Becoming Restoried Reflections
#10 | A Make for Every Miss
Snowshoe Park is home to a grove of trees, a field on a hill, a lonely oak bench, and a single basketball hoop with an ill-marked key: the pavement path’s continuation to the top of the hill. There’s no three-point line unless you back up and shoot from the downhill slope. The hoop is clamped together with zip ties and duct tape, and the mesh has been replaced. The hoop and key are nearly completely shaded by a tree canopy. Orange chalk — left behind by a child, I imagine — has been ground to smooth powder at the free-throw line, and the key floor is littered with mushrooms, pine needles, oak leaves, acorns, and crushed currents rolling off of the pregnant bushes. The air smells of cedar bushes. Chip & Dale chatter as they chase one another across the leaves above my head.
It’s an impractical place for basketball. And that’s precisely why I love it. Just a few years ago, anytime between 2012–2020, I would have been deeply annoyed by this place. Now, I meet basketball here frequently and intentionally. The difference? I don’t come to perform.
I miss more shots now than I used to. But I’m not here to make all of my shots. I come to feel the grimy leather coating my fingers in black dirt, the way I did fifteen years ago. I come to chase my basketball into the bushes when I miss a shot, carefully side-stepping the poison ivy. I come to pause on every dribble and pull-up, and like I’ve tried to do in life, slow down to be crisper (it’s not counter-intuitive!), use my left hand as much as my right, and follow through. I love that the top of my head brushes the maple and oak branches when I shoot from the corner of the key.
Basketball brought me to all corners of Ontario, and to Alberta and Newfoundland. It brought me to California, Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, New York, and South Carolina. It brought me to the Czech Republic, France, Italy, and Mexico. It gave me some of the best moments of my life. I don’t deny that. And I’m immensely grateful.
Through Becoming Restoried, I’ve realized that giving the good things their space to be remembered and told doesn’t diminish or gaslight the pain that may have coexisted with them.
And basketball coincided with bottomless hurt.
Recently, I attended the first WNBA game in Toronto (it’s about time!). I was there to see one of my best friends (and former teammate) play, but of course, it felt like everyone from the Canada Basketball circuit was in attendance — teammates and coaches from my days of Team Ontario, Team Canada, and Stanford. The first emotion I felt was shame.
My basketball career was once on this path — to the WNBA and the Olympics. I held these visions tightly to my chest. But my basketball career also brought with it some of the deepest pain of my life, for reasons I’ve only scratched the surface of in other writings here.
I felt shame because I thought I had no business being in this space, let alone playing — ever again — if I didn’t or couldn’t do it at this level. It would be pitiful to pick up a basketball without the goals I once had. I felt guilty — there is a village of people who dedicated time, energy, and money to my craft.
I also thought that if I allowed basketball back into my life in a tamer way, the pain would be too much. Since I retired in 2020, I willingly and knowingly exiled basketball from my life, with the exception of caring for/supporting my friends who still play.
Time to restory.
Without my Becoming Restoried community, I don’t think I would’ve picked up a basketball again. I wouldn’t have excavated the truth: at the core of my heart and soul, I love basketball. Very, very much. Shame would be casting it out in service of protecting myself from confronting the pain that circulated between us.
As usual, Michael had a story for this. We watched The Lindworm during one of our sessions. In this story, a young prince is born second to a black lindworm — from the same mother, in the same birth. The lindworm is cast out the window, forgotten and exiled until it’s time for the prince to marry. The lindworm, also having grown into young adulthood, beckons, “Older brothers marry first.” The family, not realizing that they had another son, welcomes the lindworm into the castle, arranging meetings with several potential brides. The lindworm eats each one, until, one young woman offers care, patience, acceptance, and love through the necessary agony of scrubbing off each layer of scales. Underneath is a young, kind man.
There is much that I’ve left out of the story, but I see my relationship with basketball. It needs patient, compassionate tending. One thing I’ve always done in my training sessions is make a shot for every miss. It might be a layup for a missed three-pointer — importantly not the exact same shot. But a ‘make for every miss’ is my way of recalibrating. This blog post is the beginning of a string of makes for years of misses.
Basketball needs a home, and in the little cove at Snowshoe Park, we may be able to brush away one another’s scales. As I allow basketball back into my life in a way that harbours joy, its orange leather scales thin, fade, and peel. My finger pads bear distantly familiar callouses. Layers of workout gear soak through with salty sweat. And eventually, both shed, revealing a glow I didn’t know I still had.
You can take Becoming Restoried’s What Story Are You Living assessment, or join one of their ongoing free virtual workshops.
