Lessons in the Listening

It takes a lot for me to want to go to a concert - or even get out of the house these days. The crowds, the heat, fighting for a spot to park, looking for a the seat you paid for so you could watch your favorite lifetime artists just seems…a little daunting. Not to mention, the cost of a concert these days.

All I ever really wanted was an intimate connection between me and the music…a quiet place to listen to the songs that have been the background to my adult life. But it seems like at concerts, all I ever got were the distractions around me - drunk people searching for their seats, coming in late, spilling their drinks on me, or even fighting with each other during a favorite song. Hell, one year at a concert, I even spotted a female running topless through the crowd.

“I didn’t come for all this BS,” I thought to myself. “I came for the music. I came for Dave.” (Insert whatever artist you love here instead)

“I didn’t come to hear 10,000 people sing Grey Street. I came to hear HIM!”

So there I was, hot and sweaty, stuck in the middle of thousands of people when all I wanted to connect with was the few people making music on stage, when the thought occurred to me - this isn’t about that.

After all this time it dawned on me that this was about connection. But not with the band…with the community around me.

It was never about my relationship with the music. Okay…well, it IS about the music. But it was also about how it brought all of these people together. My people, the strangers next to me, the couple fighting behind me, and my family lost somewhere in the sea of humans around me - feeling the feels. It was about the connection between all of us woven together like a tapestry that sounds a lot like music.

In the world we live in, where we are entering war s we didn’t ask for with leaders we never wanted in charge in the first place, it’s nice to see some commonality. It’s nice to feel connection to something big. For a moment this weekend, I lost myself in the face of the music. It reminded me to love and be loved, to give grace when I can, and mostly, keep connecting with those around me…and especially the ones right beside me.

Thanks again to the Dave Matthews Band for making life pretty dang sweet for certain.

Oh, Joy.

About a month ago, I found myself smack dab in the center of Joy. I didn’t navigate my way there. I just stumbled upon it, like a secret garden or a hidden hot spring that nobody can quite tell you how to get to. It happened right here, at a Mumford & Sons concert.

It sort of snuck up on me. It tapped me on the shoulder a few times, but I ignored it - chalking it up to a song or the energy of the room that night. It was, after all, a great concert. But at the end of the last song, I stepped back, away from the crowd, and I just took a breath. It was in that moment of space that I gave myself that I recognized where I was. Smack dab in the middle of Joy.

It was bound to happen. I had been denying myself Joy for so long….pretending like it didn’t even exist. Maybe I just didn’t recognize it because it had been gone for so long. So each time I saw it, I looked away, seeking it in some other format. Or maybe not at all.

Depriving ourselves of joy is not new. We do it for many reasons. I think mine was a sort of self-flagulation, as if I didn’t deserve a relationship with Joy….as if I wasn’t meant to live side by side in the presence of something so simple and true to our well being. I wish I had a better explanation of why I have left Joy behind in a dustcloud - shame, guilt and fear all vying for shotgun in my life, but I don’t. It’s silly and ridiculous and I wish I didn’t feel this way. But the fact is that I do. Or at least I did.

After I snuck away from the mosh pit of humans that night, I squared myself up center to the stage - iPhone in hand to take a shot. I took a deep breath in and smiled, just lingering in the moment a little. That’s when I realized Joy was back. And there we were… face-to-face, hand-in-hand with all the other couples in the back of the room. We cozied up and renewed our long lost commitment to one another, dancing under the confetti like we had just renewed our holy vows.

And if you, too, are seeking Joy in your life, I think you can find it tucked away at the crossroads of love and gratitude. Just make sure you don’t bypass it as you take a direct route on the superhighway to where you think it should be. It’s not clearly marked on that map someone tricked you into believing. There are no shortcuts. No direct routes. No signs pointing to a singular destination. It’s tricky to find and even harder to recognize. But once you arrive, you’ll know it.

After the Storm...

And after the storm,
I run and run as the rains come
And I look up,
I look up,
on my knees and out of luck,
I look up.

After The Storm, by Mumford + Sons

* I have posted the lyrics to this song before. It’s one of my most favorite ballads of all times by one of my most favorite bands ever. I listened to this music during a very hard time for me and remember feeling like it was a life jacket that some threw me in a wild, stormy sea. It still brings me to my knees when I hear it.