december 4 etc
Yesterday I wrote a thing that meant a lot to me and at the end of the post I mentioned that it was the first part of a longer thing I am writing about, among other things, life, growth, trauma, healing, neuroplasticity told through the lens of dynasty fantasy basketball.
It was the most excited I've been about writing in about a month or two and also the most excited about living, learning, thinking, synthesizing information and making connections that help me live, learn, think, synthesize information and make connections than I've been in... maybe forever.
I received a lot of compliments about that element of the larger piece. Some people understood implicitly that I was talking about love and other people understood implicitly that it was about what I have always personally referred to as coming through slaughter, the title of a book Michael Ondaatje wrote in the mid 1970s which I have, over the last 20 years, remixed to mean something like the experience of remaining alive on the other side of bad things that broke big parts of you. Not just ticking or like, happy to be there. Defiantly alive. When I write my veins are made of gold I am saying that I am finally, finally strong at the broken places.
Some people told me that while they didn't give a damn about sports, or basketball, or dynasty fantasy basketball, they got what I was saying. That how I was doing it made sense to them. The sports guys liked it too, and I was glad for that.
I went back to what I wrote and to fix a few comma splices and one typo and found that I wanted to shape what I wrote so that it was clearer and maybe even a little fuller. If you're a young writer, think about the textures in your writing. Sometimes, when something doesn't feel quite right it's often because there's not enough gristle.
I struck out or otherwise edited quite a bit of the original piece while also adding more colours, textures, and tones. I think I make the thing better but ultimately you should decide so if you want to read the newer, fuller version of the thing from yesterday have at it or whatever.
The original version of yesterday's post ended like this:
If you've been kind enough to read this far, I apologize for what I am about to do.
As you likely guessed, this is not a story about dynasty fantasy basketball. This is a story about neuroplasticity, growth, and how old dogs can learn new tricks. And you're only part way through it. The next part will be posted on December 4. At least I hope it will.
And so we are here now, on December 4. It's December 5 actually but I often have to backdate my late posts to 11:59pm the day they are meant to be on because I often write into the wee hours. So yeah. It's late and I am laying in bed counting ghosts in the ceiling. My body is fighting against the sleeping pills I forgot I took, and I am thinking about how my head has been compacted by a tension headache that has cast a halo over my head for most of the last ten hours. For what it's worth I don't feel angelic and I'm not finished the second part of the larger piece which, if you didn't know, I'm writing on the fly.
This is to say that while I know where I started and where I want to go and generally have sense of where I will stop along the way, the second part of the thing from yesterday —— read or reread it if you want —— just isn't ready yet and so now the 2.0 version of yesterday's post ends like this:
The next part will hopefully be posted on December 4 but if it takes longer to write and refine, so be it.
Rest assured I've still got the sauce. I'm still locked in. Thing is, right now I'm a bit more Jean-Dominique Bauby than I'd like to be, so I'mma get some sleep and try to cut this headache off at the knees.
🌲 gonna nonny
🌼 go nonny
🌱 touch nonny
🌳 grass nonny
🌷 now nonny
Be good to yourself.
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