passion

Lots of talk about passion this week. Not the making out on a humid summer day sort of passion (theoretically that could be included I suppose), but the passions that drive us and bind us to our closest people. I think I'm trying to figure out how to define mine and how they fit in the bigger puzzle. Last night I saw my parents, soon to enter their 50th year of marriage, go outside into the Minnesota night to sit in their car and listen to an Iowa high school basketball game. Granted, it gave my mother a chance escape the watchful eye of my kid and sneak a smoke, but that strikes me as a beautiful example of passion. They love that sport and they love it together. I'm afraid I'm a little stingy with my passions, like if I share I'll somehow lose them. Probably why I take thousands of pictures and have empty walls. Probably why I actively avoid opening myself up to other people's passions. It makes me very unsettled.
I took this picture outside a hockey arena in Duluth at 6:00 am, shortly before my kid scored a hat trick and a Canadian dad from the opposing team wanted to beat me up for the passion in my cheering. Safe to say our passions did not mesh.
This picture would have been much better in a blog about loneliness. Nothing lonelier than a basketball hoop outside a hockey arena in northern Minnesota. Fortunately I'm not even close to lonely, but I like the shot.
This passion idea makes me ramble.
Oh, and Grandma, the kid has knows you smoke. Has for a couple years now.