I believe writers refer to it as being ‘blocked’.
I’m blocked.
I haven’t been able to write in weeks. Now, this is not nearly as big a problem for
me as it would be if my livelihood depended on my ability to write, but nonetheless
I’ve always been able to write. I can’t
remember a time in my life when words didn’t come easily or (much to the
chagrin of everyone around me) in abundance.
So being blocked is a whole new kettle of fish for me and I don’t mind
telling you that I am not enamored.
Lisa (my patient, unflappable, much-tortured editor )… if
you are reading this I promise to have a column for you in the next day or two,
but for now I think I’m about to, uhm, unblock.
Is that even a word? (Please
confirm).
For reasons I won’t go into (but suffice it to say my pride
is involved), on evenings not jammed up with a thousand other things that ‘need’
doing, I’ve found myself in a schoolyard near my home shooting hoops regularly
for the first time in over twenty-five years.
Nothing fancy, just the same kind of shoot-around that I’d run through
at the beginning of practice a hundred years ago when I played for real: Set shots from each of the notches around the
key, short jumpers, fade-away jumpers, and layups (but not many because my
knees have filed a grievance), and if feeling particularly frisky, my hook
shot. Yep. I’ve got one in my arsenal.
What seems like a few
minutes of playing around always turns into an hour and a really good sweat. I noticed almost right away that if I got
frustrated with the bad bounces the ball was taking that I deferred to softening
my touch on the ball… keeping my shoulders and shooting hand square to the
work, changing the trajectory to get more arc on the ball, flicking my wrist as
the ball rolled up and off my fingers as I released it, and holding my release
position until the ball dropped. If I
got frustrated I involuntarily slowed down and applied the soft touch. And just when I thought this was an anomalous
observation, I realized it was in fact a regimental pattern. If I felt wrong going up in the air I let the
shot go anyhow, and sure enough when the ball careened off the rim and caused
me to run for my life to catch up with it (which, yes, prompted a barrage of
f-bombs), by the time my Sherpa and I arrived back at the key for another go I
was mysteriously calm. For those who know me well, let me join you in a
boisterous chorus of “what the HELL?” Because
we all know that when I get frustrated, I over think, overreact, overdo, and
over(everything) in spades. So nobody
was more shocked than me to realize that for some reason, the pursuit of nothin’
but net was the o n e thing that actually forced my over-thinking head to slow
down whether it wanted to or not. I
never want to slow down but lord knows I sure need to some days. But that’s a whole other ball of wax.
Usually I’m alone in the school yard but not this night; it
was very busy. There are two hoops
mounted on the brick wall at the south side of the school, about 40 meters
apart. Ordinarily I have my pick of the
two but I arrived and found both in use, which of course immediately caused my
blood pressure to spike. But I came to
play and I was going to play. At one
net, there was a rather heated game of two-on-two in full flight, so I turned
my attention to the other hoop, where I found two guys in their mid-twenties
playing a very slow paced game of twenty-one.
I had my own ball, so asked if they would mind if I popped off a few
shots in between theirs. With barely an
acknowledgement of my presence or my request, there was some general grunting
of approval, so I took that to be an overwhelmingly enthusiastic and unanimous
approval from the floor. We toiled at
the net together for a while, and when their game ended they left.
I carried on with my shooting, and about twenty minutes
later I noticed a man standing nearby with his young son. In broken English he asked (as he gestured
with his basketball toward the hoop) if they could play. But of course, I indicated. For a while we took turns shooting and to be
honest, I wasn’t paying much mind to what was going on around me. But sometimes situations just demand your
attention and this was turning into one of them. I retired to the side of the schoolyard and
took a seat on my ball, opened a bottle of Gatorade and (finally) stopped to
assess the lay of the land.
This flip flop-attired man?
N o t an experienced basketball player.
His son? Not yet old enough to properly hold or shoot the ball with one
hand. I watched them play for about 15
minutes, marveling at their sheer enjoyment of every shot, every miss, every
run after the ball, and of course the hysterical high fives when the ball made
a rare swoosh through the net… usually from beneath the rim! I was starting to feel a bit guilty for
enjoying their happiness to that degree… almost as though I was
interrupting.
Eventually Dad needed a breather (it was swelteringly hot
that evening) and he too retreated to the sidelines. We both watched silently as his son embraced
the absence of elders, suddenly hoofing the ball in the general vicinity of
basket. And by hoofing, I mean, full-on,
two-handed, rocket-powered, projectile-launched hoofing. Each time he released the ball he squealed
with delight no matter the outcome, and let me assure you, the point of this
was no longer to actually get the ball through the hoop. That brick wall took a thorough beating.
“Next time… maybe we do… small detail,” says Dad, shrugging
his shoulders and grinning. I giggled;
this was pretty funny stuff after all.
But his son stopped.
He looked at the ball in his hands, looked up at the basket, looked at
the ball again, slowly raised it as high as he could over his head, and lunging
from the waist with feet firmly planted, positively whaled the ball toward the
ground about three feet in front of him.
You’ve heard of the bounce pass?
This was the bounce shot. I’m a
bit of a kill joy so I’ll just tell you now that the ball did not go into the
net. It did however hit the backboard
and ricochet off it to the inside edge of the left rim, where it caromed wildly
to the inside edge of the right rim, bouncing three or four times on the metal
before trailing off of the outside edge of the rim and dropping to the concrete
below. And there ensued the most
unabashed happiness I can recall seeing in quite some time. I couldn’t help but laugh (it was so awesome
and so funny), and Dad was yelling something I couldn’t make out as his flip
flops became a blue flash of light running off to get in on the high five. Neither of them will likely remember that
shot, that it was a miss, or even being at the schoolyard that night… but I was
certain that the bonding they experienced in that shared moment would stick
with them in some way, shape or form forever.
The clarity I found in identifying and cataloguing that
analogy was really quite powerful. I am
reminded once again that life is simple… if we let it be.
