Good Idea

Finding My Rhythm at Rand Park

I am, on balance, a lucky dude. Blessed and grateful - generally speaking.

But this has been a bluesy day. Not the worst. Not by a long shot. Mixed in some ways. But bad enough.

I’m not a Christian anymore but, on some level, I have been hoping for a small miracle. A wave of joy or hope or clarity or vitality to arrive, as if by magic, and lift me up… to get my out of and above this funk.

But, it turns out, not today. Not for me, anyway. So I ate a few chocolate Easter eggs, with gratitude. That’s not everything, but it’s something.

I took a long walk with Otis this evening. The streets were empty. The bitterness of winter was absent, for which we were both grateful. We walked in rhythm, doing our comfortable dance. Otis, most nights, finds a soothing, instinctive rhythm. The rhythm of the universe. Or so it seems. And tonight I followed him, and I felt better.

Sometimes I think he knows exactly what he’s doing. But not tonight. Tonight, I think, he has no idea about what he’s given me.

We returned home at about 8:30, and I declared that I was going to Rand Park, to shoot some hoops. Katherine said: “good idea.” Because that’s what she says when I have a good idea. Especially when I have a good idea that she senses I might not heed.

When I was a kid, and when I was a teenager, and when I was an off-balance young man, I spent a lot of time shooting baskets alone. It got me out of my house when I needed to be out of the house. It got me out of a bad frame of mind when I needed to get out of a bad frame of mind. It got me to a space where no one was watching over my shoulder … where no one was wondering why I was doing it *that* way instead of their way. And sometimes it helped me to find the rhythm of the universe - the rhythm of the bouncing ball, the rhythm of my follow-through, the rhythm of this ritual. Really, of course, I was finding *my* rhythm, but it felt like the rhythm of the universe. It helped me to find *my* game.

I was good. As a 14 year old kid, with only a foggy notion of who I was and a lot of concern about what I wasn’t, I could shoot. And I knew it. Often, while I was shooting free-throws off of our icy driveway in the dead of winter, I’d hit a shot and I’d say, out loud, “this is easy.” When I missed, I did not think: “you suck.” I thought: “This is easy.” I learned how to write and how to teach by channeling that confidence. That sense that we’d all be better off if I trusted myself.

I’ve shot hoops at Rand Park 10,000 times over the past 50 years. And every single time, as I leave, I think: that was a good idea.

But today, it took a while to find my rhythm. The ball was a little under-inflated, which made sense.

I was in the shadow of the Rand School Building, where, as an off beat kid in an off beat alternative high school, I started to find myself. I learned how to write and how to teach and how to have amazing, intelligent, playful conversations by channeling the person I was during those amazing years.

But today, this continuity - this 50 something year timeline - was overwhelming and,m for a minute, overwhelmingly sad. I made a free throw. It came off my hand perfectly, as it has a million times over more than 50 years. I could feel the ball go through the net, as I have a million times before.

But I had to stop. I had to sit down. This long history was, suddenly, overwhelmingly sad. My parents are gone. My explosive first step is long gone. My left ankle hurts. And I’m running out of time. My son is gone and, 34 months later, I’m still not entirely sure what the fuck I am supposed to do.

If the 15 year old version of me could have seen into his future, I thought, this moment would have terrified him. I said, reflexively, out loud to that 15 year old: “I’m so sorry.” And then I thought: “it’s not nearly has bad as it looks.”

I took my phone out of my pocket – reflexively. And I took a photo of the hoop. I imagined, in some half baked way, that I might capture this odd, dark moment in a photo. This moment that just might be the moment before everything shifts.

And I have to say, the photo of that hoop was reassuring. I know this space. I know what to do here. I know my way around my long time home-away-from-home.

I saw that I had an email. A smart, under-confident student of mine wrote to say: “Dear Professor Koechlin, I hope you’re doing well. Sorry to bother you. I just wanted to tell you that I got into the London School of Economics. Thank you so much for encouraging me. Thanks for your letter. I am very grateful!” And then, “Sorry, again, to bother you.”

Sorry? This student has no idea what she’s done.

I picked my under-inflated rock, and I got back to it. I found a rhythm. I found *my* rhythm. I smiled and said: “This is so fucking easy.”

An eleven year old kid pulled up on his bike. He watched me hit a few shots and then, like my guardian angel, he said: “nice shot!” And he rode off.

He has no idea what he’s done. He rode around the corner and, I imagine, he ascended into the heavens. His work was done!

I tucked the ball under my arm, and I headed home. Overwhelmed. And I thought: “this was a good idea.” And then I thought: “A miracle, maybe.”

Amen.