preliminary coaching piece

i've always been loved or hated

i generate a divisive response, and i never understood it. now that i am a coach on a semi-high (city confined) scale (a 5A high school program and a head coach of a specific team) I see why my personality might cause reaction. I don't always accept traditional boundaries, often in tunnel-vision of my goals or needs.  people come to the games, see me on the sideline. watch and analyze how i deal with kids, myself, the referees, etc. 

 I have chosen to do the most difficult job i can think of for small wage instead of doing something easy (to me) for decent pay like serving tables or cutting yards. 

Nothing is more stringent and rewarding as instructing, teaching or coaching youth. Having them in the classroom is one thing. Personally guiding them toward achieving a goal of learning traditional education and moving on to the next level of scholar is a feeling that few in this wicked world can compete with. Though the vision of success is tangible in society, you're not necessarily on a stage as much as you are coaching. 

High school sports in Shreveport are a big deal. The city is actually quite large, formerly the capitol for a time of Louisiana, but does not have major sports teams. There was a Canadian Football Team here once (that my dad and uncle did play-by-play for) if you can believe that, but the city's energy has long been standing with the life and death of 17-year olds' athletic achievements.

Being back here has been a resistance since its existence. There is a city-wide stigma that is attached to every young adult trying to make a life for themselves: "i need to get out of here to show myself, show them, that i am something."  Vague as it may seem, it exists and pushes against the establishment telling them this is a great place to raise your kids. 

Quickly into my move back home I realized the greatness of this city. I was not connected to my old ideas. I felt like a kid again ready to decide what is best for me.  I began to understand again the authenticity of my surroundings and the incredibly real love that blankets my path navigating across the city with no car. 

The drops of youth left in me pushed me back to the decision-makers: high schoolers.

One of the great things going for this place is its excitement for the people making these decisions. Kids going around the country to legendary universities, an 18-year-old making it on the X-Factor, or the running back we watched play pee-wee ball scoring the winning touchdown for LSU against, say, Auburn (wink). We celebrate these young people with great fervor. We claim them as family.

I get to impact some of these kids lives. So much of the fabric that makes up my idealistic existence was molded by my high school basketball coach, my English professor in college, my childhood friends, their families...

And now I get to play the other side. These kids look up to me, laugh with me, cry with me, learn with me. It's symbiotic, reciprocal. I see why people do it when they grow up, the payoff is good. 

Yet, coaching, the spotlight is on. Parents pick up their kids, hear what they have to say about you, go to the games and watch you act a mess and have conniptions trying to get their kid to block out. But they understand, and they do whatever they have to do to get their child to practice the next day because they value the experience of being on a team and a commitment to skill and growth.

I have to stand in front of my kids tomorrow knowing that I may very well be the reason why they are not performing at the level they should be. They are incredibly talented, yet don't play any defense. I have not practiced them the way I should, and it shows. We are 1-3, and I have acted crazier and crazier as the games have progressed. 

But the kids play harder and harder. Listen more. Understand how bad it hurts to lose, every game so close they can taste it but can't eat it.

So, every day I want to go get a real job. I don't want the stage, the pressure, the incredible tangency of our goals and my inability to reach them. Then I close my eyes and see those kids, looking to me for answers. Asking me to guide them, teach them what I've learned, ask me what playing basketball for a Division-1 school was like, tell them about the times I played big games in Louisiana high school basketball. I think about their potential, my potential. What it would be like to get these guys where they could go. 

I walk from my parents' house to the gas station to get some cigarettes with the last $4 and change I found under my bed that I have. 

The attendant requests my ID, then asks if I'm that coach over at Captain Shreve, I tell him yes. 

"Those kids really like you," He says. "I hear 'em talkin bout what they learned from Coach JJ all the time."

I look down and smile, reaching in my pocket to make sure I brought today's practice schedule. 

boys II trade

 her mind is scrolling

 blue, green, 

                purple-black, on a blacked out screen

all your gold

     dark rainbow tips

skeleton bones like a hive of sticks

smaller fingers, holiday love

                remember the future

for what you dream of

friday is important

      are we going to talk about friday?

                 she has a plastic case of cupcakes 

walking up school stairs

i look up through the window and watch her ascend

she holds the case like a trey

              i n m y p e r i p h e r y 

an old woman feels the walls for sound

"i wana take some lessons, norman

one or two of em"

carry the fish over the bridge 

      while youre under it 

walking tied to a rope, 

he scales, pun intended, the bridge again to meet u on the other side

nothing is little, everything is brilliant

a tiny pearl in a sea of trees -- his face. 

hides, perched above the shoulders of his suit

           a shiny glimmering hope

its all he needs,

button up shirt

carpet cowboy hats roll folded

              matchstik bones

               avocado tissues

                                            fruit punch bloodbath!

                    courageous muscles,

           there he is 

      in the sky lit up neon ice cream

oh, hes eatin it

and the world, 

sky is purple and marsh-mellows make skyscrapers

it foods your beer

its got your stripes--

i get that now

no one else is here

                            just me 

             watching the sun

watching a father

       watching a son watch his son watch himself fail

with shoulder pads on or something

in a plastic zip up bag space like ETs house

ice cream dreams II

won't sleep, last night,
roller-coaster-pit-stomach
ready for me--

the other side of my eyes.

shade on the concrete
fighting for we

yet here i am, awake, alive.

it's not gonna be what you want
it's just not gonna happen

LOOK AT ME

don't be this strange
don't be this scared

don't be so scared
to look at me

you've got the questions
don't you
dig them out of the ground

it's just that habit

the way i hold you

it's not gonna happen
the way you want
at least the holidays
will be enjoyable

worry wart

there's a fine line between having it all together and everything completely falling apart. at least in my life, former life even.  maybe that's what happens when you train your brain to live and die everyday. 

momentum, vulnerability. some parts of our near or long-distance past can carry us through hurt and heartbreak and the overwhelming nature of interacting with a world outside of ourselves. it can also eat further at what is consuming our personal outlook. 

i've been on a true path since september 11th. everything is easier, and i actually, physically feel great. but it only takes one moment, one decision to turn it all around, either way. every passing moment...

when you continue to make destructive decisions over and over, you become numb to the process. some people just think they're fucked and the mess is too big to ever clean up so why start? when truth becomes the constant in your equation, the process slowly becomes second nature. 

i've been feeling so good lately, surrounded by a small community of realistic yet optimistic young people who seem to actually care and put effort into my well-being.  it nearly put me in cruise control. at first i was extraordinarily productive, relatively speaking, which made it almost a habit to do the right thing. progress, not perfection (ha!), but progress nonetheless. until a crucial decision comes out of hiding. it waited until i was vulnerable, yet primed and prepared to do the right thing. whether i did it or not is hardly the point...but a certain charlie kaufman scripterpiece scrolled through my mind:

"Everything is more complicated than you think. You only see a tenth of what is true. There are a million little strings attached to every choice you make. You can destroy your life every time you choose. But maybe you won’t know for twenty years! And you may never ever trace it to its source. And you only get one chance to play it out. Just try and figure out your own divorce…

“And they say there’s no fate, but there is, it’s what you create. And even though the world goes on for eons and eons, you are only here for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Most of your time is spent being dead, or not yet born. But while alive, you wait in vain wasting years for a phone call or a letter or a look from someone or something to make it all right, but it never comes. Or it seems to, but it doesn’t really.

“So you spend your time in vague regret or vaguer hope that something good will come along, something to make you feel connected, something to make you feel cherished, something to make you feel loved. And the truth is is, I feel so angry! And the truth is, I feel so fucking sad! And the truth is, I’ve felt so fucking hurt for so fucking long and for just as long, I’ve been pretending I’m okay, just to get along!

“I don’t know why. Maybe because…no one wants to hear about my misery…because they have their own.

Fuck everybody. Amen.”

i've spent a lot of time waiting. waiting and waiting for someone to wake me up, waiting to see the progress instead of hearing about the potential. waiting for him to come back, waiting for something to happen to me. i've been waiting for the circumstances to change, not realizing the power i have to overcome whatever comes my way. this does not make me unique anymore than it makes me aware. visible, tangible progress may not come for months, years, or ever. yet, every second we have the freedom to decide; no matter if you are in prison or land-locked or buried, you can still do what is right in your world. if i fucked up ten minutes ago, there's always the chance to do the next thing right. and that gives me hope. a simple, truth-based philosophy that things will get better. if in that moment progress doesn't show her face, there's always another train coming 'round the bend.

if you smoke L&M 100s

experience

i've spent a lot of time this week complaining and feeling sorry for myself. dwelling on the ways my new friendships have fell short. harping on loneliness. not much sleep. i've convinced myself how lonely i am, and have lived accordingly.

when you're lonely, you take everything personally. you are just waiting for an excuse to pile on to your self-imposed sadness. it can be hard to move sometimes.

last night, as a sat yet another night holed up in my room wrapped up in my feelings, i began receiving call after call from the close friends of yesterday. i guess that diminishes these people...my old besties started hollering.

they filled me up. why i was expecting friendships that i've put a fraction of the effort into compared to my closest relationships to do the same for me as my oldest friends, i'm not really sure. of course the new people in my life can't quite do what the older ones have. they don't share an inch of the experiences we have compared with the people who shaped me as a younger man.

you hear growing up from your elders about the importance of patience. once you think deeper on the issue, you realize that patience really goes hand-in-hand with experience.

my sister is getting married in november. recently she was asking me about who i wanted to invite, kind of a covered way of seeing if i wanted to bring my boyfriend or not. after thinking about it for a while, we talked and agreed that dropping the bombshell of bringing my partner around for the first time at her wedding wasn't fair to anyone, including me.

i'm totally okay with this decision. the door is still open. what i do want, though, is for her and my family to have an experience with me being in a successful relationship. it's not so much about patience and time, as it is about exposing them to real time dealings with meeting someone i love and feeling and seeing my happiness.

people have to experience things for themselves in order to understand. talk is cheap sometimes. you have to live it.

the experiences i have with my new friends don't even scratch the surface compared to what i have built with my old ones. i can't expect these people to do the same things as my oldest friends, because we don't really know each other as well. we haven't been through the same challenges. i have to accept that.

it's not about holding on to the old, or embracing the new. it's once again about accepting the now. right now, x and y are visible in my life. i have to create new experiences if i want to get anything out of them. bunkering up in my room won't do anything but sink myself deeper.