Work from the Floor

"The first product of self-knowledge is humility."  - Flannery O'Connor

William had his first two basketball games on Saturday. In the first half of the double-header they faced a tough team who had just won 42 - 2. Our boys hustled their socks off and pushed that team to a much tougher 20 - 16 game (we lost). They sprinted up and down the floor, hit that same floor hard to fight for a jump ball or a rebound. My second-grader, Daniel, who is just learning the game of basketball, was impressed by how much of the action took place from the floor. "You can pass from there?" he asked William.  "Sure," said big brother, "you can't move from that spot so you have to do something with the ball."

This exchange reminded me viscerally of a letter I read from "Sugar"  (Cheryl Strayed, the author of Wild) to an aspiring writer who was bemoaning her lack of success at a young age, and feeling paralyzed by the gap between her need to be great and her "limitations, insecurities, jealousies and ineptitude."  I've just gotta say - I have SO been there. Sugar shoots back an amazing letter, leading with the quote from O'Connor. She later explains the origins of the word 'humility':

"The word comes from the Latin words humilis and humus. To be down low. To be of the earth. To be on the ground. That's where I went when I wrote the last word of my first book. Straight onto the cool tile floor to weep."  She explains how the book came about:

"I 'd finally been able to give it because I'd let go of all the grandiose ideas I'd once had about myself and my writing - so talented! So young!"  We were most of us there at one time, with high expectations and no idea of how to achieve them, sure of our potential greatness and depressed because greatness sure takes a long time to show up and make a circle around the room. Sugar describes this as being "up too high and down too low. Neither is the place where we get any work done."

And here's the best part. "We get the work done on the ground level. And the kindest thing I can do for you is to tell you to get your ass on the floor. I know it's hard to write, darling. But it's harder not to. The only way you'll find out if you 'have it in you' is to get to work and see if you do." Hallelujah, amen.  When you're down on the floor you can't move so you had better get to work and do something with that ball. In basketball, in writing, in relationships, in all things, get on the ground, open your mind, and get to work.