Seahawks & Seagulls

Songbooks and Scoreboards

It was December 2014. I moved to Seattle with two suitcases, one full of bedsheets and towels, the other with an actual “new job” wardrobe. Phone charging, I had one album on repeat that would pierce the empty acoustic of the space we would call home for the next seven years.

The apartment was empty, and new. No couch, no table, no proof that I belonged yet. The floors were cold. The walls echoed. Outside, the sky did what Seattle’s microclimate skies do in winter: low, gray, indifferent. Reflective.

Inside, I ran a hot shower to stress test the water pressure in a brand new building and get warm. It can be hard to shake the damp of December in Seattle. And I had no tea kettle yet. Thankfully, my first online purchase had arrived outside my door earlier that day. An air mattress that would hold my head and dreams those first few weeks. Sleeping on an ice block.

My first shower needed song, to serenade and sing in this next chapter, and break the slipping silence that made me miss my human. And so, I put Taylor Swift’s 1989 on. Full volume. No shame. Made to echo. Made for harmonies and dancing in the slipstream, while trying not to slip and fall.

“Welcome to New York,” she sang. I changed the words a bit. Right energy. An extra syllable never harmed anyone. I did not care. I sang and danced. “When we first dropped our bags on apartment floors…” A new soundtrack that would serenade me, forever more.

Just a few weeks later, in my new home, the home team were headed back to the Super Bowl. The city felt electric in an otherwise damp, Pacific Northwest season. Everywhere you looked jerseys of 3 and 12 weaved in and out of stores. Flags bearing the number 12 whipped in the winds of Elliott Bay. Seagulls screaming like fans riding the updrafts and the excitement.

And day after day, there I was, dancing in socks, sliding across floors of an unfurnished apartment. I did not care.

No audience. No furniture to trip over. No one watching to judge whether I looked ridiculous.

It turns out that’s the purest kind of beginning. Blinds open and all.

I was trying on a new city and a new version of myself writing a new chapter at the same time. The Seahawks of the time played with swagger. Taylor had just crossed fully into pop and taken the world by storm. She didn’t hedge, and offered no apology to Nashville or New York. She did not care. She played. She stayed. True.

1989 was an album of endings and beginnings. And I needed it. Because starting over in your thirties isn’t glamorous. It’s quiet. It’s expensive. It’s lonely in ways no one talks about.

And you dance anyway.

You blast your music anyway.

You pretend you don’t care what anyone thinks just long enough for it to become true.

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Fast forward eleven years. A lot has changed. And somehow the catalog of 1989 feels right to put on the commute today. Taylor’s version of course. Volume up, hands conducting the harmonies, it is 5:30am and they all warned us to stay away from the Emerald City today. I did not care.

Because an overdue parade rolls through Seattle today. And the sunlit sky is blue. And it is 52 degrees in February and it feels right to play a little hooky and hang with a million fellow humans who want to take just one day off to experience some joy without worry.

People stand shoulder to shoulder, kids on dads’ shoulders, face painted ladies shadowed by ballcaps. Sunglasses tipped toward the light like we’ve all collectively decided to worship and remember what warmth feels like. Confetti begins drifting on a zephyr of clean air. The buildings gleam instead of brood. There will be no brooding today. It feels earned to celebrate.

In my ears is 1989 (Taylor’s Version) — the same songs, matured. Re-recorded. Reclaimed. Recounting those first steps and bath towel dance moves.

And over the speakers booming down the avenue, a head coach can be hard chanting his mic drop wisdom:

“WE…DID…NOT…CARE. It’s about us. It’s always been about us and what we do.”

The furthest thing from arrogance, this was about focus and unexpected insulation.

It’s the discipline of not letting the outside define the inside.

Standing there in that sunlight I realized that was the through-line between 2015 and now.

Taylor didn’t care when critics said she couldn’t cross genres.

The Seahawks did not care when pundits pontificated plays.

The ones who win, whether in a game, a performance or a signal across a city, do it in their own becoming, in their own time, and on their own terms. Any outside critics and all the noise making doesn’t get a vote.

Back in 2015, I was dancing in an empty apartment trying to convince myself I was brave for new beginnings and new beliefs.

The loss that first day of February 2015 hurt. Much like my first layoff that came just six months later. I don’t romanticize it. Those endings stung. But losses taught me something durable: you can’t build a life around avoiding the last play. That is why I wear a Number 9 -Jon Ryan - jersey to this day for what that year taught me. You build what is next by showing up for the next season. The next play. The next step. The next chapter.

And here we are.

A decade older. Sunlit. A little steadier. Far wiser.

Seattle has its hawks… soaring, fierce, unapologetic. But it also has its seagulls.

Scrappy. Loud. Persistent. Impossible to ignore. They don’t wait for perfect weather. They survive in the gray and show up in the sun, riding the up and down drafts. I see why Taylor picked the mascot for the rerecorded cover art.

Fifty-two degrees today. Fifty-two weeks in a year. A full cycle turned over enough times to become muscle memory. To honor a milestone and cherish a moment.

The album with the seagulls got re-recorded.

The team found its rhythm again.

The city found its motto to parade down the avenues deserving an echo: WE DID NOT CARE.

And the version of me who danced alone in an empty room? He did not care either. And he’s still here. Blasting music blissfully to remember “I know places.”

Only now, I don’t have to hide nor care what people think.

And that’s how you win the game.

Because the scoreboard never tells the whole story. But the songbook does.

Image taken by Bill Kirst February 11, 2026