In the middle of life, dichotomy reigns. “This stage is awful and it’s awesome,” a friend so aptly stated, as he weaved his way through an ordinary day that was suddenly anything but. “The highs are high and the lows are low,” he matter-of-factly lamented. In almost everything he touched he could feel both sides of the coin.

My granddaughter was sitting in the middle of the living room floor at my in-laws’ home on the day after her first Christmas. Austyn was the nine-month-old wonder that had taken precedence over the sparkly packages underneath the tree. Her Aunt CC was sitting on the floor tossing her a little green ball that Austyn, who was poised between her mother’s legs, would “catch,” together with her mom. Every time it happened the room erupted.

It’s March and the sports world is about to go mad. Conference basketball tournaments, the opening acts for the much-ballyhooed big dance, are calling from just around the bend. In a now-you-see-me-now-you-don’t flash, the ball will be tipped, the champion will be crowned, and the confetti will fall from the rafters. Then in the next frantic breath-- sometimes only minutes after the last buzzer sounds—the selection committee will release the 2024 Men’s and Women’s NCAA tournament brackets. Immediately following that, almost everyone—both those included and those who get left out—will find a way to somehow think that they’ve been wronged. The first four out will state their case for why they should have made the cut while the top four seeds will clamor about how unfairly stacked their designated region is. Those in between will mostly claim that their team should be sitting on a different line or facing a different opponent or packing for another geographic locale. Satisfaction, like my Walgreens readers, will be tough to find.

I found the house that became my home on a walk. The ranch-style brick looked like an orphaned hacienda beyond the band of blackjack oaks that separated it from the street. Through the mysterious curtain of branches and leaves, a siren song wafted. The friend I was walking with said the house was empty. Nobody had lived there for quite some time.

Ten in a row. The eight-year-old aspiring baller was working toward a goal. Ten lay-ups without missing on the right side, then once we got that in the books, ten more in a row on the left. Every time she got to eight, the ball lipped off the rim. 

I miss my dad on my birthday. Every January 19th I have a pang. It would sound way better if I said I miss my dad on his birthday, in February. I do. But not in the way I miss him on the day that marks each trip of mine around the sun.

Austyn sat up in the bed organizing her lovies who were joining us for the night. Turtle-Turtle, Rocky Bear, Dumbo, Puff Puff, and her newest acquisitions from an extended family exchange--Katty and Dog -- were neatly lined up on and around the pillows that formed a retaining wall on the far side of the bed. “You hafta be good,” she whispered to them. “Santa is seeing who’s nice and naughty and he’s coming in his sleighhhhhhh!” The last word taking off like a team of reindeer from the roof, its one syllable stretched to capacity inside a whisper-shriek. I was laying with my back to her, feigning sleep while cataloguing every single word as the Times Square Ticker in my head ran around and around exclaiming, “It doesn’t get better than this.”

My daughter has long been the best gift giver I know. Sometimes her presents are practical—like the Smeg toaster that I didn’t know I needed but can’t imagine being without. Or the towel I wrap my hair up in after a shower. Or the amazing vacuum cleaner that sucks up debris from every type of flooring in our home. Some of her gifts are creations—painted canvas signs or photographs or albums painstakingly organized to tell a story she knows I’d like to be able to get to and hold in my hands. But everything she gives—pragmatic or sentimental-- is wrapped in insightful paper that’s stuck together with “I get you” tape. Her presents say, “You are loved” and, “You are celebrated”, certainly. But mostly they say to those of us lucky enough to receive them, “You are known”. And that might be the greatest gift of all.

Something weird happens to time in November. (In addition to that daylight savings thing that was once super helpful to farmers back in the day but doesn’t much make sense anymore.) Time starts to race like a horse. The ramp-up begins in mid-October, then by the time Halloween arrives, it is sliding downhill like a snowball headed for you know where. Days disappear faster than the candy we just passed out to Trick-or-Treaters. Ghosts and goblins bleed into turkeys that bleed into Santa Claus and suddenly the shiny ball of hope is dropping as we toast to sweeter tomorrows while ringing in the New Year.

The New York Times generates a word game called “Connections” that can be accessed daily on a smart phone. Its one-dose-a-day design provides an opportunity for regular brain stimulation while discouraging screen addiction. You sign in, play the game-- and win or lose, you’re done. It’s a delightful morsel for word nerds (like me). It lures you in but doesn’t take you hostage for the day. Like that tiny piece of chocolate swanky hotels leave on the pillow at turn-down service, it’s a little “somethin’ somethin’” that just keeps you coming back for more. 

My dad once ran for school board in the small rural town where I grew up. There was some fuss about our superintendent-- best I remember-- though specific fuss about what I’m no longer sure. (If indeed I ever was.) I just remember people being wound up. Almost everyone in the 14 square miles of our oilfield community had pledged allegiance to an opinion and thus had chosen a side. Our tiny town was as fractured as an oil and gas pay zone after the drilling is done.

I covet the certainty of young eyes that see so clearly before the world gets in the way. Austyn, my granddaughter, is almost two-and-a-half, and mostly she’s pretty clear about what she wants. But what she always knows for sure is what she doesn’t.

It hit me from out of nowhere the summer after I turned ten…

The Lindsey All-Star Camp brochure had been lying on our kitchen counter for months. It was a full-color, tri-fold production with a picture of its founder, Charlie Heatley, on the front. Inside it had a sample daily schedule, some pictures of coaching headliners, and an aerial shot of a gym full of ambitious campers-- seemingly dribbling in unison-- in matching white camp T-shirts with their respective last names ironed across the back. The portion of the brochure below the dotted line where you filled out your personal information had been clipped and sent in with a check only days after the opportunity had arrived in the mail. I looked at it minus its entry form, every single day for months. I could not wait to go.

MY DAD COULD REALLY DRAW. He worked in the oil and gas world, but that was just how the bills got paid. On the side, he painted signs for money, as lettering was his sweet spot. Almost every small business in our rural Oklahoma town had Dad’s handiwork on its welcome board. While painting gave him great enjoyment and padded where the ends wouldn’t meet, his passion was a pencil and pad.

WHEN LITTLE PEOPLE GO TO big schools, it can be scary.  Mostly for a little person’s mom. When I took my firstborn to his first day of school, I recorded a grand video of his timid entrance on my Channel 5-sized video camera. I can close my eyes still and see his pensive face resting in his hand at his desk as he seemed to be taking stock of the whole wide world he’d entered and all the new people in it. 

He sang all the time. “Amazing Grace.” “Victory in Jesus.” “Cowboy Joe,” (the University of Wyoming fight song)…

      “He’s a high-falootin’ rootin’ tootin/ Son of a gun from old Wyoming/ Ragtime cowboy (talk about your cowboy)….”

Songs lived in his head and danced on his lips.

For most of my life, my heart has skipped a beat in May. I could feel it coming. The sad-happy cliffhanger that marks the close of the school year would roar in like a thunderstorm that had been predicted and prepared for but surprised us just the same. May felt magnificent.  Bottomless. Slippery. Simultaneously like a thing we’d like to hang on to forever and yet couldn’t wait to give away. May was the month that wrapped us up and spit us out into the world. 

I don’t do instructions. They give me the heebie-jeebies. The dissecting and the symbols and the do-not-skip-this steps can make anything feel like quantum physics. I’d rather just mess up a bunch and find my own way through. But last Saturday, I waded through a do-it-yourself black- and-white booklet that came stuffed inside the first of two giant boxes full of varying sizes of wood along with bags and bags of bolts and screws. In most matters of construction, I go for a run—as far away from the instruction book as humanly possible-- and let my husband do the dirty work. Not Saturday, though. Saturday, I was all 69 pages in because we had a swing set to build.