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.

I TOOK A SHAKESPEARE COURSE in college. Our class met  in a kind of long, rectangular, nondescript classroom on the top floor  of the library building. It was a handful of upperclassmen—mostly  English majors, though not necessarily English Education majors— and me. Our Shakespearean textbook was an enormous red hardback  with print smaller than the type in my King James Bible. Reading  one page was a job. I remember being terrified from the outset that  I would have trouble keeping up. 

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. 

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. 

My writing practice is a pact I made with myself. I sit down and string words together every day-- not because anyone told me to or expects me to or would be bent out of shape if I didn’t-- but because I decided I would do it. No wages would be withheld if I didn’t (because it’s not a job and I’m not getting paid.) The world wouldn’t come to a screeching halt if I skipped a week (because most people don’t even know “A Weigh of Life” exists and thus wouldn’t miss it if it were gone.) You know what would happen if I didn’t post a blog every Tuesday morning at 10:00 a.m.? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Hardly anyone would even notice—maybe not even family or close friends.

Last week, the Savannah Bananas came to town.  In case you’re not familiar, they’re the traveling baseball circus that has since 2016 turned America’s favorite pastime upside down. For $25, patrons attending Banana games receive a ticket for two hours of dancing, singing, acrobatics-- and baseball—plus all the food and drink they care to consume. The Bananas’ organization has one goal: make baseball fun. Their home games have a waitlist 60,000 people long.

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. 

Practice makes perfect. At least that’s what my fifth-grade basketball coach used to say. 

When you repeat a process, you get better at it. The reps help you figure out what works and what doesn’t, what’s helpful and what’s not. And you get smoother, faster-- more efficient and more skilled-- at whatever it is you are practicing. From dribbling a basketball to changing a tire to speaking in front of people, the more you do it, the better you get. 

I bet a lot of Middle C gets played in Heaven. The frequency it floats on is wrapped in Jesus juice. When I hear it, I hear “ahhhhh.” Something about the note is just calming—maybe even soothing—in a you-don’t-even-realize-it’s-happening kind of way.  From out of nowhere, without fanfare, it can make us feel like we are home.