Basketball

The world can be a genuinely shitty place. How's that for an opening line?

I won’t list all the small and large ways that can drag us into despair because, like me, you’re already far too keyed into the new and old ways humans drive each other up a wall and back again. It's easy to believe that's all there is when things are particularly God-awful, as they have been of late. And then, along comes a Saturday afternoon of basketball.

I am a 44-year-old woman who once owned a letterman jacket for debate. I am not an athlete. Yet somehow, I found myself suggesting that our group, spending the weekend in Big Sur, take to the dusty court of our campsite for a game of H-O-R-S-E—something I had never played and was frankly shocked to hear exit my mouth. The next thing I knew, we had a two-team half-court showdown.

Something happens when I get too much fresh air: I become a puppy, finding new ways to exhaust myself. That’s how I believe this game came to be. Perhaps next week, I’ll write about what happens when that energy runs out, and I go from puppy to something significantly less cute—but I digress.

There I was, in my cheetah-print Vans, explaining the game of basketball to some of my international friends—something I had no business doing and, halfway through, had to abandon when I realized I was making most of it up. I wisely handed over the reins to those who actually knew what they were talking about. A lesson in leadership.

The opposing team ranged in age from eight to fifty-something. You might have underestimated them, but I tell you what, they kicked our butts. Perhaps we can blame the fact that our team’s coach—who, for clarity, is me—didn’t fully grasp the difference between offense and defense. Or maybe it’s because this so-called coach screamed every time someone threw them the ball. Or, more crucially, that they had never actually played basketball before.

It was a hilarious forty-five minutes of running, laughing, and playing like kids. And you know what? I was better for it—everything except my knees because, again, I was wearing Vans.

Every time I’ve given myself permission to play as an adult—to really let loose—I’m reminded why it’s so valuable. While traveling with that ball (and to be clear, I kept forgetting to dribble, so it was all traveling), I wasn’t thinking about the world’s disasters, my big adult responsibilities, or scrolling endlessly for a hit of joy from a stranger’s TikTok. I was just playing like a kid at recess. I didn’t need to be good at it, spend a single dollar, or justify it. I just needed to enjoy the time, the laughter, and the challenge of moving my rigid definitions of adulthood aside so the lightness of simply being human could take over.

The world can be a genuinely shitty place. But we don’t have to let it corrupt us entirely. We can bring lightness into our lives in big and little ways.

And lastly, if you know a basketball team in need of a coach who is enthusiastic yet deeply unqualified, I’m available.