i saw beirut last wednesday and came away filled as any good show should accomplish. usually that's enough to find a path to words and in turn recreate and preserve the night but i came home and kept erasing the words i had written. nothing seems to capture it. maybe i was just tired.
or maybe it's just because there were two stories happening at the same time.
1. the story of the show:
the show was perfect. strong. free. joyful and heartbreaking all at the same time. a fantastic setlist played by a row of brass blasting out their notes to us with such force sometimes i imagined i could feel the wind of their instruments brushing my face. and only a few feet back from the stage, a body or two between the band and me and i couldn't stop moving, smiling, pursing my eyebrows together in direct correlation to the shift between their vivid intensity and soul stretching joy.
my hand stayed over my heart the whole show. though occasionally it was there to keep my heart from cracking itself open on the piercing edges of the music. at one point my neighbor, this little slip of a thing who, until that point mostly annoyed me by her something-induced dancing, looked over at me holding on to my chest and gently tapped her hand on my heart empathetically. she knew. she smiled. i smiled. and for the rest of her show her dancing lost its annoying edge.
but most of the time, i didn't need to hold my heart together with my hands and they could joyfully play the heart and thigh drums by thumping them both in time to the music. shortly into the show i noticed the lead singer, zach condon, doing it as well {when he wasn't playing his trumpet or guitar}. we had became a mirror image to each other: my right hand on my heart and my left thumping my thigh as his left hand played his heart and his right drummed his thigh. and in our shared musical enthusiasm he became my long lost mirror twin i didn't even know until now i had been missing.
2. the story of the song:
the night of the show life folded in on me in a few ways* most of them around this one short song: a sunday smile.
a small tangent: the last time i went to a show alone, i was at the moore theater seeing regina spektor in 2007. it was a show i was supposed to see with two others but they bailed, selling their tickets last minute and so i went alone. i remember being put off by the fact that the people next to me gave me the cold shoulder, thinking that it shouldn't be too hard to at least be congenial with someone you obviously share a certain level of music kinship with. and it was that experience in particular that lingered with me four years later and motivated me to break the barrier of stranger and reach out to my neighbor at bon iver last september. it's been nearly a year and not only did i make someone's night that night {as well as my own} but i scored music friend #10, someone who quickly became a dear friend. to take this in a tidy little circle, tonight i went alone to a concert for the first time since 2007 and of course it was back to the moore theater to finally see beirut live. and halfway through, i called music friend #10 to share with him a sunday smile since he could not be there in person to hear it with me.
and so it was that a sunday smile was handed back to me that night, folding time and space once again to string together all the intense moments it has carried me through in my life. as soon as i knew i would be seeing this band, i knew i wanted to hear this one song the most. the first song of there i ever heard, given to me by another great spirit in my life: my favorite professor who sent me a mix of songs in early 2008. it was right as a relationship ended and my world came crashing down on me, leveling me for about a year at least, probably more. and it was the opening lines of this song on repeat for weeks in my car, perhaps months during this time, that helped carry me above the tides of my life. a lifeline out to better times.
all i want is the best for my life my dear
and you know my wishes are sincere
what's the say for the days i cannot bear
a sunday smile, we wore it for a while
a sunday smile, we paused and sang
while that was how we first met, the song has come up again throughout the years, marking several finite moments of courage in my life. these two stories are both from my 9 month acting course that was basically a study of pushing oneself beyond one's boundaries. they can be found in the archives here and here {the latter post being a far more interesting class, perhaps one of my favorites}. or if you are up for a little recording of me singing it pre-voice lessons, here is a silly little video {that still took a lot of outtakes and even more courage} with an ending that still makes me laugh.
and at the show, coincidentally {or not, depending on how you view the world} the song found me once more on a day when i needed it badly. one of those days i stared down fear in a way that made my stomach and heart shrink inside me, trying to squeeze themselves into hiding from what the rest of my body and spirit could not avoid. i had been so fiercely swept up by the anticipation of failure, of pain, and of shame just as i stood staring at the cusp of so much that can either build or break my heart. i even considered bailing on the show but i think it was the song that got there, got me out, got me into a crowd and exactly where i needed to be doing most: listening to amazing music and writing a long overdue screen play during set changes. ironically it was the usual behavior of scribbling away at a notebook that got connecting me to the audience around me who wanted to know what i was writing. and in turn they drew me into their excitement and enthusiasm, drew me into that soft warmth of bodies standing close, happily waiting for a band to take stage. so that when the band finally did come on, i was there. i was ready. my stomach and heart and spirit cautiously unfurled, catching the winds of change in my life rather than hiding from them.
about halfway through the show, zach did a long, gentle lead up to a song, inviting us to sing along, smiling in anticipation of giving us this true gem of sonic heartbreak. and all i can say is that halfway through i realized my knees were weak in a way i haven't felt in a long time. it was good. it was heart breaking. it was perfect.
*i must not take credit for this lovely image: life folding in on itself. that moment when you retrace the steps from the past unexpectedly, or find yourself tied to a person, particular relationship dynamic or song mirroring the past. you probably know what i mean, but regardless, these words are words of a friend i repeat here because they were so perfect.
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