windows down

When I have a rough day or things just feel more heavy than it seems like I can take, going for a drive is something that almost always brings me back to Earth. There’s something about playing a song that matters and sticking your hand out the window to feel the air while you’re driving…

Have you ever done that? Have you felt the wind pushing your fingers into new places while you’re rolling down a back road in your home town?

Or felt the way a moment feels new every time that cool fall air hits the palm of your hand while you’re driving through your new city? Watching the lights flick past you, sending shadows across the life lines of your fingers, street lights illuminating the creases in your knuckles. Falling in love with the way you can’t help but dance your hand around in the wind, feeling it give and take with each twist of your wrist. Out of all the things you could have touched that day, somehow the feeling of freedom in this moment makes you feel alive again. And even when you pull your hand back, you can still feel that slight tingle across your skin reminding you that you’re still there, that the air that feels so strong around you is a part of you, too.

Tonight there was a concert for a musician that I really love in town. I randomly saw on social media that there were a couple free tickets to the show at a shop that I love downtown. They hadn’t yet been claimed when I finally got there to check. So I got to stand in the crowded lower room of a theater and felt the floor move when everyone was singing along to the music. I got to make someone else’s night when they offered to take my photo in front of the sign outside and mentioned they were about to go in themselves and buy their ticket, but I had an extra and I offered it to them instead. There was a moment during the concert that Noah Kahan’s face just lit up when the whole room seemed to be connected in that song. In a season where nothing has felt like it was going right, tonight I felt okay.

I felt okay.

And I took the long way home after the concert to listen to more of this musician’s music with every window down. The highway opening up in front of me with nothing but a few hours of night left in my way. I’m so thankful that I got to feel the way my hand moves in the air when I’m driving at night. I’m thankful to feel the crispness of the beginning of fall on my face while i was walking home. I’m thankful for being alive to experience those little moments.

I hope you get to see these moments too.

I guess that’s all I have to say tonight. I’m just thankful for today.

Talk soon.