The constellations have been shuffled, mixed into ghosts of the undefined and the what-may-never-be. Yet, they still grasp at the ability to haunt the days looming in the wake of tomorrow. Connect the dots to perfect the silhouettes with those stars we chase in our farthest reaches of hope, of dream, and still we’re merely drawing shadows in the dark.
But, we’re not alone.
We can draw portraits in the dirt. Scratch diagrams in the walls of basketball dialogue. Etch our constructs in digital forums. But, in the end, we can only pretend to know just how the cannonballs will stack; can only feign to know how the first will fall, and how it will guide those that follow.
The constellations remain shuffled, and in this moment definition has yet to claim, it’s easy to pick and choose what to make of the scattered dots spilled over the sky.
On the eve of the next race, the biggest we’ve seen – just as those held before, and those to come; a path eternally ascending – there is no shame in counter-weighing optimism with realism, but it isn’t the realist who never allows for a small room behind an unlocked door to store his hope. As it so often is, the pessimist hides his affair with doubt under the guise of knowledge he does not hold, of preaching the reality that has not come.
I write now, not as a preacher, but as one who hopes to remind that until hope has shed the need to chase that next breath, there is nothing gained in refusing its acquaintance.
Until you accept the inevitability that some sketches may collapse into a pool of random stars before the image comes to life, you invite the petrified, paralyzed stance entrenched in disappointment. You stand to miss most of the joy found in the connections that could echo down the corridors of NBA history; the joy kept in the moments before the sky wears the tattoo of a successful design and the fireworks take flight.
You’ll stand welcomed in the celebratory songs found then, but you’ll have missed as we found the lines connecting the dots that brought the new constellations to life.
