The last time I visited this club in particular there was snow on the ground. My boyfriend at the time was on the opposite coast visiting friends in Los Angeles, presumably involved in a different kind of snow.
I hadn’t been going to see bands play on a regular basis – every other month at the most. When I go often, I get sucked up into the lifestyle and find myself lost for weeks, even months, at a time. I turn into a toddler who spins around nonstop, getting pulled into the rhythm of it all until worn out and dizzy, I fall flat on my face. That’s me.
But, still.
The swell of the crowd with their serious gazes pointed attentively towards the stage: fresh, bright, and still. Smiling faces awash in sweeping, angelic light. Some with arms wrapped tightly around each other as if not to miss a note. Some sway in time to the music, others stir thin plastic straws in their drinks looking on.
The song ends, the last chord is played, a drop of silence hovers in the air like dew before everyone erupts into applause.
This shadowy venue holds space for magic. The kind where everyone, if only for a few minutes, comes to pause. Where we all have hope. Where we can all still believe.
There’s no denying that music will always be part of me. What would it mean to disavow it, to turn from the social and physiological beasts that have strengthened the fibers of my heart for as long as I’ve known?
It’s 11 p.m. on a weeknight. I don’t have to be here all the time, only once in awhile to scratch the itch. I look after myself as though the child within me is still wildly alive; kicking, ready to be slingshot to the moon. Nights like these we shoot into space together – holding hands, rocketing ourselves amongst the stars like innocent children who will forever be wild and free. Or at least for another hour or so.
“Just one more song,” she says.