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.

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.

When my two-year old granddaughter falls or bumps into something or drops a book about Peter Rabbit on her foot, her inclination is to cry.  Usually, there is a tiny pause—like a half of a second-- between the time the encounter happens and the arrival of the realization that it didn’t feel good to her brain. In that blink-and-you-miss-it gap, she’s learned to make a decision about how she will respond. 

What she does is “shake it off.” 

Literally.  

The once familiar road has debris stacked 10 feet tall on either side now, intermittently, for more than half a mile. But oddly enough, that’s not what makes it look like somewhere I’ve never been. It’s the space behind the piles of twisted metal and uprooted trees that looks so foreign. I never knew how the land laid underneath the structures and the growth. This stretch of 60th street in east Norman was composite in my mind.

What’s a paladin?  If you watched Furman upset Virginia in the first round of the men’s NCAA tournament, you already know what a paladin is.  It had been 43 years since the liberal arts school in Greenville, South Carolina had been invited to the dance, and head coach, Bob Richey’s cast of characters were not about to let the opportunity go to waste. By the way, in case you missed it, a paladin is a knight.

“Woman finds herself,” the headline read. And she did.  Literally.  Not in the metaphysical kind of way where after weeks and months of meditation and soul-searching she discovered who she really was, but in the physical kind of way where she went looking for a missing person and discovered she was her.  It happened in 2012 in Iceland as a group toured the volcanic region near the Eldgja canyon.

I’ve never been big on clubs. The picking and the parceling. The initiations and the rules. And yet, I’ve always been somewhat in awe of the way the walls come down when a kappa meets a kappa in an airport Starbucks line. Organizations of inclusion—and exclusion per definition—crisscross the striations of our society.  Some have formal boxes to be checked, complete with dues and requirements and the sharing of secret handshakes, pins, and codes. But just as many co-exist organically, without any expectation of bending to become. They form from shared experience— the roads we walk together even though we’re far apart.

I love the “Gilmore Girls.” I loved it when it was happening and after it happened and through the bonus “A Year in the Life” encore season created by Netflix. I love the dialogue on speed, the kind you have to listen to closely because if you don’t it doesn’t even sound like words. I love the characters and the family dynamics that were constantly being waded through-- so much so that I didn’t even mind that the entire seven season show seemed to be filmed in a circular town with a gazebo in the middle. Lorelai and Rory, the ever-evolving mother-daughter duo from the hit, have been in the background for lots of the days of our family’s lives.

The sign on the side of the highway said, “HITCHHIKERS MAY BE ESCAPING INMATES.” It’s a serious sign-- not the kind made of cardboard and magic marker constructed on a whim in somebody’s backyard. It’s metal, painted bright yellow with professional black lettering, and it is welded to steel pipes permanently secured in the dirt.

Some thought has gone into this. 

In the check-out line at Target, I found myself mindlessly singing under my breath, “Baby shark doo doo da-do-da-do, baby shark doo doo da-do-da-do.” I don’t even think I would have realized what I was doing had I not noticed the young woman in line in front of me bobbing her head along with the beat. What is it about children’s songs that makes them play inside your head like a needle stuck on vinyl? It’s as if their melodies are coated in Pinetar. You can’t shake them if you try.

“Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass but learning to dance in the rain.” That’s the inscription that accompanied Britney Brown’s senior picture in our University of Oklahoma basketball team room. As was our tradition, when each player graduated, she selected her favorite quote to accompany a photo of her in action while wearing crimson and cream. Those inspirational posters lined the walls of our team film room where they breathed life into each season with an intimate and yet taunting call. The film room resonated with the spirit of former Sooners, their selected quotes framing their careers and, in many instances, the very way in which they saw the world. For me, they served as little green street signs that popped up when I least expected them but sorely needed them most.

Tom Landry coached in a fedora.  So did Bear Bryant. And they both looked just as formal below their chins as they did from their eyebrows up. Sport coats, ties, and shiny wing-tipped shoes were the “leader uniform” in their era. Today we can’t imagine Andy Reid on the sideline in pinstripes with a pocket square or Kyle Shanahan holding his laminated play sheets without a flat bill on. Things change. Sports-- and the society they help form the fabric of-- evolve. Traditions live until they need to die, and then new ways of doing things take hold. What we wear to work is no exception to the ever-spinning wheel. And while I’m not sure the head coach’s attire matters much to the guys wearing helmets on the field, I have to wonder if it plays a role in how he does his job. In the trade-off of the necktie for the hoody, what might the head coach gain and what might he stand to lose?

In that space right before you do a thing that you’ve never done but know you can, lives bravado the size of a buffalo. “What ifs” don’t distract you because you don’t even know they are there. The slate is too clean to be littered with all that could and might go wrong.  All you see is what you want to happen because you are writing the script and you’ve played the dream a million times already in your head (the place where everything works until you have evidence that it doesn’t…. when you are young and hungry and can’t wait to shock the world.) Decisions are quick and sure. You don’t hem. You don’t haw. You just go for it. At the beginning, you’ll try almost anything.

John McPhee says, “The essence of the process is revision.” He’s referring to writing, of course. But I have a hard time thinking of something about which that isn’t true. My garden, my hair, my living room, my life design, my relationships, my reading list, my parenting plan…most live on a conveyer belt under constant reconsideration. What could be better? What needs tweaking? What isn’t really working, at least not as it could? Continual inspection keeps the quality high and the pressure to be perfect low. We are works in progress as are most of the things we do.

What would you do if nobody paid you for it? Would you still sell houses or work on cars or do people’s taxes or deliver the news? Would you coach ball or drive a tractor or teach a class or build a boat? When your feet hit the floor in the morning, where is it that your heart can’t wait to go?

I’m not much of a New Year’s Resolutions girl.  But I do love lists. They sort of erect borders around slippery things that I’m afraid might slide away if I don’t step in and do my part to contain them. The ones in the notes on my phone, while a decent substitute when I’m on the go, don’t hold a candle to the real ones I make on the backs of envelopes--the ones that sometimes get re-written just so they can get re-arranged. Those carry gravitas in their etching. 

That’s how stuff gets done.

I clearly remember the first time I figured out how good it felt to set a goal and reach it. I was doing ball-handling drills in my Granny’s kitchen. Sounds odd, I know. But it was the perfect setup.

Every December—well, now it starts like the day after Halloween—people in America begin decorating for Christmas. Elaborate lights go up on the exterior of houses. Inflatable characters sprout up in front yards. Chairs get smashed into bedroom corners and lamps get shoved behind doors just so the interiors of our houses have space to accommodate a tree. 

We do what we do. 

We learn a great deal from those we follow about what to and not to do.  Some of it is write down worthy. Most of it is not. The majority of what we carry with us doesn’t even feel significant at the time when we absorb it. It just nestles in without much fanfare finding a comfy place to gestate. Then later, somewhere way on down the road, it serves us. Sometimes when we least expect it to.

Were you watching? I know there was Christmas shopping to do and there were leaves to rake and there was a World Cup to mourn. But on Saturday, I hope you got the chance to watch Max Duggan play. Even if you don’t care much for football. Even if you detest the brutality of the gladiator game or disagree vehemently with the commercialism that’s crept into all, but most particularly, this collegiate sport. I hope you watched the red-headed kid from Iowa who plays football in Ft. Worth. He’s why coaches coach and players play and people cannot get their fill of games.