Wrinkles of Time
Thirty years and sixty-six days separate our best and worst of times. April 19, 1995, and June 23, 2025, aren’t so much bookends for our state as they are markers. Evidence of capacity. Dotted lines where creases changed the way we see ourselves.
The wonderful and the awful—in weirdly different ways—yield a power that blurs (real and manufactured) boundaries. In both the rawness of tragedy and the euphoria of accomplishment, stiff arms soften. Windows roll down. Gates open. Long-standing walls made of concrete crumble. We meet one another in the soupy insides of extremes.
“He” locks arms with “her” and “we” become. The intensity of the edges sears us. Suddenly, everybody feels connected. And like we have a job to do. We cannot let each other down.
My role this spring during the historic Thunder basketball run was to send a text. I had to type “Let’s do this!!!” and hit the arrow. A brief exchange before tip-off with a buddy in the belly of the fray was my skin in the game. My new son-in-law had to wear his lucky shirt. Our granddaughter had to bang orange plastic Thunder Sticks. As a family, we were intricately involved. Just ask us, we will tell you. We were an important part of it all.
Thousands felt the pull to be present in person, to sit (or stand!) in the arena, to wear the shirt, to lose their voice, to high five friends, eat gameday dogs and dance and sweat and strain. Hundreds of thousands of others organized their calendars around games, bought gear, and added ESPN to their phone alerts. We became a tight-knit wad all hanging onto the same long rope in different ways. And when we won the title, it felt like we had run the race ourselves.
Together.
It feels right now as if we are a city without seams.
Three decades ago, when a crazy-evil person parked a van with a bomb in the back in front of the Alfred P. Murrah building and blew a hole in the middle of our hearts, people clung to one another in the streets. We ran toward the gaping wound and packed it best we could. Some risked their lives to save the lives of others. Hordes lined up to pass out water, guide and give directions, hug and hold and thank the emergency personnel who had come from all over the country to give us aid. Hundreds of thousands of others dropped to their knees to pray.
We gasped and wailed, and mourned and began mending together. Then we arose emboldened. Moored by shared suffering, collectively, we began to move forward. But, we walked a different way.
Connection is an exponential force.
In the aftermath of April 19th and of June 23rd, we found ourselves in a dam break of emotion. The powerful, collective kind that alters how we think, what we do and even who we believe we are-- or at least, maybe, we can be.
An iconic picture that captures the oneness has been making the media rounds. The image, taken by Jimmy Do, freeze frames a moment from the world championship parade when Shai Gilgeous Alexander atop a Thunder bus full of family and teammates stretches his arms out and up toward the sky. In the background are the bronze Memorial Gates of Time, “We come here to remember….”
We must remember…that most everything is hard before it’s good, that almost always “we” is more productive and more fun than “me,” and that meaning is a thing that we ascribe.
I’m proud to be a part of a place that has gotten really good at that.