Beauty Amongst the Madness
March is Perfect.
The train glided smoothly along the tracks. Frosty trees and snowy slopes encased the windows of the train car. Inside, the silence was palpable— as if the outside demanded to be the only attention worthy of the onboard passengers.
Oslo’s transit system uses an app called Ruter. Trains run every 10 minutes. The station looks like a mall, mostly because it is attached to one. The big board shows times of trains to dozens of locations and runs like a well-oiled Swiss watch. Its cleaner than a new pair of Jordan 1’s.
Everything is spotless and fresh. Everything is manicured, seamless and purposeful. There are even hooks for bags on the back of the train car seats. Everything is crafted with intention.
Across the pond life is messy. It doesn’t make sense the way that life seems to make perfect sense in Europe. A convoluted, chaotic, head-scratching one does instead. A life with public transportation that doesn’t run on time and smells like a wet week-old gym sock. A life where buildings and businesses are chosen over parks and playgrounds. A life with two political parties running in circles around each other like chickens with their heads cut off— yet being the only options. A life with a severe lack of readily available fresh croissants.
The United States is 247 years old yet seems to be going through a midlife crisis.
Norway is 129 years younger yet looks like the best-selling author, ivy-league graduate older sibling that’s got it all figured out.
Yet we coexist.
The sun shouldn’t be allowed out in winter. Its rays of light beaming through the frigid mornings— teasing as they promise a warmer day than the 31 degree one your phone is predicting. It’s not fair, yet unabashed, it shines, and reminds us of the warmer days that will come, regardless of how endless the gray ones seem to feel.
February, though the shortest month, feels never ending. Grounded in winter yet pubescent in spring, it can’t seem to make up its mind between the frigid stillness and the abrasive wind, the pillowy snow and the thrashing rain. March, the older brother of February, somehow becomes even more confused in this notion of a decisive temperature— truly coming to age with its seasons, but it gets a pass, as March has its madness to worry about.
See March, though more polarizing and confusing than February, embraces its indecision with pride. Its life in Norway one day, and life in the United States the next. March can’t make up its mind, and that’s what makes it so horribly insufferably beautiful. Because March is life. Its messy, unstable and unpredictable. The unanticipated phone call, the special delivery, the missed train ride. March is everything you can’t see coming.
And nothing encapsulates this month like the tournament that lives in it. Its chaos, its joy, its unexpectedness.
The madness is March.
The embodiment of a month of chaos and indecision is a tournament that hopes to make moments abundant with them. Mid-major takedowns and underdog upsets, March Madness is everything you want from a sporting event encapsulated in 2 weeks of pure mayhem.
These teams, they try to prevent it. The 64 of them spend so much time in Norway— calculating, organizing, intending on perfectly putting together the plan that will leave them victorious. Grinding through the aches and pains of the regular season to even get a chance to dance. The practicing, watching, learning, repeating, until it feels like it can be automatic. Preparation and intention.
But all that gets thrown away the moment you step out on the court. Life shifts into the United States the minute the ball gets thrust into the air and hangs for just a second before being swatted to one side of the court and into play. Thrown from the frying pan and into the fire, you can draw up plays and scream across the court motioning 14 to set a pick for 6 to get a lane to the bucket— but it all comes down to what you have left when the play sheet gets torn up and the noise gets silenced.
The calm in the storm— the moment amongst the madness.
March is so perfect because it forces life to become about living, not planning or anticipating or thinking, there's no thinking in March— it pushes us to become unapologetically human.
That's why every year the NFL adds more games and the NBA makes the playoffs longer all in an effort to make people watch more of their sport but we will always come back to March.
Without noticing we connect with it on the deepest of levels. We can see our lives in a microcosm on the court. The pain, the heartbreak, the rawness of it all. The phases of life and death unfolding before our eyes.
Yes we love to watch action figure athletes complete incredible feats as we gape in awe of their abilities. But the best stories, the ones that cut the deepest, are the ones that are the most human. The ones we can relate to, we can feel and see ourselves in as they unfold.
The dance makes it so anyone who is good enough can play— and can win. Whether you are from a small liberal arts school in the middle of New Jersey or from University of Kentucky, March doesn’t discriminate. It will eat you up and chew you out just the same. Just like life.
So when we see the small liberal arts school from New Jersey rise up and beat Kentucky we can’t help but see the little guy sticking it to the man. Not a time where we have to praise consistent greatness or be honored to watch a legend in the sport dominate the game— no, we get to see the guy that everyone thought was going to be a pushover sucker punch the heavyweight champ right in the mouth.
Just like you did when you got that A in that horrible class you’re in, when you finally beat your brother in your head-to-head fantasy football matchup, or when at last you broke through those feelings of sadness that have lingered since the last heartbreak.
The unabashedly human experience of feeling as if you defied all odds to win— because that day you just couldn’t be stopped. The win that numbers can’t predict and sports books can’t pick and logic can’t quantify.
The win that can only be brought out in the most unpredictable of tournaments in the most human of months.
It can only come from the beautiful madness of March.
A.M.A.Z.I.N.G
This post made me cry. Amazing detail and work you put into this Grace. A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.
BANGER