Dwell if You Must

The roar of laughter and cheer echoed through the darkness of the night, into the trees and fields that surrounded this barn yarn. The fire cracked in the distance, throwing hints to us of where we were in respects to the tents, the vehicles and the barn itself, dressing them with a warm glow. It was as if that fire and our instruments, loud and intentional, were our only tools to show our significance to this impossibly endless universe. The alcohol masked our worries as a group of us strayed to a darker space.

I spun endlessly away from the comforts of my fellow musicians and crashed on the bed of grass. Suddenly all the noise around me ceased, overpowered by the silences of thought. The stars brighten in my honor and my sparrow tattoo itched on my right forearm. I trace the ink with my left hand, every line embedded in me. The banner on it reads “A Good Year” which represented my band, but most importantly, her. She’ll never know this, but the ink used on the sparrow was mixed with my memory of her face as she sat next to me at that tattoo shop. I missed her. In that moment, through the intoxication of substance and laughter, I wondered where she was and tried not to wonder who she would be with. The combination of the night and the clear sky were supposed to be ours. I’d promised her a life time ago that we would gaze the stars together one night and she had replied, “I’d never done that with any guy before.” It tore me up inside to realize that I would not be that guy.

“I love you man,” said a shirtless drunkard from another band, who was lying next to me for god knows how long. “You better get off the ground before the world steps on you! Hahaha.” He pulls me up and hands me another beer. “Are you having a good year buddy?”

I thought about it for a minute and wonder if he’d actually asked what I thought he’d asked. With the amount of weed and alcohol I had that night, this whole event I just documented may never have happened to begin with, so I replied, out loud or just to myself, I’m not sure, “yeah. It’s still a great fucken year.”

We go through our lives weighing out our happiness and our sorrows and I don’t think that there will ever be a time when happiness tips the scale, nor would I want it to. I think there will always be a bit of sorrow to balance us; enough to humble us but not enough to dictate. One day ruined my whole year? No, it’s making me appreciate all the days to come. So dwell if you must, but dont let the world step on you.

Have a good year everyone.