I believe we as people are all connected via an oversoul, and that’s my vision of a deity.
It’s like a massive web of consciousness that lives subjectively throughout all of us
I always wonder about the things going on in our world that lie just beyond our vision
It’s more than that.
It’s far more than that, but I don’t know if words can do it justice
I’m trying to word this properly…
Sooo, this web also gives us some sort of otherworldly connection to nature, celestial bodies, the wind, the waves, and the ground beneath our feet.
If we only are aware of three forms of energy: light, sound, and heat, then what makes these connections explainable?
We are made of the same things as anything else you can imagine.
We are each a universe all on our own.
and I leave you on that note
Goodnight!
I have a headache three days later from one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life. 9,000 people in one room. Macklemore is a beautiful person, I love his personality. I love the way he spoke to the utter entity of the Kiddy Dome and made us all laugh, and some cry. I love the way he talked to us like we were people, and not numbers in a crowd. The instruments. The deafening cries for human equality that surrounded me, hundreds deep. “And I can’t change even if I tried, even if I wanted to. My love, my love, my love, she keeps me warm.” People screaming the words for all they’re worth. My generation is going to change the whole goddamn world. I turned around and saw people I had never known stare my way, smiling for exactly the same reasons. Macklemore had us crowd-surf his beaver jacket to the edge of the crowd, told us no 100 year old beaver could have had it’s biggest dream fulfilled until that moment, to crowd-surf at a huge concert, what better use for a 100 years dead beaver? He said we were stylish. He told us that 9,000 was his biggest concert yet. And I was there. I was there when all of us were silent, 9,000 completely shiftless in a room together, and all the pins ceased dropping in midair. Being there in that moment, breathing as one with all the people we’ll never know, never anything like that ever in my life. It was profound. And he had us do it.
The sweat was dripping off those guy’s faces. The encore and the chanting of this name, but then he went and introduced every member on the stage with passion, and we cheered as loud for all of them too. He is a true musician. They’re only touring colleges, they’re changing the world when they sing for us. “It’s not about the money.”
When they played Thriftshop the place went wild. Bodies were swaying as one. You’re practically lifted off you’re feat when you’re part of that. I had always been much too afraid. At last I realized that fear wasn’t worth this miraculous, singular experience of what I see as being one in my every lifetime. He climbed up the speakers three yards from where I stood, and sang and rapped and poured his heart out into our outstretched hands. One of them was so close, I saw people touching his hands right back. Never have I lifted my arms and jumped with the music as much, I had to. I thought I would feel disgusting in the middle of all that body-heat, but I didn’t. It was raw. The people around me were just people and we touched each other but hardly anyone noticed and the odd normality of that was exhausted long before the first song. We surged forward, hot and listening. Rapt with attention, too short to see, too hot to think, too high to care. Some lit up cigarettes in the middle of all of us. Guys I met moments before promised me protection. At my request one lifted me into the sky, above the surging masses. I was so elated I couldn’t see what was happening, but wrapped around his torso everything was at my feet, and visible, and real, and clear. I kept turning around, hundreds of people in the risers behind me. I was smiling profusely. I looked back a few times at the tallest corner where I almost watched the floor from. I had decided to be on the floor. I woke up with bruises. Beautiful galaxy bruises on my knees where they knocked other knees.
Ryan Lewis’s beautiful face. Singing, The Heist. Ben Haggerty lending us his soul, giving us his all. And he talked about shoes. And problems we all face and dreams we can all relate to. Owuor Arunga lifted his trumpet in the air and sounded the triumphs of a battle not yet fought. And there was Ray Dalton’s reassuring voice and simple face full of wonder too. Two others were there I believe, but I could hardly see anything and I don’t give a damn. I don’t follow music all that well. When I heard Thriftshop for the first time I didn’t listen to the worlds and I thought it might be like every other song on the hits radio stations. When I listened, when my sister or someone pointing it out, I was taken aback. Zara drove us back to Coeur d’Alene after it was all over and we sang and the fields were green and rolling and full of spring. The surreal experience didn’t seem real to either of us, but it was so real and we talked about that and we were alive. I yelled, THE WORLD IS BEAUTIFUL and I thought of Charlie.
I read the Macklmore wiki on the way to his concert. It’s incredible I even got to go. Tickets were all sold out. It took a couple days for it all to settle in. I can’t quite comprehend still, the fact that I was there. And it was over so fast, and it was incredible. People selling tickets for a $120 on Craigslist. Zara nearly didn’t get to go, we made a deal and I bought half of her ticket at a cheaper price from a friend. It’s like it was meant to happen.
We stayed up till three that night. I feel closer to the Vandals in one night then I probably would have going to school at U of I for a year. When I sang a lyric loudly, the people who could hear me joined in. I was powerful and so were they. Everyone was respectful, we took care of each other. Like I said, guys lifted girls on their shoulders for entire songs, did it even while they were on molly.
When we were leaving in a stranger-to-me’s truck, guys hopped in the bed off the side of the road and Howard sat in the back seat by me. He shouted inspiration and lyrics out the rolled-down windows and everyone appreciated it. He told people he saw to have a “Happy Macklmore.” I was laughing, it was so beautiful. The way he knew everyone on the street and at the apartment and walking to and from the concert made me realize how connected one person can make the rest of us. I related that to Ben Haggerdy. We went to Howard’s party and met up with people we had lost. I drank three large cups of water. then later we met up with Mandy, the lovely lady who graciously gifted me her ticket. I fell asleep almost everywhere. We bought some of the most delicious bagels I’d ever tasted at the bagel shop and a fight broke out in front of my eyes at 2am only for the white-clad guys to realize they were fucking up the wrong human being. His eye was swollen and he hadn’t even been in the state the week before.
At the concert we had agreed on a rendezvous, which I think was pretty smart, cos I had gotten separated from everyone earlier on. It was terrifying, that I might end up lost for Macklmore in a mob of clothing and unfamiliar faces. I got over the fear of separation as the night wore on but at first there were so many people moving I couldn’t stand still long enough to get my bearings. When I found someone I knew so I could call my friend Zara, she yelled across static because all the kids on their phones were hijacking each other and it was impossible to understand her. I could have sat there, but I walked toward the floor, stood in line for screening, then surprisingly, easily found and joined her. I was shaking so hard until the music started. I had less control over my legs then I’ve ever experienced before, my bones were on fire. That’s how momentous it was for me to face my fear.
They took my ticket. But I wear the yellow wrist band as I type. I figured I’d go get another view of the stage half-way through, but I kept getting closer and closer as people shifted around and it was so unlike anything I’d ever done I didn’t find a good enough reason to bring myself to move away from that. Perhaps if it would have gone on, still been going the entire night and into the next day, or perhaps two, I could have left with the reassurance of coming back. At first I was disappointed I didn’t get to see it from up high, but no. It was worth it. It was everything I never would have expected all wrapped up in an event I was so looking forward to for so long.
The diner where Mandy works was rad, a American-style bar with jars for glasses and outside picnic tables and waitresses who really know how to work a table. The girls had lemonade and we went out to breakfast the next morning with some I’d just met and others I’ve known for awhile. I was the last one still finishing at the table of course, but that omelet and french toast with strawberries were some of the most satisfying restaurant versions I’d ever tasted.
Simply being in the town I was born. The place where my father went to school and my mother raised me first. Moscow in an utterly new light then it had been with theater kids. Walking those hilly streets, not being able to see over their edges, getting lost. We visited the renaissance fair. It was our last stop. I made a green headdress out of gold wire and streamers. I danced around a Maypole and met an owl with some funky W name. I walked in the belly of a fabric dragon and heard kind music whilst sitting on a hay bale in the mid-afternoon sun, taking off my shoes, saying “so-long.”
Sleeping in the basement of a house I’d never before been in was intriguing. I was dirty as I’ll ever be ever in my life from standing in practically one place for an extended amount of time, I slept like a rock. I showered for a long time when I got home. But just then, it was calm and quiet beside Zara while she played the crossword game she loves on her phone when the night was almost over. I fell asleep that way.
We saw the biggest dog on the planet named bear that night. Mandy is going to live with him, she calls him majestic because he is and when he plays and arches with this front legs down and his butt in the air, tail wagging, it looks ridiculously like a massive lumbering child. I love when his mouth opens, he looks like a lion. J.R. was sweet enough to pick Zara a tulip from the buds next to her car, and he slept next to us on the floor and is awesome.
I’ve been rambling out of turn, trying to get it all down. My life is an ongoing jumble of experience. New and not enough old perhaps. No wonder my true self (whoever that may be) didn’t at all mind my being here, wanted me here in this world of ours. We’re here for a reason and there’s so much to do and see, the unaware plan ready to pop up like a crunchy piece of morning toast. Good morning, life. Whether it’s on Mars or on Earth. I should be studying for my test in the morning, but oh well, fuck it. I’m alive. Be alive with me again one day. I look forward to when it happens again like it did this last weekend. It’s near impossible to get my mind back on track with any arduous tasks. I’ll be here, I’ll still be working on making my life. I look forward to it.
