Signs of Light — Madilyn Clair

First things first, welcome to the new site! I've wanted to move spaces for a while now, for some reasons that I've talked about in the past, and I actually made the move sometime last semester but it's taken me a while to put it to use. But now that I'm here and sharing it with you all, I'm super excited.

It's been nearly a year since the last time I wrote. Don't take it personally, my journal hasn't been touched in about eight months either. I feel horrible about it, but honestly I just haven't had that much to say.

When I first got back from Australia I wanted to write about my experience and how important it was to me to have gone, but doing so felt like closing a door on the experience and letting it go, and I wasn't ready for that. There's a draft I have saved that I started a month after I got back that I just couldn't bring myself to finish. The words just wouldn't come. And then I started school again and I just felt so spaced out and not very present. It took me about a month or so to bring my head back down from the clouds, and really that was just because things started getting busy, which is always a cure. A lot happened spring semester. I joined a sorority, for one. I spring break-ed in the British Virgin Islands. I went to SoulCycle 20 times in 28 days. I did a ton of projects. And I wanted to talk about all of that, too, but again, I just either didn't have the time or the inspiration. And then this summer I was taking classes here in the city and didn't have much going on, so I got back into a funk of just feeling purposeless and lazy, which no one wants to hear about.

But anyways, I'm not really here to talk about all of that. I'm here because I finally have something positive and important to talk about (but even still, it's taken me days to actually churn this out). I'm here because a week and a day ago I was reunited with one of my dearest friends for the first time in nearly three years. And then, to top it all off, we went and saw our favorite band of all time in the most magical place on earth.

I met Jess my freshman year at NYU. We lived on the same floor and it was one of those friendships that you just know was supposed to happen, with all the crazy coincidences and instant connections. It was perfect, and I survived those first four months in New York because of her, honestly. But then Jess decided that NYU wasn't right for her, and after our first semester she went back home to Oregon. Despite being just about as far away from each other as this country will allow, we kept in touch. It wasn't always consistent, but it never felt strained. I still remember the day Jess left New York; I was about to put her into a cab headed for the airport, and after the tightest hug imaginable I said, "I'll see you soon." Goodbye felt too final, and I was determined to keep this person in my life.

That first semester of freshman year was also when I fell in love with a band called The Head and The Heart. And, honestly, I realize how ridiculous this sounds and I am cringing at even the thought of someone else reading this and thinking that I'm some fangirl fanatic or something. In a way, I guess I am, so think what you want. But, perhaps unlike most, I fell in love with less of the artists and their appearances and more with their work. The lyrics, the genius behind it, and the way it all made me feel. Music that felt true and intelligent and honest and gave me a way to express myself in away I would have never known how to do before I'd heard it. THATH have turned me into a total music snob, honestly. I like most types of music and I'll jam to Top 40 or Top 100 or whatever music is most popular and enjoy it just fine. But it's not all art to me because I feel like it doesn't have substance, that it's not about anything important. Anyways, I digress. THATH had a their second studio album come out that October of my freshman year at NYU and, while I had heard of them before, it wasn't until then that I really got into them. That November they played in NYC, and I was so determined to go that I took my homework to the venue and worked on my midterm that was due the next morning in the bar while the opening band played. After the concert I went home and stayed up all night to finish and then went straight to my 8AM class to turn it in, and then my other class directly after it. I don't know how I pulled that off, exactly, but I never once regretted it. Jess didn't go with me that night, but being as close as we were it was only a matter of time before I forced THATH on her and she fell in love with them as well. Second semester of freshman year wasn't as fun as the first, for neither myself at NYU or Jess back at home. And enough of my story during that time has already been documented, so I won't go into details (if you really want to read more, feel free to dig through the archives to the right of this post). But listening to THATH got me through a lot of it, silly as that may sound. And they kept Jess and me connected. For the past three years I've kept THATH and their two albums close by, ready to be listened to whenever I just need a mental escape or a reminder that perfection exists somewhere out in this world.

Right after I got back from Australia, as I mentioned earlier, I just felt a little lost. I'd just lived four months abroad in a country that I'd wanted to travel to my entire life and I wasn't exactly sure 1) how to put that into words for people or 2) how to move on from that. There wasn't much to look forward to. But then in January, just weeks after I got back, THATH announced they were playing Red Rocks in August and I lost it. I'd never been to Red Rocks, and I'd always wanted to go, but I'd always wanted it to be for something special. I used to think I was waiting for Mumford and Sons to go back, but after seeing them three times in concert it hasn't felt as necessary (That sounds bad. I love Mumford, know that.). But this, this was what I'd been waiting for without even realizing it. So I was uncharacteristically impulsive and purchased 2 tickets 8 months in advance with no idea of who I was going with or how I was getting there, just that I would be at that freaking concert.

Then at the beginning of this summer I found myself with tickets to a different concert and no one to go with, so I was just texting the most random friends all across the country seeing if they wanted to fly to NYC for the weekend. Jess was one of them, and she couldn't go, but she said something along the lines of, "The next time The Head and The Heart have a concert, I think we should go." Funny you should say that, Jess. I told her my spare ticket to Red Rocks was hers if we could really make this reunion happen. And, well, three months later we did.

When I got off the airplane last week in Denver, Jess was there waiting. We had one of those really embarrassing and emotional reunions that immediately makes me think of opening scene of Love Actually. We only had 24 hours together in Colorado, so immediately we starting asking questions about each others lives. There was so much to talk about, so much changes in 3 years. Yet Jess and I felt exactly the same, like I had just hugged her goodbye outside of our dorm yesterday and not in December of 2013.

Seeing The Head and The Heart at Red Rocks was phenomenal. It's gotta be the most beautiful venue in the world... I mean, it's pretty hard to top when Mother Nature was the main architect. And as if the show happening on stage wasn't incredible enough, lightening joined in and danced around in the sky as storms circled around us, keeping a respectful distance. The energy was amazing while also feeling insanely intimate, like you're in on this incredible secret and experience that is happening for just you and the other ten-thousand in the sold out crowd around you. Jess and I felt like we were in a dream, the most incredibly perfect dream that we never wanted to wake up from.

I think maybe that's why I've struggled to write this. Or write at all in the past several months. Because even with experiences like this one that are life changing and incredible and personal, even if I want to share them and even if I do find a way of expressing them, who is to say it even matters to anyone else besides myself and the people there feeling similar things in the moment? And who am I to try and attempt to convince you of the significance of that one moment? And honestly, I'd consider myself a selfish writer. This isn't my profession, I just do this for myself and the stuff I think maybe other people will enjoy I post here instead of taking up pages in my journal. So, if you're here and reading this and don't think I'm crazy yet, thank you. I know you might not have been there for this moment or you might not even know who The Head and The Heart are or, hell, you might not even know me that well. But all I'm trying to say is that this day, this art, and this friend of mine, they matter to me. And if they matter to you too, then that's awesome.

In fact, there's a YouTube video where The Head and The Heart cover a song called "Beacon Hill" by Damien Jurado and before they start playing, Jonathan Russell (THATH member) says this:

You know, it still blows my mind, but just hearing him say, like, "yeah, I listen to your music to get excited about what I do. You help me maintain my excitement for what I do." And it's hearing that that helps us maintain excitement about what we do, you know what I mean? Because you can play a song so many times and it no longer feels like a song and then, you know, you just get your mind blown by somebody after a show who's like, "I drove eight hours to see these ten songs" and it means the world to them, and it's like "Alright, okay. I can deal with that. I can sleep at night now. It's good."

I don't find passion in a lot of places. I still couldn't define my "dream job" to you. I love what I'm studying, don't get me wrong, but all it takes is one person who knows more stats than I do about some random sports team to get me discouraged and have a voice inside my head tell me I still haven't found my 'thing.' But where I do find it, it's in random things. Like that time I saw Interstellar and stayed up until 4am writing about it. And like this time I saw The Head and The Heart and Red Rocks with my long lost best friend.

That 'see you soon' I said to Jess when she left NYC turned out to be over two and a half years later, but that didn't stop me from saying the same thing a week ago when we had to part again. I think because now that we made the impossible happen, seeing each other again doesn't seem so impossible. We both flew across the country and met up in a place where neither of us live and shared the most incredible experience ever, meeting each other in our respective hometowns now seems pretty doable.

Even though I left Colorado a week ago, if feels like it's been a year. Last week felt like the longest of my life and I thought it would never end, but here I am writing this. I start my senior year of college tomorrow, and I'd be lying if I wasn't freaked out by that a little bit. Where I'll be a year from now, only God knows (I mean that literally). And even though it's very much my tendency to freak out about the future, I've been trying really hard to just stop. My mantra my senior year of high school was "Everything happens for a reason" and those simple words still give me so much comfort. I came to New York for a reason. I met Jess for a reason. Everything is connected, but it takes time to figure out how. Fretting about the future can mean trying to force those the purpose out of things, when in reality you just have to sit back and be present and try and enjoy life and eventually it will reveal what it wants to you at its own pace. So, while it's maybe not the best that I don't really have a plan past May 17, 2017, I'm not going to worry about it.

The Head and The Heart come out with a new album this Friday called Signs of Light, and I decided to give this post the same name because seeing them live at Red Rocks very much was a Sign of Light for me (if you haven't stopped reading this yet, I 100% give you permission to do so right now because that was about as cheesy as it gets). But it's true, honestly. This experience was the perfect, positive segue from my non-eventful summer to my crazy busy senior year. I'll be honest, the part of me that isn't terrified of the encroaching real world would love to just fast forward to graduation and not have to deal with another year of school. I feel guilty saying that, but being cooped up in the city this summer made me realize that maybe it's time for a change. However, last weekend was just a reminder of how important it is to be present and to enjoy life even if things aren't always enjoyable. Plus, the significance of the last THATH album, Let's Be Still, being released at start of my freshman year and now Signs of Light coming at the start of my senior year is not lost on me. They're the perfect bookends to this crazy insane experience that has been college. And to make it even more sentimental, THATH come back to New York this October and, surprise, I already have tickets.

Perhaps the song The Head and The Heart are most known for is "Rivers and Roads." It was released on their first album, one of their classics if you will. I remember someone once telling me that it was the perfect song to represent graduating high school and going off to college, how it was the perfect embodiment of how things change. And it made me sad when I heard that because I thought that maybe the most applicable time for this song in my life had past. Well, college-freshman me was an idiot not to realize that 1) graduating from college is that experience x1000 and that 2) life is constantly changing and therefore 3) this song will aways be applicable and important and make me sob on the days where I really just can't handle life. Originally I had this plan to weave the lyrics in and out of this post to divide up paragraphs and have it be ~artsy~ and ~significant~ or something like that. But honestly that's a lot of effort and also the lyrics need to be read together in order to really have an impact.

So with all of this being said, I leave you with the lyrics that have ruined me in the best way possible.

A year from now we'll all be gone

All our friends will move away

And they're going to better places

But our friends will be gone away

Nothing is as it has been

And I miss your face like hell

And I guess it's just as well

But I miss your face like hell

Been talking 'bout the way things change

And my family lives in a different state

And if you don't know what to make of this