Anticipating the Chase

Last summer, I bought a Diamondbacks T-shirt at Chase Field. At the time, it was just a shirt. A simple souvenir from another visit west. Except it wasn't.

When I bought it, I already knew I would wear it back into that stadium one day.

The crowds were not there yet. The crack of the bat had not echoed across the field. The sharp thwump of a ninety-six-mile-per-hour fastball burying itself in a catcher's mitt hadn’t happened. I had not yet taken my seat.

But all of it already felt real.

I've always struggled to explain what Phoenix represents to me. People often assume it is the sunshine, the skyline, the restaurants, or the desert scenery. Those things certainly matter. But they’re not the reason I keep returning.

Phoenix became important because it taught me to view possibility differently.

For much of my life, the unknown felt threatening. Uncertainty was something to endure. Something to survive until clarity returned.

The desert quietly offered another perspective.

What if the unknown was not something to fear? What if it was something to anticipate? What if uncertainty itself could be beautiful?

That Diamondbacks shirt became a reminder of that lesson.

When I bought it, I didn’t know when I would return. I didn’t know what seat I would have. I didn’t know who would be sitting beside me. I didn’t know what conversations might unfold or what memories might be created.

I only knew there would be another chapter.

Earlier, I wrote that Phoenix is a city filled with friends I haven't met yet. I still believe that. The beauty of possibility is that it leaves room for surprises.

The stranger beside you at a ballgame may remain a stranger forever. Or they may become part of a story you tell years later.

The restaurant you decide to try may become a favorite. Or you may find that the food is too salty, or the salsa too spicy (like that’s possible…).

The conversation you almost didn't have may change the course of your life.

The city you visit on a whim may become the place that teaches you how to breathe again.

Possibility is not certainty. That’s the whole point. It makes no promises. But it keeps the door open. That is why Chase Field was never just a ballpark to me. It was another doorway. Another chapter waiting to be written. Another reminder that some of the best things in life begin long before they happen. Let that sink in for a minute.

Sometimes they begin with nothing more than a T-shirt and the decision to believe that you will return.

In just a few weeks, I'll be inside that stadium. Under that retractable roof. Close enough to home plate to smell the leather on the catcher's mitt. To see, and even feel, the batter's apprehension as he waits for the pitch.

Then the prophecy will be fulfilled.

The unknown will become known.

The possibility will become memory.

And I'll finish this story.

I'll probably write it from a café on Adams Street or Central Avenue, with a cold coffee sweating beside my laptop while the desert sun does what it has always done.

I'll let you know.