a tale of misguided mask hoarders. Coronavirus surely requires diligence, public awareness and precaution, but not dust masks. Could you leave a few for the rest of us? I mean, this bathroom isn’t renovating itself?

    • Giving Yourself Away

      “We think the fire eats the wood. We are wrong. The wood reaches out to the flame. The fire licks at what the wood harbors, and the wood gives itself away to that intimacy, the manner in which we and the world meet each new day. Harm and boon in the meetings…” – Jack Gilbert, Harm And Boon In The Meetings

      I’ve had a book of poetry by Jack Gilbert for a couple of years now, but never really felt the pull of the pages to immerse myself in it until now. He’s grieving in this poem, which is more apparent as it progresses beyond my quote, but I’m drawn to the analogy of wood reaching out to the flame. All relationships are this dance between giving yourself away and in consuming the other half of the relationship as they give themselves away. It’s this concept of what you and your partner bring to the relationship today, tomorrow and the next day. Some days you give well more than your 50%, sometimes you give a lot less, but the sum of the two gets you closer to 100%. Balance. Yin and Yang. Order and Chaos in a perfect unity.

      The damage happens when one partner is always being consumed while the other burns. We’ve all been on both sides of that, whether in a friendship, a job or a marriage. Those relationships either end when one half burns out of the other jumps to another fuel source. I’m no relationship coach, but I’m approaching 25 years of marriage of playing both the fire and the wood. That gives me some level of experience in the subject, if never truly expertise. There seems to be plenty of fuel left to keep our fire burning for whatever time we’re given, and it comes back to the lyrics of the song that started it all for us, pointing to this concept of the dance between fire and the wood:

      “Now everyone dreams of a love lasting and true
      But you and I know what this world can do
      So let’s make our steps clear that the other may see
      And I’ll wait for you
      If I should fall behind
      Wait for me”
      – Bruce Springsteen, If I Should Fall Behind

      Maybe this should have been a Valentine’s Day post, but the reality is that the real work of relationships starts after the honeymoon, after the flowers and chocolates of Valentine’s Day, after the fire’s been burning for awhile. That’s when you know if you’re relationship is more than just tinder. The fire licks at what the wood harbors, and the wood gives itself away to that intimacy. I keep coming back to this line, and recognizing myself and a lifetime of relationships in the words. We all offer ourselves to the world, and sometimes we’re burned badly. A fire does similar damage to a forest, but the forest often comes back stronger. A relationship is resilient when both sides recognize themselves in the fire and the wood – consumption and fuel – and each strives for balance in what they bring to it.

    • Between the Memorable

      “Our lives happen between the memorable.” – Jack Gilbert, Highlights And Interstices

      I don’t recall ever using the word interstices in a sentence before referencing Gilbert’s poem here, but it marries well with the quote I pulled from the poem. Interstices is the intervening space between things. So for every highlight in a life; graduation, marriage, birth of a child, bucket list trip, there’s the million seemingly mundane things that happen in between. The drive to and back from the game, not the game itself. The five minutes you’re sitting on rolled out paper in the doctor’s office, versus the time that you’re engaged with the doctor as you’re trying to diagnose why things aren’t quite right. Interstices is the break in the trees that lets that flicker of light shine in your face. It’s the stuff of life, yet the stuff in between the highlights.

      I’m sitting in a restaurant parking lot waiting for a breakfast appointment to show up. The calendar shows the appointment, and sometimes I’ll block off the drive time to ensure I give myself the time. But this waiting time is blank on my calendar. And yet it’s not blank space in my life. We’re reminded of the tenuous hold we have in life when that doctor informs you or someone in your family that not quite right is something worse. For all our talk of living in the moment, sometimes we forget about life between the memorable. Celebrate the highlights, but remember that the interstices are part of the sum and should be savored too.