‘Smells Like School Spirit’

Last night I walked the streets of Auburn, AL. It was graduation weekend for those fledglings flying out into the real world. A special needs high school student, who I met and mentored for two years; is a massive sports fan of Auburn University’s athletic program. We go to one Auburn sporting event once a year, usually a football game. But, next month, he is moving out of town and our relationship will be severed. So we took in a college baseball game as our last event together. Any time I go to Auburn, or any college town,  I realize just how fast life moves. It is easy to feel aged and out of place in a setting such as that. But, it also gives me great zeal for my alma mater; which happens to be Auburn’s greatest rival, The University of Alabama. It was not by coincidence that I choose this weekend to watch my alma mater play our greatest rival. It was icing on the cake I could take Bryan with me one last time. It not was always this way. I once was a fan of Auburn University’s athletic program. But, when it came time for college, Alabama was the only logical choice because I’m left brained. I scored in the teens on math and  logic and in the low 30’s in vocabulary/wording on my college entrance exam. I’m clearly VERY left brained. Auburn is the ‘numbers’ school. People who are right brained and more mathematically inclined go there. Your architects, engineers, natural scientist get degrees there.. Whereas Alabama is your ‘words’ school! It is a school for the fine arts. Things like journalism, dance, music, literature and law are specialized at UA. It is an artist’s university. That is why I love it. I don’t care if we win football championships each year. I don’t live vicariously through other people. But, the fact the two schools are so starkly different culturally is why I love my school so much. Auburn’s school colors even demonstrate its commitment to the hard sciences. Blue, denotes stability and calm, strength with little emotion. While red represents passion and creativity, which happens to be the University of Alabama’s colors. Some of you may be saying I never went to college, I cannot relate. You can though, because cities can take on the same identity involving personality. For instance Chicago is a ‘right brain’ place for the business man or woman. Los Angeles is the left brain capital of the world, full of writers, performers and musicians. New York, being so large is for both. The lesson I learned last night is this: whether you are right brained or left brained! Whether you are Auburn University or The University of Alabama or Chicago vs. Los Angeles; there is a place for you in the universe. No matter which college, community or endeavor you are called to, your inate gifts will lead you there.

J.C.B. May 4, 2019

"This Very Circle"

Not knowing you, not knowing me.
Set aside time, as people stroll these Virginia Highland Streets

All there is, is a moment crystalized pure
Our orders get taken, eyes pupiled' locked to reassure

None not matters where our lives have been
Done, new hope breaks anxiety into tatters, as possibilities ascend

All could not care where our lives are going
Your tranquil warm countenance is knowing

A good man if you deem to be two feet away in me
The azaleas pulse Atlanta's balmy greeting into now, for us to be

As I look out the window, back into you
Knowing me, so glad time takes a break it can usher hope to

............This very circle, this table where time's movement
is disallowed!

*A piece about meeting a woman for date in the Virginia Highlands section of Atlanta that my matchmaking firm introduced me to.  We met on the first Saturday in April.  Although, we did not end up being right for each other after a couple of subsequent texts; all that mattered was that moment in time.  April in Atlanta, or Georgia for that matter, is stunningly gorgeous. The blooming of so much of nature is intoxicating. We shared a small table in an Italian café right by the front door's window. Because the place was noisy, as most any eatery in Atlanta is, we had to really lean in and uses our senses to read each other and to listen and show the other party they had value to us, while yet we were acutely studying one another.  Not, knowing our future after that evening all that mattered at that time was the couple of hours we had at that small circular table made for two.  Out come? I got dating fatigue and told my match making firm to place my membership on hold until mid summer.  But, you could not convince me that, that moment in time was not transformative.

JCB

May 1st 2019