Sports

Way down deep in the lost photographic archives of Water Dissolves Water, I came across this picture from 2005, uploaded but never posted, saved as a draft. I have no idea what I had intended to convey with this pic. Maybe I should incorporate it into one of my random picture grids.

Sports. That's what I want to talk about tonight, and that's what the lead picture should convey. Typically, when I blog about sports, I post one of my watercolor-altered photo manipulations, but I'll break with precedent tonight and stick with the gothic singer and his hirsute drummer.

I grew up on Long Island and lived most of the first 21 years of my life there, leaving long enough only to graduate from high school in northern New Jersey before landing back on the Island. But for all of those years, I felt no allegiance or identification with any New York metropolitan sports team; in fact, I didn't have any particular interest in professional sports at all during that time.

Since then, I lived in Boston for four years, just long enough to get through college, and then Atlanta for five years, Albany, New York for six years, Pittsburgh for one year, and then Atlanta again for the past 17 years. Based on that biography, one would think that I'd either be an Atlanta sports fan or a holdover New York fan from my childhood, but the fact is that my allegiance has been to Boston teams ever since I moved there back in the summer of '76. Logic cannot explain my allegiance, but then the heart can have its reasons that reason can never know.

So last evening, after a full day of work, an after-hours Beltline advisory board committee meeting, and an evening meet-and-greet for my local City Council candidate (go, Yolanda!), I unwound at home and enjoyed the spectacle of the Boston Red Sox beating the New York Yankees for the eighth consecutive time - and third series sweep - of the season.

Between innings, I watched the Orlando Magic, the team that vanquished my Celtics from the play offs, give the Lakers a difficult time in Game 4 of the NBA Finals. The Magic didn't win, but I cheered for them on the logic that the team that beat my team should go on and prove that they are the best in the league. Plus I think that the Magic's Dwight Howard, an Atlanta high-school prodigy, is a whole lot more likable than Kobe Bryant, but maybe that's just an Atlanta bias showing.

It might surprise some to hear a Zen student and self-described lay monk pick and choose sides in a sporting event - after all, we're all about equanimity and non-attachment, right? But a self-aware and non-dualistic approach to watching athletics actually enhances one's enjoyment of the event, not detracts from it. Plus, if your team loses, acceptance of impermanence takes away a lot of the sting.

So my advise to Yankee fans is to start meditating - it's going to be a long season.