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.

a little bit of summer

It’s been a while since I’ve taken the time to post on here. I would like to say that I have just been too busy, but in all honesty I just didn’t feel like I had anything to say. But I’ve taken my leave and I’m back, this time more determined to write something on here even if I’m not 100% in love with what gets written down.

While I was out I got to go see Ed Sheeran in concert. There is something about going to an outdoor concert that is different than any other experience you can fathom. Especially when the concert is like this one where the music is less of a get up and dance like now one is watching type music and more of a sit back and chill kind of music. I was a little bit later getting to the show and the lawn was practically full when I went to stake out the piece of land that would be mine for the next few hours. After wandering for a solid fifteen minutes, we found a spot just big enough for our three bodies to hang out on a blanket.

Then came one of my favorite parts of going to concerts: people watching.

I don’t mean that in a creepy, stalker kind of way. Rather, I like getting to sit back and enjoy watching people flutter around their own little world when they think no one is watching. This is the kind of time when you see that lady to your left pull a flask out of her back pocket throughout the night and then watch her partner keep a hand on her shoulder for the last hour so she can stay upright. You’ll see the group of teenagers acting ridiculous when they think their parents aren’t around and then watch them straighten up when the adults join them a little later on. You’ll see best friends just hanging out enjoying the music of the opening act even though they had never heard of them before that night. You’ll see couples dancing close when Ed plays “Thinking Out Loud” and you’ll see friends lean a little bit closer to the person they want to be with but are too afraid to say anything. You’ll see people get up and dance on the fast songs they know and you’ll see people sit back and close their eyes as the music just washes over them, because there is nothing quite like sitting in a crowd of people all there for the same reason, experiencing this thing together.

I love getting to go to these concerts. I love getting to look around and see the different ways people are experiencing this moment. The energy. The way somehow thousands of people just move together. The way it feels like things will never feel like that again.

It pulls you in. It pulled me in. It was a strange reminder that things aren’t always going to be like this so I need to stop and enjoy it.

So things have been happening while I have been away from this place. But so much more is about to happen. More later.