Minimally Eschew

Showing posts with label let's dance to joy division. Show all posts

I believe in the reckless optimism of Leslie Knope and soothing my soul by watching Parks and Rec on repeat for hours at a time. Letting the pure joy it radiates warm me to the bone.

I believe in learning from the people around me. From their lived experience. In learning from perspectives different from my own. In acknowledging the gaps in my own knowledge.

I believe in sunsets and ocean spray. In sand that has taken permanent residence in the carpets of my car.

I believe in scalding hot bubble baths and good books and wrinkled toes and fingers. In playlists curated by people who love you and soaps that smell like lemon.

I believe in text message affirmations and crying over skype. In phone calls and Facebook chats. In emails with links to YouTube videos of adorable animals and in snapchat selfies a hundred times a day.

I believe in action. In marches and in protest. In boycotts and in the undervalued work of educating others. I believe in walking the walk, in all the ways I can.

I believe in looking at pictures of turtles at least once a day.

I believe in the song “Let’s Dance to Joy Division” and the power of pop punk and aggressive air guitar.

I believe in my religion and the comfort it brings me. Faith can be a complicated thing but even on the days when I question, I never stop believing in my community and my people.

I believe in the power of women. Now, more than ever. In their strength and their fortitude.

I believe in self care through baking banana bread. And M&M cookies. And snickerdoodles and lemon bars. In kneading away stress and showing up to the office with Tupperware containers full of treats.

I believe in snuggly blankets and fuzzy socks. In coziness and comfort.

I believe in myself and I believe in the people around me.

I believe in listening.

I believe that the whole world is a narrow bridge, and that the main thing is not to be afraid.

I believe in pretty dresses and bright lipstick. In allowing myself small acts of beauty when the whole world feels ugly.

I believe, as the wise Albus Dumbledore once said, that “Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”

I believe in being the light. In shining my brightest and inviting others to radiate their joy and their love and their happiness. In giving what I can. In burning my brightest, even when the days feel dark. .

I believe that it’s time to go to work. To get up in the morning and fight for the people and ideas you believe in. To fight with love and to fight with words and to fight with legislation. To fight in town hall meetings and Facebook debates. To change minds and change hearts and change the dialogue.

I believe that change is possible.

The gifts 22 has given me:

Two states, four homes, and a half a dozen fold out couches and futons where I’ve been able to rest my head for a day, a week, or a couple of months. Twenty-two has been a year of movement.
A blue notebook small enough to fit in my purse full of to-do lists with items that I’ve already done and doodles that left my fingers stained in ink.
Friendships with people from every corner of the country and from all around the world. Pen pals in South America and Facebook messages from Texas. People I can count on in every time zone and climate.
A pair of black knee high boots that have seen sun and rain and snow and sleet and obscenely dirty New York City streets. The toes have faded and peeled, and I’ve colored over them more than once with Sharpie markers.
A summer in Warwick where I learned that sometimes starting new is the best idea of all. A summer full of love and learning and adventure and discovery. Planning intense programs about Israel. Plunging toilets. Making friends and making memories. Starting terrified, ending satisfied.
Taylor Swift’s ‘22’ sung to me by at least a dozen different people.
A third grade Hebrew school classroom full of the funniest, strangest, most excitable kids I’ve ever met. Passover plagues charades and Aleph-Bet flashcard trivia contests. Sounding out prayers with letters we just learned and singing songs at the top of our lungs. A Saturday making sandwiches for a soup kitchen and a Friday service with a gospel choir. Laughter and love and lots of learning.
Confidence in my work. My writing. My editing. My photography. My organizing. My teaching skills. A feeling—at least some of the time-- that I know what I’m doing.
Dance parties. With friends, sometimes. By myself more often than I should admit. In cars and theatres. On tennis courts and in living rooms. Lyrics shouted loud and dance moves done without shame.
A seventh grade Hebrew school classroom full of loud boys making silly jokes and shy girls who are so smart that sometimes it scares me. Lessons about fair trade and homelessness and poverty and what the Jewish commitment to social justice really means. Seriousness when it’s needed. The wonderful joy I get to feel as I watch these kids think about things they have never thought about before.
More than my fair share of panic attacks.
Monday nights when I can’t be home, so I wander up and down 86th street until I can’t feel my fingers anymore. Time in Barnes and Noble- walking up and down the aisles and reading 15 books a chapter at a time, until the plots mix in my head and I can’t match the characters to their stories. Sometimes, , I’ll treat myself to a movie and some treats smuggled in from the drugstore next door using a purse large enough to hide anything I want. I’ll people watch for a while, near the subway stop. The commuters with their briefcases and the students with their overflowing backpacks. The parents navigating strollers through the busy city streets.
A haircut. Just one.
A hard drive full of Word documents. Some that I’ve sent out in to the world. Lots that I never will. Stories and essays and letters to no one. Bits of dialogue without any plot. Bits of plot without a story to make them work. Memories I had to write somewhere -- anywhere -- so I wouldn’t lose them to the failures of memories of time.
The best ice cream I’ve ever had, at a small shop overlooking the hills of upstate New York. A car ride to get there where we had to pull off to the side of the road because we were laughing too hard for anyone to be able to safely drive. Tears in my eyes and an ache in my chest from pure happiness.
A concert by my favorite band with one of my best friends. A chance to shout the lyrics to the song that has defined my life for half a decade as the band played it live and I jumped up and down on a floor sticky with alcohol, in a room full of people who understood how much that moment meant to me
Every emotion possible. Sometimes all at once.
A family who, as they have done every year, and I know will do in in all my years to come, has shown me nothing but love and acceptance, even and especially when I felt like I didn’t deserve it.

365 days. Not a day too many, not a day too few.

“Let's dance to joy division

And celebrate the irony

Everything is going wrong

But we're so happy!”

There is no zoom used on this
I WAS ACTUALLY THAT CLOSE

The room smelled like sweat and alcohol, and I had a perfect window view between the shoulders of the two taller girls in front of me. I was three rows of people from the stage, two if the crowd danced right, and if I wanted to I could have reached out and touched it. The band—my favorite band—was playing old songs and new songs and my favorite songs in the world. I danced and shouted the lyrics and jumped around on a floor sticky with spilled beer. The friend who was with me had taken an 11 hour bus ride down from Ohio for this. This weekend and this show. These songs we’d song the lyrics to together for years. It was a good feeling being there. It felt so good that I couldn’t really believe it was real.

I think I uttered the phrase “Is this really happening?” a couple dozen times. I’m still a little bit in shock.

The Wombats!

I’ve written a few times about my love for the Wombats, and their song Let’s Dance to Joy Division in particular. It’s been my anthem for half a decade; a song so wrapped up in the memories of senior year of high school late nights and junior year of college dance parties and gap year panic attacks. A song that weaves like a thread through so many of my friendships and fondest times. It means the world to me. And I got to shout the lyrics as the band played it live.

Post-concert subway station selfies

I’ve never been a person who is short on words. I pride myself on my eloquence, and I haven’t met a moment that I won’t try to spin in to a metaphor, but some things need to be experienced to be explained. Some things don’t make sense unless you live them. Unless you’re knee deep in the emotions of the moment and you know, you know, that this isn’t a moment that you’ll be able to explain in a weeks’ time.

I felt overjoyed. I felt alive and rambunctious and ecstatic and free. I felt so deliriously happy that it didn’t seem real. I’m still floating a little bit.

It was a great show. A great show and a great night. I’m lucky to have experienced it.

Update (10:30 pm)

I just realized I didn't mention the time I dressed up like an ipod playing Let's Dance to Joy Division for Halloween which feels really relevant and like it needs to be mentioned. I did. And it was awesome.

I’m just left of center in a six train car heading uptown that’s crowded enough that the bodies around me are keeping me more upright more than squeezing on to a handrail ever could. I’m wearing my headphones- some early 90’s relics I found buried in a backpack pocket that hadn’t been cleaned out in a few too many years. I have the music turned up loud. Loud enough that I can’t hear the words of the people around me even as I watch their lips move. Loud enough that it’s all I have to think about.

I close my eyes. Confident in the fact that I’m six subway stops from home. The train rocks back and forth beneath my feet. Not quite gently, but in a way that still feels soothing.

There isn’t much music I have saved on my phone. This whole commuting-by-public-transit-in-a-major-city thing is kind of new to me. A couple Regina Spektor songs. Some mix cd’s I made for myself and a few more sent to me by friends. Every single Laura Marling song, and of course—of course—The Wombats. I’ve written a time or five about my love affair with their song ‘Let’s Dance to Joy Division’ but it bears repeating—that songs means so much to me. I could listen to it forever (or you know, on repeat for literally weeks at a time…) and never get tired of it.

I’ve got the kind of anxiety where going places can be so overwhelming that I just stop doing anything together. The people, the crowds, the noise—I get a sensory overload and break down. So I’ve been doing a horrible job of exploring New York. A terrible job, really. I know that there is so much to see and discover in this city—and I haven’t really taken advantage of much of it at all.

So this week I did something big.

I bought a concert ticket. Well, I bought two, actually. But even if I can’t find a friend to go with me I’m going to see The Wombats play in January. I’m going to head to Brooklyn on a Monday night, and brave the crowds and the noise. I’m going to scream along to ‘Let’s Dance to Joy Division’ when they play it live. I’m going to let myself feel all of my emotions in that moment. The love, the fear, the pure adrenaline.

It might not seem like much. It’s something people do all the time. But I’m scared. And I’m excited.

And I’m so happy.

It was maybe midnight and we were the kind of tired where everything is just funny, even when it has no right to be. It had been a long day, at the tail end of an even longer week, and we were the kind of tired and worn out where your brain just starts to feel a little looser—a little sillier.

Friends and Food and Flags

It was February, I think, or maybe it wasn’t, but it was cold and there was snow on the ground and
snow that caught on the tips of my eyelashes whenever I dared to walk outside. It was late and it was dark, and we were in the kind of small town that understands the concept of streetlights, but comes up a little shy in the execution.

The thing about going to school in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere is that you have to make your own fun. There aren’t places to go, or events to be at, so you get really good at being more then content with a few friends and a room where you can all just be together. There was one bar in town, but only kind of—in my two years there it had 3 different names, and twice as many owners, and probably about a half dozen health code violations. There were dorms and town houses, and--if you were lucky-- houses on the edge of campus that your friends had managed to get permission to live in where you could come hang out on a Friday night.

Sometimes weird objects show up,
and sometimes I stick those objects on my face
and take pictures.

Then there was the co-op. It was a vegetarian cooking co-op, and for most of sophomore year it

became my home away from home, even though I was never technically a member. There were murals on the walls and good food cooked by people I liked, and a mountain of pots and pans I could scrub and clean the corners of whenever I felt the need to put a little strength and aggression in to something. People had shifts cooking meals and cleaning, and everything was shared. There was the kitchen, of course, but also a big dining room with long wooden tables and big windows and decorations that had clearly been cobbled together with a little luck and a lot of love. I loved it there.

So we were in the co-op and it was late, but not late enough that people were rolling in to make late night drunken munchies. I was with a handful of friends and we were yelling about something, or nothing, or everything, and watching the snow fall through the big windows. We drank tea and ate cookies and watched, for seemingly forever, at a loading screen on my laptop.

A mountain of scones
and my favorite cook

Someone had had the idea earlier that day that it would be fun to play a video game using a projector on one of the walls in the art building down the hill. Make the game 30 feet high and 40 feet wide, and immerse ourselves in something fun.

I’m not sure if it was technically allowed, but we had a key and we weren’t going to wreck anything or make a mess.

But before we could even get to any of the not-really-breaking-and-entering-because-it’s-sort-of-allowed-in-a-weird-way nonsense, we had to figure out how to download the game.

See, the internet on campus was never great, and that night it was being particularly awful. The download started at maybe 10 pm, and by 10:30 we were a little annoyed. By 11:00 that annoyance was starting to grow. By 11:30 we were the kind of frustrated that seems almost delicate—like anything could set it off. By midnight we’d somehow passed the stage of frustration and started to realize how ridiculous the entire situation was.

It was late. It was late and we were tired, and my computer wasn’t doing the one thing we really wanted it to do.

a person i enjoy and a mural that makes me smile

So someone turned on the music. Because there is no better release for all those mixed up feelings then dancing like an idiot with people you love, when all of your emotions are frazzled and your brain just feels sore. There is nothing like singing—or really shouting—lyrics to songs you adore late at night and not caring who hears the cracks in your voice and your utter lack of pitch. It’s freeing and it;s fun, and I think it’s impossible to not at least crack a smile when you see someone start to disco to punk rock songs.

So we danced. We danced and we laughed, and ignored my laptop as it attempted to chug along.

I think about that night a lot. How we didn’t really do anything, and how much fun it was. How much I love those people. How much I love that place.

dancing and singing
because sometimes you need to dance and sing.

There’s a comfort in knowing that moments like that are possible. Moments of pure joy and silliness. Moments of smiles and laughter and ridiculous, summoned—as if by magic—exactly when you need them.

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