The Story of Samuel Sooleymon
Over the past week, I didn’t have much free time. Due to a busy calendar, I had limited opportunities to write. I could pretend that I didn’t have any ideas to explore. But that wound’t be true. Mostly, I just couldn’t focus long enough to get my thoughts down on paper. Although not a bad thing, there was a little too much chaos going on in the background.
I could have forced something. And to get back on track with my consistent writing schedule maybe I should have. But I didn’t. Instead, during the limited free time I had, I read a book I had started the week before. Through a bunch of short walks, I ventured into the world of Sooley and everything John Grisham wrote into existence when he created it.
Sooley wasn’t a book I was particularly excited to read. Even though Grisham wrote one of my favorite books and I’ve enjoyed many of his others, this one didn’t peak my interest. It isn’t one I would have ever picked it up for myself. But it was a hand-me-down from my parents. And when they left it on my dining room table at lunch one day several months ago, they said it was good. So, I knew eventually I would get around to reading it. I just wasn’t in a hurry.
Eventually turned out to be these past two weeks. When I opened the book for the first time, I vividly remember turning to page one with a begrudging sigh. Maybe I dragged myself through the first few pages, but after that I was invested. It didn’t take long for me to care about the story of Samuel Sooleymon.
It’s a story about basketball. And about life in war-torn countries, and difficult times. About big dreams, high hopes, and tragedy. The rippling impact taking a chance can have and the fragile nature of any given moment. How the most beautiful things can come from the unspeakably terrible. Sooley wasn’t about anything I expected. Other than basketball.
The first time Sooley made me cry, I was momentarily annoyed with my parents. I might have even said a swear word or two when I got up to blow my nose, but no one else was around to hear it. Of course they would highly recommend a story capable of making you feel a wide range of emotions. But when you aren’t expecting heart-wrenching plot twists, they catch you of guard. If we want to use basketball analogies, Samuel Sooleymon caught me emotionally flat-footed.
After blowing my nose and wiping my tears, I settled back into reading a beautifully written, amazing story. A story I didn’t expect to get lost in. One that I digested in small pieces over several days, during moments found squeezed between a whole bunch of other things. I couldn’t collect my thoughts for long enough to write something coherent in the short gaps of free time this past week. But I happily let my mind escape and wander into Sooley’s world.
There is so much in life that rides on luck and chance occurrences. So much that only comes to be because of perfectly coincidental timing. Where certain things only exist because all of these tiny building elements stacked together just so to make them real. Even each of our own existences is proof of the improbably fragile strings connecting one thing to another. And to me, the greatest stories ever told are the ones that remind you of all that.
Each new day brings an opportunity for us to get caught in the minutia of unimportant things. Each new day also brings a chance to remember how interconnected we all are. How one moment ripples into hundreds of others. That the things impacting us don’t happen in a vacuum. That taking a chance can be both the easiest and the biggest thing in the same world.
I like stories that remind me of all those things. And usually when we find them, they catch us off our game in unexpected places. But the most beautiful things in life catch us that way too. We don’t get to choose the next thing that will fundamentally change who we each are. Those are the kind of things that just happen. Like connecting with a book you didn’t expect to enjoy.
