My assistant coach’s first “courtesy car” was a four-door Chevy Malibu in a purple-ish shade of blue. In the early days of Division 1 coaching, a car loaned to the athletic department by a local dealer (aka University supporter) was part of a coach’s package. Recruiting required lots and lots of driving, so a car on loan -- periodically rotated so as not to pile up miles -- made sense. It was an added value for a coaching worker bee whose salary didn’t compute, while simultaneously being a write-off for a donor who wanted tickets to football games. Typically, these vehicles were swapped out every 4-6 months before wear and tear could accumulate— or whenever a dealer had a buyer in the market for a slightly, mostly-loved “new car.”

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.

In a pivotal scene of FX’s smash-hit series “The Bear,” Richie-- a 40-something, recently humbled, trepidatious intern at one of Chicago’s top restaurants-- happens upon the establishment’s owner/chef serenely peeling mushrooms in a quiet, empty kitchen before the start of the day. As a follow up to his childlike “whatcha doin’?” she asks him if he’d “like a go.”

The 6’3” center on my college basketball team drove a lovingly-used black Volkswagen Beetle. Watching her unfurl from its tight confines was entertaining, but it paled in comparison to the ride. Most of our teammates and I had cars in varying size, form and functionality, but hers was the one we took when we were more about the going than the place we had to go. The Bug was perfect for short jaunts from the gym to the dorm when the undeterred north wind was howling and we, soaked with sweat, needed to get from point A to point B (preferably without catching pneumonia). It was our vehicle of choice for a 7-Eleven Slurpee or a stack of pancakes at IHOP. It was always what we took when we had nowhere to be but felt the urge to go. As the point guard --aka, the only one who could fit-- my spot was in the backseat behind the driver, knees tucked under chin.

Oklahoma and Iowa hung on to the bitter end.

These two middle-America states were among the first in the country to offer girls the opportunity to play basketball and two of the last to allow us to run up and down the floor. If you were a girl growing up amid the corn or the wheat prior to the early ‘90s, “girls’ basketball” was a different game than the one that’s now breaking attendance records everywhere we look. Girls were allowed to play but expected to stop on a dime at the line that cuts the court in half. Apparently, our guts would explode if we ran to the end line and back.

He came out of nowhere, this long, lanky kid with unkempt curls held back by a thin, elastic band like soccer players wear. “How can I help?” he asked, as my lostness must have been plastered like a billboard on my face.

“Panko breadcrumbs,” I said leaving a verbal ellipsis on the end.

“Aisle four,” he immediately responded while pointing, “about halfway down on your left.”

Go write. And please don’t try to get it right. Just write. Because trying to do it the way you think it’s supposed to be done just gets in the way.

The daily practice of writing is a foundational habit loads of successful people share. Daily writing grounds busy minds. It serves as a conveyor belt for sorting thoughts and feelings. It leads people out of corners they have backed or worked their way into by revealing doors and windows they weren’t aware were there. And yet just as many folks who do write don’t because they think they don’t know how.

A lady met me at the door welcoming me to the group’s monthly meeting. After a quick exchange of pleasantries, she must have noticed my eyes pass by and then return to the table near the door. On it were piles of greenish-yellow neon vests, signs on sticks, and skinny, orange wands. She answered before I even asked. 

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.

MIDDLE SCHOOL IS MESSY. Awkwardness is the norm, cool isn’t even a possibility, and from those halls of dysfunction, high  school looks like a dreamy place you see on TV. Ninth grade is the  footbridge connecting the two. I had no more taken a step on that  creaky wooden connector when my anything-but-cool freshman  English teacher handed me a key to a door I didn’t know existed. 

Five minutes, when you’re waiting for a verdict, or a diagnosis, or laying upside down in a dentist’s chair with your mouth propped open on blocks, feel eternal. Seconds drip as if distended, each one clinging mercilessly to the one that came before. But five minutes, when you’re reading a beautiful page-turner or playing a game you love or holding a sweet sleeping baby in your arms, fly. The seconds chase each other in a full-out sprint, barely touching as they hand off the baton.

Mrs. Davis wore a key on a chain around her neck all day. That’s what my 31-year-old son remembers about September 11th of his 4th grade year. He and his classmates watched movies at school the entire afternoon--with intermittent indoor recess breaks--which he realized was a bit weird but way too good of a thing to question too intently at the time. He was nine. The novelty felt grand.

Between the villages of Praiano and Positano on southern Italy’s Amalfi coast, lies a hidden treasure tucked in a cave by the side of the road. It’s easy to miss if you don’t know it’s there and hard to get a look at even if you do. 

Every day I walk. It’s the best exercise there is (say those who are supposedly in the know.) But I don’t walk for the physical benefits, I walk for my brain. When my body moves, my mind wanders.  And the striding conjures up all kinds of things. It summons questions that don’t have clear cut answers… sentences that hold their own alone but are looking for companions… titles of chapters, books, and blogs whose insides haven’t yet congealed. Floating around freely inside my head, words somehow find their sea legs in conjunction with one another while my body moves.

In 1995, a trailer pulled into Yellowstone National Park and dumped out eight grey wolves. The wolves’ job was to recalibrate the ecosystem of one of our country’s most prized parcels of real estate that had been severely damaged 70 years earlier by the eradication of this natural predator. In the decade between 1914 and 1925, over 130 wolves were purposely killed in the park. What happened next was a bunch of very bad things. With the wolves gone, the elk and coyote assumed the role of alphas. They overpopulated and then overgrazed the willow and aspen trees. So the songbirds left. And the eagles left. Without the trees, the beavers couldn’t build dams. So the beavers left. And the foxes followed them. Without the dams, the streams began to erode. So the fish died. And the grasses disappeared. In a fairly short amount of time, Yellowstone went from an interconnected, thriving mecca to a rapidly declining, largely dysfunctional landscape whose insides seemed to be at war with one another. Instead of saving the park, wildlife experts almost ruined it.