I Need to Start Writing Again

Trying to get back in the groove of writing and finishing my story I looked at and read parts of my blog. I see that the one and only comment anyone made on my blog was made exactly one year ago to this day. The person who made the comment is a friend of mine who also just happened to send me an email for the first time in a long long time yesterday. She encouraged me to start and keep writing again. So I am. The one year ago comment thing kind of seems like one of those strange serendipitous coincidences that seem to happen to me far to often. This is my month after all. The month I was born in. And so maybe the planets will align for me just right as the day of truth approaches. I will turn 40 in a couple of weeks, and as I stated in what I think was my first or second blog entry it has been a life long goal of mine to still be able to dunk a basketball on a regulation ten foot hoop when I reach this old age of 40 something. I've already written stories explaining the inspiration behind my somewhat unimportant and inconsequential (to the rest of the world) goal of mine.

I have not played or even shot a basketball in a year or more. I moved down the road this past year after living at the same place for six years, so the hoop and gravel court where I used to play is no longer and I have yet to set up the hoop at my new stomping grounds. I have been so busy caring for my animals and building my farm that memories and stories of a silly game I played when I was a much younger man seem somewhat childish. Last year I joked with another baller on the island here where I live that I was going to be doing the Rocky IV workout for my training by carrying logs on my back up mountains and that sort of stuff. Well, no joke, I've been doing that and more for the last year. My muscles are strong but my joints are not in such good shape. In a few weeks I do plan to head down to the gym on basketball night (for the first time in a couple of years) and see how much improvement and work I need to do in order to throw one down. Maybe it is not possible, and like a poem I once wrote, "But Who Cares." Not even I care anymore. At this point in my life basketball and working out and working towards the goal of dunking will just be something to break the monotony of my everyday life as a farmer and a shepherd. Basketball will happen at night now so it shouldn't interfere with my responsibilities on the farm. My only concern will be the hitching or walking of the 10 miles up island to my place of residence at like 9 pm at night afterwards. I don't expect that I will come close to dunking the first time out (in 3 weeks) but it should be fun trying (I hope). I have two pair of new and basically unused kicks my mom bought and sent me a couple of years back. One pair is a pair of Nike Hirachies and the other is a pair of Jordan's. I have been saving them for this event. I have some new sweats to boot (from mom this year) so at least I will be banging them off the back iron while decked out in style. I even have a digital camera so I can film it.

The reason the passion is gone has to do with the life and death experiences I have had this year raising livestock. That's as much as I will say about that. When I start telling my tales of the basketball playing days gone by maybe a bit of the passion will be rekindled. Man, do I miss the days of youth and innocence, playing ball from morning all the way into the late late night everyday in the summer during high school. It was special, and for me and my crew the way we took on all comers, the way we trained and practiced in secret to get a leg up, the way we worked on our jumping ability like we were obsessed, and the way my hard work payed off so that I could jump and dunk and score on anyone like I was a player in a video game, it is something that I can't just let die, it is a story I want to tell. I want it to live, and so it does here, on my blog, if nowhere else. I wonder if the fellas back home still remember, still dream, still reminisce when they get together, or are they too to involved in their adult lives. Heck, for all I know they are still playing. If they are then it is probably fueled by the mid life crisis phenomenon of being afraid of loosing their youth. Most of them are a few years younger than myself, so maybe they are not at that point in their life yet. The last time I talked to one of them (six years ago) they were all getting into cycling again (and maybe even Ragbrai). The cycling and Ragbrai stories are yet to be written, but that is my next book (and then the fishing and hunting stories).

For the year or so since I last wrote I have been always aware at which point in my basketball story that I am at in my blog. It is the return to Dubuque and the University of Dubuque for one last semester of playing college ball, this after living in the ICE for a crazy year of partying and more street balling. Now it is time to tell about my life living on 'the low end' as we called it. This part of the story is more about my struggles just living where and how I did and less about any great games or great dunks that I experienced. There are some good basketball stories from the year and the summer I was gone when we (Big B or Big Swan and I) rolled up to the D and played some street ball with the old Dubuque ballers at Asbury Park. I can't remember if I told those yet or not.

When I look into her eyes I see into them and they grow vaster and are like an emerald green lightly glowing gradually rolling hillside, the light shining from the center through the springtime trees.