take a carpentry class. learn to measure twice and cut once, to take pride in the crafting, and to sand with a block you made.

saw a roof into a 1 x 4, hammer a nail into it, call it a home for your mother’s keys, and know that something good lives there.

take a cartoonistry class at the rec center. try, with 20 lines, or 10, or 7, to make still drawings start to move or freeze motion to the page.

“the cartoonist sees the shapes.” see them yourself because everything good is there.

take ballet, and tap, and jazz dance. swim through the air on your toes, click poetry into the floor with your heels, and let the rhythm take you.

style-agnostic, the rhythm is god, and something good sways there.

sign up for lightsaber choreography lessons from a fencing moniteur. take the same class over and over just so it’s never over, and throw a lightsaber-choreography-themed birthday party.

you have the best answer to “what are your hobbies,” so something good can last there.

go to parkour lessons. line up along the other kids, then relish falling through an urban jungle gym of foam, leaving your breath behind, and not waiting for it to catch you. don’t cry when you hear you aren’t good enough.

you can’t hold it for long, but something good was there.

live in bowling alley arcades among the ill-conceived blacklights, miasmas of disinfectant-leather-cheesesauce, and lost coin-op-token dreams.

in a world out of time, venture towards the lanes, because something good fills the space.

trace the patches on your junior league shirt while your ball spins toward the pins, and realize that “belmateo” is between belmont and san mateo.

eye the boulder gym across the street because something good must be there.

smell the chalk and exertion in the gym’s air as you first step through its doors. agonize as your mother buys membership, then run at, run up the wall, float, fall, and be caught.

sit in a belayed cradle of trust because something safe is there.

watch the other climbers, not climbing, but coming and going. tossing towels over their shoulders, or bills across a cashier’s table while grabbing a cliff bar.

wonder if, for them, behind those doors, there’s something good at home.

sit alone on a bench outside of school or some activity for hours. ignore your aching legs and flip through a story or scratch fantasies into mud with a stick.

watch each car and pretend it’s coming for you. something good was there. time to go home.