Game OnDoes overtime lead to borrowed time?

Upon first glancing at this photograph, what do you see?

How we perceive things is what shapes our actions and reactions to any given situation and our intimate understanding of it. This is also how we come to appreciate - or depreciate - the boundless array of potential meanings swirling around us at all times. Depending on where we are within our own minds and skin, everything around us holds the persuasive power to bring perspective to our existence.

It is up to the individual to use this power for good or evil, for better or for worse, or to simply pay it no mind in a failed moment of indifference. But indifference comes in many flavors, and sometimes that includes self-preservation when the mind needs to cut back on stimulation.

Our personal mental balancing acts are like diets, you see. Too much or too little of any element can bring discomfort at best, and serious health setbacks on the other end of that spectrum. A healthy balance is the optimal goal ...

As long as we don't drive ourselves crazy trying to achieve it.

Moving on ...

Doesn't it sometimes seem as if we see what we were meant to, when we were meant to? And in that one flash of divine intervention, as some call it, everything spinning in our own private Idahos makes perfect sense. All the good, bad, and ugly are suddenly one, and we get it, if only for that one beautiful, fleeting moment in time.

That's where I was when I knew I had to have this shot. Something I may have missed on another day under different circumstances refused to go unnoticed on a hot June evening mixed with hope and harrow.

Springtime in Ohio is a time of the year like no other. There is an exclusive warmth to the air, not just in physical temperature but also in emotional comfort. Signs of new life are everywhere. Trees are budding, blades of grass are modeling their newest shades of green, and flowers are once more making themselves available to the appreciative hordes of insects that depend upon them for survival.

People are more than happy to be out and about, shaking off the layers of spiritual rust that accumulate over long, grueling Ohio winters that sometimes blur the transitional boundaries preceding springtime. After months are spent tolerating and enduring the cold and dark, the extended daylight gifted by the arrival of spring only adds to the overall delight. It's finally time to get outside and be one with all that life.

It's time to mow the lawn and catch a natural buzz on that intoxicating smell of freshly cut grass.

It's time to take a walk, free at last from the cold, oppressive sting that only winter can deliver. The mix of fresh air and extra Vitamin D makes quite a stirring cocktail, doesn't it?

And the best part of it all - it's only beginning. We allow ourselves to revel in the truth that there will be many more of these opportunities to come.

We allow ourselves to ignore the actuality that these days are numbered. Why ruin a good groove with noise like that? I've learned that fixating on the future's uncertainty is a surefire way to miss potential good in the present and sway the needle toward red.

I'm not claiming to have this mastered by any means. As is the case with nearly everything, this is a balancing act that requires an unwavering commitment to perfect, and so very rarely is it ever maintained.

Still, we try.

But let me tell you with utmost sincerity, I was trying extra hard to perfect that sense of balance back around the time this photo was taken. 

Take me out to the ballgame ... please

One hell of a storm was rolling through my craw back in June of this year, and I don't mean the kind that makes people seek shelter in the nooks and crannies of their homes to save them from being blown to Oz and back.

I'm talking about that internal storm that occurs when too many unfortunate elements combine to make a person wish they were whisked away to a fictional land of wizards, witches, and flying monkeys. Under the influence of what is often referred to as a "perfect" storm whenever referring to tragedy, you feel like you're living in a dreamland type of fiction anyway.

Why not escape to one with the greatest chance of a happy ending? Just stay away from those drugs and showgirls, you know, and all will fare well. But then you wake up just to find yourself in a dream of entirely different proportions; the one you only wake from when your eyes are closed.

Sometimes.

Mortality weighed heavily upon my head on a night distracted by baseball and blinding sunlight. It sure was burning hot for spring, but that mattered little to me. I welcomed it, in fact. It was a "dry heat," terminology some use to define western weather free of the humidity that we are woefully accustomed to 'round these here parts.

The bake was on high, and I do remember sweating. But I also remember the relief I felt when stepping into the coolness of the shade. Funny thing how such aesthetics weave themselves into the fabric of memory, isn't it?

It was within this bizarre time frame that one of my closest friends was just beginning to experience the gruel of the fight of his life, for his life. The way cancer sneaked up on him was rough, and the way it pounced was rougher.

But the battle that was required to beat it was scary; tough beyond anything I had really ever witnessed firsthand. And seeing how hard it was on my friend and his family was the most unsettling ... well, second most. There was always that uncertainty - try as I know all involved did to ignore it - of how this chapter would end.

That's all I'll say about that. I am confident it needs no further explanation.

He was a trooper, my friend, giving it everything he had just to make it to his son's baseball game in spite of the ravaging chemo sickness that was beginning to show its draining apparency. Normally full of life, he was now regulated to living according to however his treatments would allow. As was now becoming the case, that more often than not put any shred of a normal, enjoyable life on hold for the unforeseen future. Now it was all about trying to maintain any shadow of normalcy that could be salvaged in the wreckage of a demon called cancer.

On this otherwise unassuming evening at the ball field, this involved sitting in the heat of a dugout under a cloud of nausea I can't even imagine. Rather than coaching, as he so eagerly anticipated before plans got spun, he was keeping the book while doing his best to stay out of the sun and not show how sick he really was.

I saw it, though, and the fact that he was there for his son under such duress turned my friend into my inspiration. Not that he already wasn't. The whole family had saved me from myself more times than I could - or would - expound upon here. It was all just beginning, though, this battle, and the way they all kept living in the very real face of death was admirable beyond explanation.

After a few innings of toughing it out, it got too much for my friend to bear, and it was time to retire to the seclusion of the car for rest, if it was even possible to call it that. It was more a matter of just being sick somewhere else, somewhere more private where the war wasn't on full display for the notice of others. It was desperately seeking comfort within the confines of extreme discomfort.

For many, many months to come, that became the mantra they all lived by, survived by, and, ultimately, won by. I'm happy to include in this writing that the cancer has been overcome. That fight, at least the devastating crux of it, is over. 

I feel it is now time for the happy ending. Don't you?

So here it is ...

Man, I love when the fist of inspiration sucker-punches me squarely in the face. It knocks me out of wherever the hell I am right into where I need to be. The best of times are when I'm not expecting it, but am completely aligned to accept its blessings in all their redeeming glories.

Like this one, you see.

I spent much of that evening with my camera in hand and music in my ears, creating my own private escape plan from the harsh realities of life as I was seeing it. Somehow, the powerful mix of the fading sunlight, warm air and click of the shutter up against a stirring backdrop of baseball and funk music, was enough to kick my gates of perception wide open.

I was primed and ready for a sign, anything at all to reassure me as to what this was all about. My personal mortality factor was screaming at an unprecedented volume, which was undoubtedly juiced by how directly I was seeing it in others. However removed we can be from our own petty script in the theater of someone else's life and death, moments of vulnerability are waiting for us when we are alone.

The exhausting exposure of witnessing the plight of others in life's grand scheme wears us down mentally in ways we sometimes don't realize in the moment, just as the gears of the great clock we live by grind on us physically without discrimination.

But in any case, we persevere.

We bend in the wind of our personal storms, occasionally showing the cracks accumulated in the aftermath. We are beaten, bruised, and battered, yet somehow never defeated. Despite the wear and tear that is unavoidable unless living in a parallel universe of tremendous imagination, we stand as tall as we can. Some days we stand taller than others, but our persistence of spirit is no less present and protecting us.

Not only protecting us but driving our will to survive against whatever we're faced with physically, mentally, spiritually, and the like. That's where my head was that evening, packed full of questions and a need for clarity in this fog within my skull.

And then I saw it, and now it is preserved forever. 

What first caught my eye was merely a basketball hoop with a very unusual base, seemingly rising up from the ground like the trees it was surrounded by. The curvature of the pole was visually striking from a distance, enough so to warrant a closer look and maybe a photo or two for its interesting appearance alone.

It wasn't until closer inspection that I soon discovered what really led me to it. The cracks were magnificent, and I soon found myself whisked away in a swash of thought that gave deep meaning to an otherwise inanimate object.

I imagined how many storms this weathered pole had endured, standing strong in the face of gale-force winds, bitter cold, blazing heat, and driving rain, all for the sake of offering joy and escape to the countless. Visions of kids who played on its court over generations only stoked the wonderment and entertained the ensuing questions.

Where were they now, any one of them? Did they go on to live a good life? A not-so-good one? Are any of them now in prison for attempted murder?

Out of all the endless possibilities amid all those who hit a game-winning three in their own fantasy at that park, this single, aging basketball hoop was the common denominator that tied them all together in the big picture. Had it collapsed, the colors would have been altered. Even if only by the slightest measure, life would have been different for all involved. Maybe not better, or maybe not worse.

Just different.

What if a lost soul of a child, whose only escape from his or her own trying realities was tossing a ball into a hole every day, suddenly had that stripped from them? What if the one place they counted on to find solace in the wake of a daily beating or other atrocity no longer existed? What if, rather than enjoying a few moments of recreational therapy, this kid desperate for release fell victim to the dark side and started touching people who didn't want to be touched?

I know, this reads like I'm reaching. But as archetypal as this sounds, it is all of these minuscule parts of our lives which mean everything ... chance encounters beside calculated activities that forge our own personal balances throughout the game of life. And we are no different. We all play a role ... like the pole.

Even when our cracks are showing, we stand tall, both for ourselves and those who depend upon us. Try as we might, we will never fully know our own importance to those around us in the scope of our existence. If only to offer a kind word or an open ear, our interactions can mean the difference between happiness and sadness, sometimes life and death.

No matter what we encounter, our will to survive helps others do the same. When it comes right down to it, we're all in this game together.

I guess it helps to have a good jump shot.

All of a sudden, I saw it so clearly with a vividness so divine. This revelation so pure afforded me the peace of mind to believe everything was going to be just fine through the persistence of time. What was happening was merely putting a few more cracks in a foundation that was too solid to crumble, because it meant too much to do so.

That pole became my friend tried by cancer. It became my parents gradually being whittled down by age. It became everyone, everywhere dealing with the inescapable trials and tribulations that happen without warning to us all.

Most of all, in my moment of enlightenment, it became me. Through all of life's storms, I had certainly cracked but never crumbled. I knew right then this would be no different. There would be another game ... just as there has always been.

With a sense of newfound peace and strength, I steadied my camera.

Click ...