tradition

 me, Saturday, idly to an acquaintance: The World Cup starts tomorrow. I'm thinking about trying to find a place to go and watch the opening match.

acquaintance, Sunday, via text: Hey, do you want to come watch the World Cup at my place over coffee?

me: What a generous invitation! But I'm going to decline. 

also me: *reserves a table for 1 on the patio at my neighborhood sports bar during the game*

I'm not an athlete, and I'm not a dedicated sports fan. I don't follow any particular teams or players. But I love the big events--baseball's pennant races and the World Series, the Super Bowl (though this one is mostly about the food at the party), the Olympics,  the Tour de France, and--since 2014--the World Cup. There's an energy that the big events have, the concentration of the world's attention that is compelling in a way that a regular Monday night game just isn't, at least for me.

In 2014, I was writing a dissertation while learning how to parent pre-teens and manage a household on my own. And my kids were busy kids. Most evenings, I was their taxi driver around the city from school to gymnastics to violin to ballet to dinner to home. Every day, they packed their activity bags, and I packed my laptop and my library books. My dissertation was written 15 minutes at a time in a rota of coffee shops, waiting rooms, and parking lots all over Kalamazoo.

One evening, instead of going to my usual coffee shop for tea I carried my books into a pub and set myself up at an out-of-way table in the corner. There weren't many other people there--the bartender, the server, and a group of 10 eating together--but all of them were focused on the screens showing the competition in Brazil. And that collective energy filled the room. I spent a lot more time in pubs that month and drank more beer than tea for a while. 

When I saw that text this morning with the invitation to watch today's game with one person, I realized that I actually don't want to watch with people I only sort-of know and be expected to socialize during the game. I want to sit in a crowd of strangers with half an eye on the game and half an eye on my laptop and/or my knitting, and soak in that collective energy. The gasp as the goalkeeper guesses wrong and the ball flies past his feet, the groan as the ball brushes the outside of the net, the wry laughter as the ball lands on top, and the concerned hush when a player is down. The collective energy of the game transcends language and culture. 

I won't watch all of this World Cup's games at the pub, of course, but I'll have them on in the background as I work at home in the coming weeks, and I'll probably hit the pub for at least one US game and one of the semi-finals. And I'll enjoy contributing to the energy of the crowd. It's my tradition.