The Reason Why...

Photo pinched from sweetfineday

I loosened this photo up from sweetfineday and then slapped it down here because it felt like everything I ever wanted, or close to it. I sometimes (most times) have a difficult time telling people what I believe in as it relates to what I do...you know, the very important whys and hows of what it is that I wake up every day and leave my beautiful family to get all muddy doing...and this photo feels a lot like the reason why.

I started out in community recreation, then camp, and then I slipped into Boys and Girls Clubs, and then into some more community work...some advocacy, outreach, blah be blah blah...and then the Y, and now schools, but this photo feels most like where it all started...looks an awful lot like the foundation of this house I'm forever renovating. In the beginning it was about kids, then about older kids, then about kids struggling to get by, and finally about kids who just aren't getting by at all. I used to shoot hoops with kids, and sometimes there was as much talking as there was shooting, and that's when I first realized that all it takes is someone who won't quit, who gives you a voice, and will always listen to it. All it takes is all it really takes in any other part of your life...just show up. Early on if I just showed up, and had a basketball in my hands, well, that worked best. Sometimes you don't even want to talk about things...you just want to shoot.

Anyway, I kinda had to needed to post that pic because that's it...that's the reason, that's the feeling I get, that's the simplicity of it all. That's it, right there. I miss dark gymnasiums, hardwood floors, dusty sunlight and exposed brick...but most of all I miss that feeling of doing nothing important when you know shot and word counts. For me it started out just like this, and for the rest of my life the sound of a bouncing basketball will have a totally different meaning than it might for you.

This is what all that looked like