ALLEY-OOP

January 5, 2010

Alley-Oop
\a-le-yup\ n: A basketball play in which a player catches a pass above the basket and immediately dunks the ball.

I like the feeling of the texture of the raised bumps of a basketball on my fingertips, those bumps leaving a tingling sensation as the ball leaves my fingers and soars toward the basket; the net waiting to capture its long-lost love. But alas, the ball does not make it into the net; the next player is put in to hopefully undo the damage I have managed to create in my meager 2 minutes and 15 seconds.
I like round numbers. Today is the 5th of January 2010. We have 360 days left to go in this New Year. My mind works better with round numbers; for some strange reason, they give me hope, maybe it’s the clean look they have about them, or the possibility the figure “O” has; never-ending, never yielding, always allowing for error and the ability to rectify that error. For almost two years, my life has been anything but easy. It has been host to uncertainty, financial woes, failure to just go grocery shopping without comparing prices, and lack of material comforts due to fiscal priorities. There have been many ups and downs these past two years, not one of them resulting in an alley-oop.
I like the feeling of the keyboard keys click-clacking as my thoughts race to get on the paper and as I finish a piece and look over the completed product, I understand what it is about. It isn’t about always “dunking the ball,” in the area we want but the area we can; the areas we are most talented; racking up points while establishing a new goal simultaneously. And the crowd goes wild…!