On six Saturdays on the year, the Amon G. Carter football
stadium is a national spectacle where drunk fans cheer on their favorite
players (who work for free) as they demolish one another to move a ball into a
10x53 yard rectangular box. On the other 359 days of the year, the stadium is
my own personal getaway from all reality to compose my thoughts. I’ve laughed,
cried, smoked a cigar, eaten ice cream, meditated, and contemplated my career
path all within the walls of this building.
By day,
The Carter’s open interior isn’t exciting. The construction disrupts any and
all tranquility. Workers wander the stadium eliminating any possibility to be
alone and act without being judged. Unless it’s game day, the painting on the
field fades into the grass. If it’s in the midst of the football season, like
when I last visited, trash and ominous stains infest the lower bowl.
By night, it transforms itself into a sanctuary for those in
search of escaping the commotion of a commonly hectic world, with a beautiful
view added on. The trek to the highest corner on the west is strenuous as I
climb story after story on the inside ramp. As I reach the top, exposing me to
the outside twilight, I head towards section 416 seat 15 that’s only 30 more
steps above. I endure my final push, and sit in my favorite seat on the entire
campus.
A
couple hundred feet of elevation and without any busy streets around, the only
sounds running through your head are your own thoughts. I often find myself
going down rabbit holes; this time I contemplated the origin of the universe
and my own purpose in the world depending on who or if there is a higher power.
The possibilities are endless and my mind bickers between itself. My train of
thought is disrupted by insistent gnats and my focus turns to the physical
features surrounding me.
Down
below, the field, while carefully humanly maintained, provides a natural beauty
amongst a concrete bowl. I lose myself imagining the spirits of the opposing
team huddling on the field with our home field student section howling. But
this location isn’t about the elements confound within the building, rather what
I observe beyond the walls. The downtown skyline’s lights outline the
buildings’ frames, piercing through the darkness into my view. The robust city
now appears pleasantly calm. It stands as a symbol of prosperity and unity
within the Fort Worth community. Early in the night, the moon may hover above.
Two beautiful creations, one formed billions of years ago and the other
constructed just a century ago, harmonize to showcase quintessential beauty of
both natural formations and human establishment.
I am
sitting in a human built colosseum appreciating a city that destroyed a natural
habitat for a multitude of species, yet the emotions that manifest are the same
as finding my in solitude within the depths of nature. All that I have is
myself if only for a few hours, a rare occurrence in today’s day in age. Maybe
this is what Thoreau advocated every person experience. The Carter has become a
concrete wilderness in its own sense. And as the morsel of seclusion I’ve
tasted continues to call me, I will answer every time.
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