Even NBA Stars Die

The kids started school last Wednesday. Online to begin with. Elise and I aren’t ready to send them back yet, though the school is offering in-person lessons on campus every other week. The transition hasn’t been seamless, but I don’t think it has been any rockier than it would have been if they had ended a summer break and started a new school year under “normal” circumstances. 

Whereas last year, Peter and Clem mostly worked on their own. This year, their program is closer to Sam’s, a schedule of Zoom calls they need to join and participate in. I think the increased engagement is good and will help hold them accountable. At least, that’s what I thought until Elise received an email today from Peter’s teacher to say he missed math class. Peter told the teacher he fell asleep, a half-truth.

Peter usually spends his breaks from school “blasting”, a legitimate way of passing time wherein he runs and skips back and forth, imagining a space battle in his head. I would love to see what he is imagining. Moviegoers plunk down $11 for tickets to a summer blockbuster, popcorn fare, but Peter plays the entire scene in his head, eruptions spewing from his lips send spittle flying across the room, “Pew pew pew! Boom boom! Aaaaah!”  We needn’t have worried about a Peter’s screen time; we seem to have the opposite problem.

When Peter napped through math class, Elise confessed it was hard for her not to feel like she had done something wrong. Peter’s teacher sent him an email, too, and said something to him in “class” (the virtual call) that made him cry. But that’s how kids learn. In the middle of a global pandemic. They make mistakes. We all do. 

I occasionally wake in the middle of the night unable to go back to sleep. A few nights ago, I convinced myself I had forgotten how to tie a tie and mentally went through the loops and knots. In my head, I couldn’t get it. Fortunately, when the time came to do it for real during waking hours, the muscle memory kicked into action; I needn’t have worried. 

I started back to work on Monday. I work from home and attend virtual meetings in the morning, then ride my bike to the office right before lunch.  

The first day back was hard. I spent five months trapped in the house with three insanely energetic kids who seemed to be constantly either screaming, fighting, crying, falling down stairs (seriously. We don’t fear the virus; each of the kids seems to have taken a tumble down the stairs, bruising a shin at least twice during the last five months = six piggyback rides to the couch and six ice packs wrapped in a kitchen towels), or asking us how to spell “should”, “work”, “drive”, and “schedule”. I spent most of my waking hours for the last five months daydreaming about the day I could escape from them, and after five minutes in the office, I miss them with all the deep, primordial ache of someone who lost a loved one to blight or war or a family dog to rare canine disease. 

After five months of successfully working mostly from home, I didn’t understand the logic of showering and shaving, of commuting, dressing in more than a t-shirt and shorts. Still, I am incapable of understanding why anyone would be so eager to return the rat race or yearn for a return to normal, but most people I work with want nothing more than exactly that. 

I recently read an article that helped me articulate some of what I am feeling, “Let’s Stop Romanticizing Post-Pandemic Life.”

“But when we arrived at the thing we’d been anticipating and idealizing, the situation was complex — like life has always been.

“We aren’t on the other side of Covid, but we will be someday. And as moments like this show me, our days will still be multidimensional, easier in some ways and harder in others.  

“Life on the other side of anything is still just...life, in all its duality. Clinging to the comfort of the past or romanticizing the future keeps us from embracing all that is here right now.”

Our life amid the global pandemic feels like a song, dreary and dreamy, lyrics that don’t make a lot of sense; yet music that is still almost melodic, droning, repetitive yet still almost beautiful, a song you instantly recognize yet may not have heard in over a decade, definitely not on your daily play list. Will end. You may play it all the time. The first song on side B. Lift the arm on the record player, find the gap between songs, that part of the vinyl that is smooth and signals silence rather than the small ridges and valleys of analog sound, and place the needle carefully there, at the beginning. 

There have been many casualties of 2020. The excess of bad news can leave one numb. The bad news has to land close to home to make a mark. You have to feel the land cleave, smell the smoke from the crater. Elise and I were watching “Amazing Race” with the kids; she leaned over and murmured in a low voice, “Clifford Robinson died.”

At 53. 

Cliff Robinson played 18 seasons in the NBA, eight of them as small forward with the Portland Trailblazers beside Clyde Drexler and Jerome Kersey. They made the NBA playoffs every year, including the Finals in 1990 and 1992. 

Elise tells the story of the night she and her girlfriend got a ride home from work with Cliff Robinson. I don’t know what his passing means to you. Likely, you have a memory of watching him play in the Finals against Isaiah Thomas’ Pistons or, more likely, Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and the Chicago Bulls. Or maybe his death is just another reminder that nothing, not even sports, or our heroes, not even pandemics, last forever. 

A Jackal’s Wedding

A week or so ago, I was driving to pick up Elise, Sam, and Peter from the boys’ swim practice. The pool isn’t far from our house, and I often don’t think to bring my phone or wallet when I run to the pool to drop off or pick up Elise from the pool. So, when a Hyundai Elantra made a right turn into my door, I didn’t have any way of contacting Elise to tell her I’d just been hit, no license, and no insurance card. Fortunately, the accident had happened right in front of a police kiosk, and I was able to borrow one of the tan-clad police officers’ cell phones. 

The next morning, I went for a long run from the house. Seven miles total with a few in the middle along Marine Drive and the ocean, the sea breeze the only way I’d be able to go that far at all in the heat and humidity of the Sri Lankan summer where overnight lows are around 78 Fahrenheit. As I made my way to the beach road, I watched a lorry plow into the side of a tuk-tuk, flipping it over. It happened just yards in front of me, and I was doin at the scene of the accident, the tuk-tuk’s lawnmower motor still sputtering and rear wheels spinning in the night air. It was a little after five in the morning, and there wasn’t another car in sight. 

I run most mornings. Early. In the dark before the sun comes up. The train tracks run alongside Marine Drive and the ocean.  Commuter trains run regularly into and out of Colombo, enormous, lurching diesel engines pulling cars with open windows and doors, young men with open shirts propping their elbows on the open train portal or hanging from the door, their shirt tails flapping in the wind. 

Before the train comes, I hear the electric charge coarse through the rails. Though the train comes up on from the right if I am running south, I will hear its roar from the left, echoing off the decaying apartment buildings. The cyclopean headlights holds the spray of ocean mist captive. 

This morning, Elise and I went for a four mile run through the city. Towards the end, we were caught in a sunshower, diamond droplets reflecting sunlight. We came upon a man walking, a well-to-do middle age Sri Lankan man with earphones and a white ball cap. He hesitated seeing ahead of us, at the end of the lane, the rainfall coming harder, as though to seek shelter or wait it out under a tree. Elise encouraged him to forge ahead and, in doing so, befriended this man. He seemed appreciative and joyful when Elise reminded him you can’t get caught in the rain without smiling. 

“There is a folktale,” he told us, “that when it is rainy and sunny at the same, we call it the jackal’s wedding.” 

I smelled the rain. How does rain smell? Of course rain itself has no scent. But moments before a rain, an “earthy” smell known as petrichor does permeate the air. This smell actually comes from the moistening of the ground. 

Petrichor is a combination of fragrant chemical compounds.  Some are from oils made by plants.  The main contributor to petrichor are bacteria.  The bacteria breakdown organic matter.  A byproduct of this activity is an organic compound called geosmin which contributes to the petrichor scent.  Geosmin is a type of alcohol.  Alcohol molecules tend to have a strong scent, but the complex chemical structure of geosmin makes it especially noticeable to people even at extremely low levels.

During prolonged dry periods, when it has not rained for several days, the decomposition of bacteria slows down.  Just before a rain, the air becomes more humid, and the ground begins to moisten.  This speeds up the bacteria, and more geosmin is formed.  When raindrops fall on the ground, especially porous surfaces such as loose soil or rough concrete, they will splatter and eject aerosols.  The geosmin and other petrichor compounds present on the ground are released in aerosol form and carried by the wind.  If the rain is heavy enough, the petrichor scent can travel downwind.  The smell of rain. 

Just yesterday, Elise and I were driving back from the pool when we saw an SUV smash into the side of motorcycle, reducing it to hundreds of pieces of shiny aluminum and reflectors skittering across the pavement. The ride hopped up, and two police officers ran to the rider’s aid, 

All this to say, the world is crazy. Everyone is stressed out. This is stressful, and yet all we can do — all any of us can do — is remember to breathe. To slow down. To be kind and patient. To smile as we walk in and smell the rain.

Yala

Last weekend, we splurged on two nights at an all-inclusive safari camp, Wild Coast, in Yala National Park. The location, famous for leopard sightings, is perched on the extreme southeastern tip of Sri Lanka, azure blue waters crashing against sea-sculpted boulders. 

There were several highlights, not the least of which were sundowners oceanside and dinner on the beach. The night sky was milky black, the vault of the heavens unlocked above us; we even saw a shooting star as I walked the boys to their cocoon-shaped cabin. 

The next morning, we headed out early for a safari through the park. The Sri Lankan leopard is the largest of the species, and the park has the largest population of leopards on the island. We were fortunate enough to see one from afar, perched atop his rock throne, surveying his kingdom.

We were greeted at dinner — much to our amazement— by, literally, a giant squirrel. It was the size of a small dog and peered down at us while we were eating dinner!