Apr
6
A few years ago I bought two tickets for a Father John Misty concert here in Eugene. I didn’t have anyone to go with me, but I figured I might be able to find someone, and failing that, I could gift the ticket to someone in waiting in line or something.
Then the day approached and I still didn’t have someone to go with me and I was like that’s fine I can do this, I can go to a show on my own, and then it was the day itself and I did not go. I just … couldn’t muster the gumption. I got in my head about it and the effort of going started to feel insurmountable and that was that, two wasted tickets, and I was SO mad at myself about it.
He came back to town last Thursday and this time, I was there. With a friend, in excellent balcony seats that offered both a great view and place to sit. It was an incredible show start to finish, even the songs I was lukewarm about sounded terrific, and my favorites — Mr. Tillman, Hollywood Forever Cemetary, Ideal Husband — were just next level. The lights, the set, his band, it was all so good.
It felt like the best do-over. Maybe the actual best would have been to go by myself, to prove that I can in fact do that (and I’m pretty confident I would have), but it was really nice to share the experience. And frankly I was glad to not be alone when we got to our seats and there were people in them, who showed us their ticket with full confidence and I was like fuuuuuuuuuck, because my tickets had come from StubHub, and the venue has all these grumpy statements on their website about not being able to endorse tickets from third party sellers, and of course I figured I had bought fake tickets and NOW what??* Thankfully an usher was able to determine that the other people were in the wrong section and so I did not have to 1) engage in any sort of conflict with anyone or 2) slink away in adject humillation.
(*Actually, the now what would have been to use the two additional cheaper general admission tickets I bought as a backup in case the StubHub situation was a no-go. This time around, I was taking no chances.)
Last summer I went with Dylan to see ZZ Top at an outside venue, and that was pretty fun. Great people watching, a few songs that were nostalgic for me. But aside from that I think the last show I’d seen was maybe 10 years ago? More?
I felt so alive last week, filled with a crackling kind of energy from being around so many people who were just as into the music as I was. Singing along, bodies moving. A collective feeling. Probably many of you have actually been to concerts and shows in recent times and you’re like yeah no shit Sherlock have you tried drinking water too because wow the wetness might just blow you away, but it had been so long and also maybe I am just starved for any sort of feeling of group alignment.
I felt both older, in the sense that I was remembering being a young person at shows and having the energy to be in the front jostling with the crowd and the willingness to have my eardrums blown out by the speaker proximity, and also weirdly ageless? Like for those couple hours I could just lose myself to instruments and voices and vibes and forget that I am a crumbling stack of rapidly-expiring warranties who now takes a fiber supplement in the morning.
All to say, it was such a wonderful experience and now I have something to add to the various bucket-list goals I have for my golden years — pet a cabybara, ride an Icelandic horse in the tölt gait, visit a heavily cat-infested place such as Instanbul, get myself into the yoga crow position without breaking my nose, and for heaven’s sake SEE MORE LIVE MUSIC.
Mar
30
I didn’t have anything going on this weekend, which felt a little yikes to me going into it — I should be doing something, I should have plans, I should be productive/busy — and then it settled around me, like a full-bellied exhale. Why should I have plans? There are plenty of times when I do, and having free time is a luxury, not some sort of criticism.
(This is definitely a divorced lady thing, for me anyway. I feel like it’s weird/embarrassing somehow to have an open dance card? As though my worth as a person is tied to a busy schedule? As though in family life you don’t get a free weekend and crow about it to anyone who will listen? “I didn’t do shit, it was just chill!” “Oh that is so nice, girl.”)
I did however take myself on a local summit hike, Mt. Pisgah, which is technically less of a hike and more of a grueling deathmarch up a gravel trail. It’s short but quite intense, although I can count on being passed by a runner just at the point when I am wishing I had brought a cyanide capsule for a quick exit option. Or someone in a weighted vest, just COME ON NOW.
Once you get to the top, the misery is instantly forgotten and you can bask in the view along with the knowledge that getting down is far more pleasurable. I hadn’t done this hike in a good long while, and like many things around town it is a little haunted for me. I remember the kids leaving us in the literal dust on the way up. I remember sitting on the bench at the summit, flanked by both boys. I remember when it wasn’t just me, when I felt like a part of a bigger whole.
There are ghosts everywhere, though. I pay for groceries and remember when the same bagging clerk would say nice things about the kids. I drive past a playground and remember sitting there on warm days. I go to the movies and remember when we would thumbs up or thumbs down each preview. I see an ad for Sonic and remember getting treats there, watching the workers come out on roller skates.
This can all get a little muddled in my mind. Sometimes I find myself piling all the normal sad feelings that every parent goes through as their kids get older into a sort of divorce bucket, like it’s all part and parcel of one outcome. But it’s not, of course. Kids grow out of playgrounds, and that has nothing to do with my marriage status.
So I have to watch that. Being at the top of a hard hike is not a lonely feeling, it’s one of deep accomplishment (and relief). Being divorced does not mean I will never do this hike with my boys again. Sometimes the best way to de-haunt a place is to go back, perhaps not necessarily to playgrounds like a creeper, and be in it again. I was here once before, and I’m here now, and things have changed between those times, just like they changed everywhere.
Maybe what I felt when I got up there was the sense of being a deeper kind of alone. The same sneaky feeling that tells me I need to stay visibly, acceptably busy or I am of no value to anyone. The same feeling that prompts me to take a photo and post it on Instagram Stories or it will be like I was never there.
But I was there. That was enough. And you know, maybe that means I am enough, too.
Letting myself believe that, even a little, helps me stop clawing at memories and enjoy them instead. It helps me sink into a restful weekend without worrying that some unseen entity is shaking its head in pity at me. It helped me on that hilltop, feeling the breeze, feeling strong, feeling gratitude for what was instead of pain for what isn’t.
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