a rush

It happened last night. I had the same feeling I got when it was announced last spring that the summer tour I was so eagerly waiting for was a go. But this time it was when we left a friend’s house after making a very important cupcake and TOTO IV on vinyl delivery.

It’s pure joy.

Pure, unadulterated joy is the only way to describe it. Other than a trip to the grocery store or a brief interaction with our mail lady, we haven’t been around people we love outside of this house since Christmas Eve. Sure, if we rewind back to the spring of 2020, a couple of weeks isn’t that long.

But it was that long.

2.5 weeks long to be exact. I didn’t think I was missing my people until we left after seeing them. We only had about 30 minutes to catch up before heading home to watch the SEC Championship reprise (gotta love a 2nd chance I suppose) but in that 30 minutes, we exchanged weeks of information and about 13 different versions of “love you guys” before we hopped in the car to head home.

My heart felt full. The smile on my face took a while to fade. Guys, we need people in our lives. We just do. And this is coming from an introvert that will do everything she can to get out of plans… even the ones I made.

I didn’t realize I needed this, not personally, until the pandemic. Pre-pandemic I found myself roaming the halls of a VERY large workplace. Interacting with people I saw everyday, talking with strangers, I was surrounded by people. They weren’t my close friends but we’d often find ourselves across the street for happy hour after a long work day, or celebrating birthdays out at our favorite lunch spots. These casual friends filled that cup. Rocky and I also went out regularly, saddling up to our favorite tap room bar to catch up with our favorite bartender, smiling at the person who always worked in our self check out area when he had to come fix the scanner that I failed to outsmart again, and I’m pretty sure the person who worked behind the counter at our favorite record store knew us by name. I took all of those things for granted.

We all did.

The pandemic brought the need to be more intentional about those connections and when I looked, I found that connections were not in short supply. I’ve talked about this before, but the group I found while watching concerts online every Wednesday night the summer of 2020 turned into family. Many of us met face to face for the first time in 2021 and the hugs were the hugs of old friends who were seeing each other for the first time in years. But these weren’t old friends, but rather new friends who GOT us. In some cases, it was like looking in the mirror, but in other cases, the only thing in common was our love for the same band but still, we bonded like best friends on the playground in 2nd grade.

It’s strange… I think that’s why I keep talking about it.

It is truly the best thing to come out of this whole mess.

Surprise, surprise, I’ve been a bit nostalgic this week. During the breaks between meetings, I’ve been thinking back on what I’ve found in the last 1.5 years or so. A lot of what I do when I’m working in my studio comes from what/how a song makes me feel. Sure, sure, sometimes I just put something together, hang a chain on it and call it good, but in most cases, everything I make is made because it sparked something in me when I sat down to get creative. “Grey Street” has been on my mind a lot this week. Specifically the version so many of us were lucky enough to witness on September 3, 2021 when Dave took the stage alone, with his guitar, and played to the entire audience as we watched the evening sun dip behind the Columbia river… the sunset made even more vibrant from smoke from distant wildfires. The song was stripped down, we got the 3rd verse, and the waterworks couldn’t be stopped on my part.

If anything happened to me since March of 2020, it’s that I set fire to the life I had before. My career patch changed, our way of life changed for the better, and what is most important to me changed… this song speaks to me now more than ever before.

It’s beautiful, I hope you take a listen.