3rd & 10

a beautiful day yesterday. slept in instead of swimming and in the afternoon blew off a RBRBRBR BTW workout to watch delcastle scrimmage against howard & st george's. i'd sidled in on utter whim but immediately became part of the scene, folded into a mix of siblings, parents and teachers who'd collected in the stands on a perfect day in august to watch a bunch of high school kids score a touchdown every 45min. a girl who melted me with her marion jones smile rubbed her little brother's shoulders while he squirmed with pleasure. the fathers of squashed and spindled players tromped heavily down the risers to confab with the physical therapist – we wrapped the ankle, just ice it tonight and we won't run him tomorrow/it's just a jammed finger, nothing to worry about/he's a tough kid, he'll be fine tomorrow – and smiled at me on the way back up, relief smoothing the corners of their eyes. a big, big man who to this day holds penns grove school records in the 100m, 200m, long jump and 4x100 relay railed against clewless assistant coaches and the questionable wisdom of spending money on computers instead of hiring quality coaches who would “get those skinny fuckers in the gym and put some meat on their bones.” we held our collective breath when another boy crumpled on the field and the players went down on bended knee, and we clapped when the trainer resurrected him.

i didn't intend to sit there for 2 hours, didn't intend to be there in the first place, but it was an unexpected pleasure and i left reconstituted.

it is good to be free.