I admire how basketball players fall. Splat on the belly and then slide across the floor, slick as a sled down a snowy hill. Or they thud onto their butts and pop up like it was part of a tumbling run. They leap right back into the game.

My husband and I checked into the Y for our usual cardio. When we turned the corner from the welcome desk, athletes in wheelchairs swirled around us and spilled out from the gymnasium doors. Guys and girls, men and women, from peewee league to NBA hopefuls, they were in town for a regional basketball tournament.

We climbed into the bleachers, along with other fans.

As in all endeavors, a star emerged, the kid with genius moves. He was fast, graceful, smart, and accurate. Both legs were missing from the hip down, his right arm amputated at the elbow. A seat belt strapped him into the chair. As he executed a series of intricate fakes, dribbling into position for a three-pointer, his chair rolled over. It pinned him underneath, wheels in the air, spinning. I couldn’t tell how it got worked out––I’m often six moves behind while watching a game––but he was upright and sinking a free throw before I could gasp. Before my respect finished its artless free fall into pity.

I admire how basketball players fall.

While I’m reading, a sentence will grab me and force me to stop. I pay tribute to other authors by sharing their Damn Fine Sentences with you. Then I recount a memory the words bring up for me. It’s about how books connect with your life. ###

“Then she heard herself speak as if the voice was coming out of somebody else’s body, slow as tar drying.”
—Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
--A Kind of Freedom

At our reunion after years of cross-country phone calls, my best friend leaned toward me across the restaurant table. She was catching me up about being the live-in caregiver of her thousand-year-old mother, who had dementia. Days crammed with appointments with legal, medical, financial, and social work bureaucrats. She was pissed, and I've always been terrified by anybody's anger. Adult day care, abusive help, expensive help, and no help. She stabbed the air with her fork. Family who refused to help. I flinched. Her rage was a blast furnace. “And everybody's telling me to stop being mad.”
 
And my voice said. “Ignore. Everybody. You’re totally worn out. Keep your anger—it’s the only fuel you’ve got left.”

The flames died down. She settled back in her chair. “Thank you,” she said.

Then we gossiped about our college days.

While I’m reading, a sentence will grab me and force me to stop. I pay tribute to other authors by sharing their Damn Fine Sentences with you. Then I recount a memory the words bring up for me. It’s about how books connect with your life.

####

“The crowd hushes like a dying breeze.”
—Jewell Parker Rhodes
--Black Brother, Black Brother

Transplanted from California to St. Louis, I was alone in the apartment I’d just moved into. My windows overlooked a bustling intersection. Car radios blasted. Hot humid wind carried the noise of summer foot traffic, hey mama a counterpoint to what choo lookin at boy. A couple of blocks away, Highway 40 hummed. I took a break from unpacking and lay down for a nap.

I startled awake.

Is that an air raid siren?

I looked out the window. The streets were deserted. The sky was green.

War of the Worlds was playing out in real life, as it had in my childhood nightmares, when I’d hid in my closet.

I turned on the television to the urgent drone of weathermen on every chanel. Tornado. “Within the sound of my voice, seek shelter.”

I crawled into the closet.