Love & Basketball: A Year Governed by Fire & the Phoenix

It was my suggestion for us to play basketball. My, soon-to-be, 7-year-old nephew is what I call a boys boy. He’s exactly who I wasn’t as a kid. Actually, he is exactly who I did my best to avoid growing up. Kids like him intimidated me. They were the representation of who I was expected to be.

Swiftly, I grabbed the ball before he could get to it. I suggested playing a game of one on one, the first to 10 wins. I crossed the ball through my legs, as I’d seen others do. This was a big surprise to my nephew. How did you learn to do that, he said with such innocent excitement. Standing about 13 feet from the rim, I stepped back and took the shot: swoosh. His eyes grew wide. I’d made four points quickly, and then I realized, a good Untie would let their nephew have a chance, so I backed off. I let him make a few before I got back into my competitive zone. Swoosh. Swoosh. You’re so goodddddddd, he screamed.

—

It all happened quicker than I had anticipated. I was told to arrive at 9:30AM—which I translated to mean I’ll likely go on air at 10AM. Which led me to believe I would have time to look over my notes again and put a dab or two of my essential oils on.

When I entered the news studio, I was met with prompt, friendly, and systematic greetings from the staff. Each gesture felt worn, a road they had traveled on countless times. Okay, right this way, I’ll give you a quick tour of the studio.

Finally, we reached the room in which my segment would be recorded. Almost instantly, one of the techs came up to me, ready to mic me up. A heat wave washed over me—a familiar symptom of panic. I asked if I could quickly run to the washroom. Okay, I’ll wait out here, the Media Specialist said after showing me where to go. When I got in the washroom, I went straight to the mirror. I reapplied lip gloss. I needlessly repositioned a few pieces of my hair. I shuffled in my bag to find my Myrrh essential oil, applying a drop over my 3rd eye. It was then, catching a glimpse of myself, almost as if someone had inscribed the words on the mirror, but instead, it was what I felt and heard, inside: You are more ready than you think.

“Fire, in the form of lava, is literal creation—land is created when lava hits the ocean.”

If given the option, I don’t know anyone who would choose the road of most resistance and pain. My thorn has always been my desire for a life unlike the one I was born into. A life where, each night I was read a bedtime story, then tucked away and gently kissed on my forehead. One where I was told, from the moment I was born, that I could be anyone, even myself. A life where I would have been able to thoroughly enjoy the innocent freedoms of childhood.

I have fought hard between these two worlds, juggling to make sense of not only who I was, but where I was meant to live amongst them. When I prayed that night, on bended knees at 6-years-old, I vividly remember asking God for a different route, an easier life than the one that was before me—I was met with silence, but in that silence, I found my answer.

“I’ll cross the hottest desert, I’ll travel near or far.”

In a certain season of my life, those words were my life vest. They were light enough to carry, yet still they weighed me down. I wore them, not to keep me from drowning, but as a way to encourage me to keep swimming. I’d fought ferociously to protect those words. I incubated them, as something sacred within me in order to one day have them birth both what I could sense and perceive, and what I couldn’t yet fathom. This, I would know as the only way greed would show its face within me, I wanted my share: a healer’s revenge and I would stop at nothing to get it.

The desert I’d crossed, the flames that chased me along that unknown path had led me here: a fortress built and sustained by my own hands and something far beyond me. It has roots, like a tree, and yet, it defies all laws of matter and sense. For it is not a place at all, too powerful to be contained, too elusive to be truly named. The best word I can find for it, right now, is love. Yes, love. Love was playing that game of basketball with my nephew. Love had washed away, too, the scars of that little boy that I once knew. Love swept through the bathroom, looked me in the eyes and guided me to that seat, on the couch for my interview. Love had reminded me of me, of just how hot the flames of my past had been and yet, I had not been burned. Love had brought me to see the strength and beauty in how far I was always wiling to travel, to find me, to free me—and still, I remained willing to go further.

—

Take the ball. Take the shot. Feel yourself move and be in new ways, but most of all from a place of love.

And when your time comes, for you to have a seat and for the camera to be on you—trust your readiness.

Fire, the most powerful element of all, is guiding us this year. It’s the phoenix that I saw. The Phoenix has come as the animal spirit here to lead us through 2024. So let love rise, and allow you to rise with it.