I’m seeing a lot of negativity on Tumblr tonight that’s making me a little sad that I decided to join Tumblr, so I’m gonna post about something that makes me really happy, and maybe tomorrow I won’t feel like deleting my account. 

This is a photo of Zachary Thorne and Emily Troilo that I took when I was at the Swamp Cup in Florida last March. 

Zachary is a player for the University of Florida quidditch team. He played Keeper in the championship match at World Cup this year and I’ve never seen anyone tougher. He took three or four ferocious hits and with each one it looked like he was going to be leaving the field on the stretcher. After each one he fell to the ground a little faster and play stopped a little longer, and the people next to me held their breath a little more audibly. But somehow, miraculously, after each one he eventually got back on his feet, like one of those inflatable clown things you punch and it just pops back up, and and he kept playing, with a pained grin on his face each time, as if he knew some secret about immortality that the rest of us mortals can only dream about. 

Also in the picture is his girlfriend Emily. I didn’t watch Emily get destroyed on the field, because Emily wasn’t playing on the team as far as I could tell. Instead, she come all the way to New York to support her team and probably fearfully but semi-eagerly watch her boyfriend get knocked down and be tough about it. I facebook stalked their team to confirm this and sure enough, she’s in all the team photos with the broadest grin on her face, more so than anyone in uniform. 

Now, going back to the original photo I started this post with: I took it on my camera phone when I was at the Swamp Cup after-party. it’s probably not the greatest photo of them and it has that fuzzy iphone 3 quality but it still means a lot to me. Everyone there was getting pretty wonderfully rowdy (except for the zen-like “Dr. Dre” Clements who was eating mini hot dogs with a fork while reading a book) and these two were straight chilling, cuddling in the corner and chatting with people. I can see it as if I am looking into a pensieve. 

That they both were so evidently happy and the fact that they were wearing the same symbol of the game they loved, that they felt a connection in their hearts to each other and also to an idea that is now growing in the world, made me motivated to capture the moment. 

This photo to me (and all of the photos in the post) represent the power of quidditch and love: unstoppable when joined together. it is memories like these that fortify me against any vitriol, negativity and doubt that may rear its ugly head, and sweep away those thoughts with the joy that this game has created. Perhaps this is the secret that Zachary was smiling about.