I knew there was going to be nothing else to write about this week except the Eagles Super Bowl victory, and there will be clips of raucous fan behavior later, but first let me touch on why this has anything to do with creative practice.
Since the win, it’s been hard to stay off social media watching mic’d up moments and highlight reels of the night. I’m still ecstatic. But Tuesday night, one of our star receivers, A.J. Brown, made this post on Instagram that put it all in perspective.
After a few days , I’ve had time to reflect on being a champion.
I tried to feel how everyone made it seem to be a champion and unfortunately it was short lived.. two days to be exact lol.
I’ve never been a champion at the highest level before but I thought my hard work would be justified by winning it all. It wasn’t. My thrill for this game comes when i dominate. It’s the Hunt that does it for me. It’s when the Db drops his head and surrender because he can’t F with me . The Intense battles. Early mornings. Late nights. Sacrifices. I love putting smiles on peoples faces, don’t get me wrong but it just wasn’t what I thought it would be. It’s the journey that I love the most. BACK 2 Work!
If you’ve heard quotes from Jalen Hurts, this philosophy won’t be new to you. The stoic nature of this mentality isn’t a front for this team. Long-awaited achievement is fun to celebrate for a while, but the best bit of achievement for Brown, and the team at large I believe, is the process.
The actual work of hunting down a massive achievement—whether creative, physical, anything—often feels like an endless grind with a too-distant reward. But holding the trophy, seeing the publication, putting the final touches on a project you’ve been working on for weeks/months/years, in my opinion, rarely feels as good as the small victories along the way—finally finding the right adjective, nailing that triple pirouette, making the “DB [drop] his head and surrender because he can’t F with me.”
Anyway, there’s nowhere I would’ve rather been than in Philadelphia on Sunday night. Crowded around a tiny tv with 20 other people in an Airbnb two blocks from Independence Hall, we were never at a loss for a play to celebrate as our team absolutely dominated the game from start to finish. We didn’t watch the confetti fall; we started the pilgrimage to Broad Street before the game ended. And we never even made it there, getting wrapped up in the crowds of people so thick that it was difficult to take a step forward at times.
There’s something about being in the swarm of a city in celebration that makes you feel so deeply connected to the specific people, places, and events of the time you’re living in. This was one of those moments.
Fireworks in the street, “Blow the Whistle” ringing out from unseen speakers, Go Birds chants echoing down every alley. Civic destruction reflective of people as much struggling to make ends meet themselves as they are committed to sharing joy with others. There is so much joy in this city.
The train ride home in the morning was the quietest experience I’ve ever had on Philly public transit, everyone some form of hungover and exhausted. The sky was so blue, the air clear and fresh, the street sweepers cleaning up confettied gutters with varied success. I think A.J.’s right, that holding the trophy feels good for a while, a few days, but then life continues on and we begin work on the next thing. We pen a shitty line to a new poem, we get back in the gym, we take a shower and open our email on Monday morning and get back to it. That’s Philly, and that’s my championship winning team.
