Word of the year, 2022

In yoga, an intention is a singular virtue or quality you hope to attain through your practice. It can be a word, a phrase, a mantra — whatever you need in the moment. To me, this centering act marks a beginning, a blank page, a clean transition from everything that came before it. For a few years now, I’ve carried this concept off the mat and started each new year with an intention to guide me through.

This is different from a new year’s resolution because it’s not something that can be failed. It’s not a goal with targets and deadlines and measurements. It’s a value statement, an objective, a North Star I search for after processing the previous year.

Good at words, bad at eggs

2020 will be remembered for a lot of terrible things. For some of us, it will also be the year we baked a crusty sourdough boule/started a podcast/grew 59 indoor plants. It’s a gossamer lining when a pandemic, economic despair, and civil unrest await outside our locked-down doors.

But hey, I can cook all kinds of eggs now.

Five signs it’s time to move on

Perfect jobs — free of stress, conflict, and the occasional red tape — don’t exist. But your workplace frustrations also might be a sign you’re in the wrong place or a symptom of organizational distress.

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Could the onetime home of the Tigers someday be home to tigerfish? My case for an aquarium in the abandoned former Mid-South Coliseum, in The Memphis Flyer.

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On the end of an era in Memphis basketball.

Zach Randolph, the basketball player, made the Grizzlies relevant. Then Tony Allen, the basketball player, made them fun. Together, as people, they made them relatable. We knew in our minds a day would come when Memphis, the community, would need them as people more than the Grizzlies needed them as players on the court. We knew one day they’d decide their bodies had given enough to the grind of training camps and ice baths, media avails, and six months on the road. We hoped in our hearts the dates would align. It’s more than basketball, until it’s only basketball, and you realize you’ve invested too much emotional capital in some dudes who chase a ball around. They tried to prepare us, but some data is just too painful to take. Such is life in a one-sport town.

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Here in We Don’t Bluff City, we know the Grizzlies belong. But some fans aren’t helping our Beale Street Bears prove it when they can’t even stay in the building for the full 48 minutes. Let other teams’ fans look like jerks on TV. We can be better.

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