It’s half past midnight and I’m sipping a martini in downtown Denver. Suddenly the crowded bar turns toward the entrance. Curious as to the commotion, my friends and I watch two tall black men walk into Earls. Aware that they’re stirring attention, Carmelo Anthony and J.R. Smith duck their heads and retreat to the back of the restaurant.
Several minutes later a loud group, not the normal patrons comprised of twenty-thirty something urbanites, but rather the gathering you’d see at a family birthday party. Moms and grandmas, uncles and cousins in sweatshirts and sneakers, pinstripes and leather, at the rear of this motley crew is the baldhead of Chauncey Billups. A guy whose dues have been paid starting in inner city, rocked it at the University of Colorado and since leaving the Rockies passed through Detroit, Minnesota, Orlando and Toronto. But finally this past November has come home.
Tomorrow night is the first playoff game for the Denver Nuggets, but more important than the playoff, this is the second time Denver has a hero with a #7 on his jersey.
I wandered over to J.R. and Melo (last January Denver Mag published an exclusive cover feature), while congratulating the two, Billups approached. Upon noticing the veteran player, their eyes lit up. I witnessed the proud and unfettered sports stars accustomed to signing autographs and speaking on ESPN become quiet with reverence.
Rarely does success reach a point when it’s no longer worth calculating.
Zeros and accolades stop adding value, and the challenge is no longer making it, but figuring out how to enjoy it. The antithesis of the “baller” basketball player, Billups doesn’t prove how cool he is by 24k gold chains, overpriced vodka, and women wrapped around tattooed arms. And while that description could be confused as a rapper, Billups has established his worth where it can be objectively measured, on the court.
A cousin in the NFL, Billup’s genes can’t be too shoddy, but I wonder if ever in high school, or after his shoulder injury, or when he was on the reserves, if he ever considered quitting? The image of Denver’s most celebrated athlete laughing gingerly over ice water, in the eyes of an older woman, probably his grandmother, reality hit me hard.
Success is when you can afford to live in the moment.
Flowers and IVs I make reference to my color-coded day planner. Most nod politely, not giving a damn, and anyone who knows me chuckles tastefully knowing I’m full of shit. The chance of locating a colored pen in the trenches of my bag is as easy as finding the Lions at the super bowl. I bitch. Without doubt I’m the first to complain, or whine, or seek out empathy from an unassuming sympathetic ear. But the last words to leave my mouth are, “it could always be worse.” And, never has a painful event occurred, when it couldn’t, not, get better.
Ambulances are a warm and safe haven for me. Odd. However disgruntling the statement might be interpreted, the ol’ go-carts full of supplies have transported me from hospital to home on numerous occasions. Mostly during my stint as an invalid.
However, on a particular afternoon two weeks ago, the breezy, sunny, April springtime afternoon in Denver, returned from a sojourn from LA that morning, the rest of my day and outfit were wiped out. As quick as you can press the gas pedal, was I strapped to a stretcher with sirens screeching, recollecting my social security number while a needle was being shoved into my vein.
Family and friends were tossing silly jabs my way while awaiting results from the MRI. Attempting to capture the seriousness of the situation, I advised with a stoic expression “you know, this detour wasn’t on my agenda…getting my car totaled and canceling a party I’d spent weeks organizing was certainly not on my “to do” list.”
So what? A benign car wreck led me to wonder, what other interruptions aren’t clearly inserted into calendars and palm pilots? Heart attacks, cancer diagnosis, plane crashes, and god forbid worse. These are the unforeseen rollercoaster rides that screw up our existence as we so unknowingly expected it. So what is the answer: brace yourself? Hold tight to your loved ones because all hell will break lose eventually? While I wish there was a remedy to cure what hasn’t happened yet, I’m abandoned with a single deliberation. Live knowing there will be phone calls you don’t want to answer, and news you’d like to ignore, but among the handful of painful blows, there are unheralded interruptions that are capable of inviting joy, if you leave your eyes open.
BRACKISH Mostly Caucasians fill the flat. It’s Friday evening and dancing to the pop music is bubbling alcohol, torte chips and digital cameras. All strategically organized, to flirt, record, and then share the glee with the rest of the world via facebook.
In the corner by the pantry is a woman who doesn’t fit in, visually anyhow. Course, dark, hair hides her soft, but calm expression. Twenty years older than everyone else, she seeks counsel studying photographs and nodding at conversation in which she hasn’t been included. Amiss from the cultish pack of precipitous partiers is one man who steps closer to the involuntary recluse.
Two people speaking in half Spanish and half English, but mostly via horizontal head motions and vertical hand movements. While I wasn’t privy to their shared dialogue, I discovered their conversation was anything but trivial, or effort-heavy chatter produced out of guilt. The few minutes brought reality back to my friend.
It wasn’t his reality, but hers that convinced him to see a light at the end of his own tunnel. It was as simple as a story about her son's graduation announcements. Graduation announcements were $35, and her cousin could not afford to have such a luxury printed.
In his world where $35 can be easily found and replaced, to meet someone where so little is so much, suddenly the fruits of our labor, however sour on a given day, suddenly taste succulent. The laborious strain that weighs down weekdays, tying muscles into painful knots, can never be as tragic as not having $35 to spare.
And my friend walked away feeling so profoundly affected by the realities of this woman, I don’t know if he understood what he unintentionally handed her in return is invaluable. In a life absent of influence, an office where she caters to the upper echelon of society, she was heard, simply because he wanted to listen.
In a room saturated with loud and obnoxious, unaware young professionals, a small Spanish woman found her voice.
