I’m grateful for being able to see how beautiful things were. I’m grateful for a bright, sunny morning on the balcony. I’m grateful for my big Book Study Group and I’m grateful the Big Book makes me laugh out loud sometimes. I’m grateful I make me laugh out loud sometimes. I’m grateful for all of the breadcrumbs. I’m grateful to be sober today.
I’m going to tell you that I was not in the greatest of moods yesterday. We could discuss any number of contributing factors, but I was just feeling off, not very inspired. Things just felt kind of trudgy.1 I intended to go to the gym and get in a proper work-out, but oddly enough, I ended up with my basketball in hand walking east to the river and the park. I’m sure I cut kind of an odd figure, doing my 1/2 jog, semi-dribble, warm-up thing as I head to the basketball courts.
The court is nestled in between the little dog park (above by the river promenade) and the big dog park. This may be one of the most pleasant places I’ve played basketball as it affords a commanding view of the East River and of two dog parks. I said hello to “The Mayor,”2 who is often shooting baskets in the morning, depending on the weather and the current status of his plantar fasciitis3and began shooting around.
We moved to Iowa City when I was in the Third Grade and I got a puppy and a basketball hoop on the garage as incentives. I remember when I first started shooting at that driveway hoop and it was hard to even get the ball to the rim, but I was out there every day and I did that pretty religiously for about the next ten years. I played a lot of basketball in the driveway. I played for most of the winter, even when I came in and had to run my hands under cold tap water to warm them up slowly. It was where I worked things out or forgot about things for a little bit, left the burden of being me over there and just shot baskets. It’s probably where I first learned about being present and first felt the benefits of doing something meditative. Playing games is a completely different thing, I’m just talking about practice, about shooting in the backyard.4
As I think about it, I can maybe see how the refuge I found shooting baskets was eventually replicated by my drinking. Like I said, I was in kind of a crappy mood and I turned up the music and began shooting. Clank, Clank, miss to the left, short, air ball. I couldn’t get a lay-up in. I was frustrated. Then I looked around and started laughing and had one of those, “Ok, Ok, I get it moments.”
It was a beautiful summer morning, the Mayor was shooting at the other end, making shots you wouldn’t expect someone in their 70’s to make, there were a bunch of pre-schoolers playing kickball and a little girl, maybe a 4th grader shooting baskets while her Mom watched. She was pretty confident but that basket is a long way up there at that age and most of her shots just hit the front underside of the rim. She kept shooting and then one went in and she looked over at her mom and jabbed an arm in the air in triumph and I thought, I’ve seen that before. I know exactly how that feels.
Next song comes on and I get back to business.
I take a couple of dribbles to the left about 15 feet out, shoot, if there were nets it would have swished. Retrieve, square up and shoot, lather rinse, repeat. The next six shots go in, including a runner going out of bounds on the baseline, over the top of the corner of the backboard and in. That made me laugh. I guess I needed the lesson again. When I let things go, when I let things be, the things that are supposed to happen do happen. Not that this always makes me happy, it doesn’t, but what it brings me is acceptance and peace and a powerful feeling of connection. I think that’s maybe how it works. The Universe serves up a meal and it’s up to me to figure out what my experience is going to be.5 I shoot for a little bit longer and then it’s time to pack-up, get my cappuccino at the secret coffee place and then back to work.
I was in a completely different place. 45 minutes of doing something I’ve loved for most of my life and a little bit of being present and things were ok again. Know how I know that?
As I was walking out, there it was. Right next to the plaque commemorating the dedication of the basketball courts by none other than Mayor Rudy Giuliani. I had walked over it on the way in, way too much up in that fear and distortion-producing mobile echo chamber. Bill W. described it this way:
For a brief moment, I had needed and wanted God. But soon the sense of his presence had been blotted out by worldly clamors, mostly those within myself. And so it had been ever since. How blind I had been.
Big Book, pp. 12-13
The one downside of this particular universe-connection strategy is that my knees and back do hurt quite a bit most of the time and I have to stifle groans when I transition between sitting and standing. Quit and do something easier on my knees like an elliptical machine while I watch a TV tuned to CNBC? I’ll take the basketball court and the achy knees. I have another thing to add to my list of the qualities I think God might possess.6 I think God likes basketball, too.
Thanks for Letting Me Share
That’s a made-up word. I’ve also been pushing the use of “agreeance,” another made-up word. For example, “Yes, I’m in complete agreeance.” Why am I doing this? Not sure.
Yes, everyone in my world does have a nickname. Do they always know they have a nickname? You’re asking me what they know and don’t know?
A friend of mine says correctly that getting old is not for the faint of heart. He actually says it in a coarser, more effective way, but this adequately conveys the idea.
Yes, this was a subtle reference to the famous Allen Iversen practice rant.
Shaggy the yoga instructor always says, “You can’t always choose your outcomes in life, but you can choose how you experience them.” No, “Shaggy” is not his real name.
This is where I wrote about that list:
Thanks for your authenticity. We all have those days but don’t always want people to know.
“But soon the sense of his presence had been blotted out by worldly clamors, mostly those within myself.”
This really spoke to me as I just finished reading a passage in the idol of self by Paul David Tripp:
“Life cannot be found by putting ourselves at the center. That only leads to dysfunction, disappointment, and brokenness.”
So glad you found the way to get out of your way. And wow. That penny!