"joy is not made to be a crumb"

Aug 08, 2023

I spent most of last Friday and Saturday attending Chicago’s Lollapalooza. I had never been to a big music festival of this size before; and the older I get, the less fun it sounds. Attending with a dear friend, seeing headliner Kendrick Lamar for the third time together, felt like the best time as any to check this particular form of live entertainment/shared experience off my list.

I was a little nervous going in, wondering if I was too old (I wasn’t), if the teens would make fun of my outfit (they didn’t), if I would have a claustrophobic-induced panic attack (I didn’t), if it was stupid to not mask (tbd). I left overflowing with joy & gratitude & good vibes, doused in the spirit of collective effervescence.

I had a moment on the second day that I am honestly still processing.

As rain began to drip down from the dark clouds nestled amidst twilight skies, Maggie Rogers launched into my favorite song of hers: Fallingwater. Maggie Rogers was a load-bearing pillar of my mental stability in the first year of the pandemic. I bought Heard It In A Past Life on vinyl just to listen and cry on the couch to. It held me up during a time where I truly thought concerts were over, where I may never stand in a crowd listening, singing, dancing. For someone who started going to concerts as soon as my parents let me, spending my meager minimum wages on tickets, this temporaneous truth cut deep. I was so anxious about COVID, the unknowns, the potential of getting my neighbors and loved ones and strangers sick, maybe even killing them. I thought I would, or could, never be in close quarters with others again, masked or unmasked. I couldn't imagine a different future, even if I lived to 50, 80, 100. It felt staggeringly bleak. I would spend hours combing my phone, searching for videos and photos of concerts, wondering why I hadn't taken more.

And then, there I was, 4 years later, in one of my favorite places with my favorite people, listening to a song I replayed more times than I can count when I was at my lowest. I was there, alive, with people as far as the eye could see - together. I felt a bubble of emotions rise up until I cracked open, unable to contain it. The tears flowed, mixing with laughter, and I let go.

I remembered younger me, the one who regularly scanned the live music section of Real Detroit Weekly (RIP), and how she dreamed of someday going to Lollapalooza. I had forgotten about her, but she remembered. We made it, I tell her. We made it.

A few songs later, Maggie sings her closer That's Where I Am, and the rain ceases and a giant rainbow streaks across the sunset sky, becoming clearer by the minute. I felt the dam truly break, laughing harder, crying harder, feeling disbelief in the magic of the moment, effusive, grateful. The pandemic continues, it’s not “over” over, but I made it here.

We - a collective we - made it here.

"I hope she sees it," I managed to say to my friend, gesturing to the sky. I wanted her to have a piece of this, I wanted everyone around me to have a piece of it.

"There's a giant rainbow! See you later!" Maggie shouted before running off stage.

Feeling more than I ever thought possible, I sobbed anew.

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good things on the internet

No Scrubs as read by (a guy who is insanely good at imitating) Maya Angelou 🥼
Chelsea Bird’s poetic reflections on August ☀️
My hero Megan Rapinoe hugging her fam after the US women’s team world cup loss ⚽
this Mary Oliver poem that I have been feeling very deeply this week: 📝

Don’t Hesitate by Mary Oliver. Source: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DxIAQlGW0AIMMuh.jpg

currently reading

White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi: I picked up this modern gothic for my “BIPOC horror” Seattle Public Library summer book bingo square
Natalie Adler on how those who already have the most are embracing rich person minimalism: “Instead of wanting more, demanding more, enjoying more, and of course, working less, we get discipline and denial. If “thin is in,” it’s a thinness of imagination. It’s giving upper middle class aspirational. It’s giving nothing.”
newly sober & my favorite local author Angela Garbes on how pandemic substance use became addiction: “I have never been this vulnerable, this sensate — all the things I couldn’t allow myself to be for so long. I feel more human than ever. And I’m grateful.”