We drove to Evans City in a car crammed with bodies and musical instruments and cheap chinese food, which spilled all over jackets and my dress(thank goodness I dress in layers, peeling it off on the sidewalk in Highland Park, a mess but laughing–cracked open the fortune cookie in my hand and it said “Transitions are easier when you go with the flow.” How apropos). We drove to Evans City with a band and beautiful girl, and everyone in the car sang to Bob Dylan, in the dark onto a sideroad that led to a gigantic white barn. I felt like I was back in Ohio, with all the field and open sky above me. There were bodies wrapped in layers cradled around the bonfire, and we stayed close to the flame and turned our backs when the smoke bit at our throats. Carried a bottle of cheap wine around, sipped from its mouth between paragraphs and thoughts.

Two drummers and a sax improv’d in the barn and I kept my blanket from home wrapped around me, a red cape of down that I still shivered swaddled in. I bent my toes and tapped my head and found a cinderblock for the sliding bass drum. Later these crowd of boys would be singing and stomping PERSONAL SPACE PERSONAL SPACE bumping into one another and hollering syllables like little kids. I couldn’t stop watching them.

“How long have you played guitar?”

“Over forty-one years.”

I sang-shouted with a band upon previous request while aiming my face to the fire, standing by a square of hay between the mandolin and violin and I remembered why I love words so much, how strong a voice can get when you just let that fucker fly. I set down my bottle and blanket and wailed, be it brief, it was my wailing and I remembered. Alan was standing and smiling and pointing at me in support, as he is amazing and supports all artists around him, handclaps and all.

Four or five of us crammed around the tiny heater in the house, holding our shoeless feet up to its warmth, our bodies reverse rays praising back to the sun. It was cute. Someone would walk in and grin at us and then maybe join, kicking off their shoes and sitting down. There was a little boy asleep on the chair. We dubbed our carmate an apothecary and he squinted pleased about this. By the tail end of things drums were thumped around the fire and there I was walking between the noise and the barn, the house and the sky, the stars and the clouds pulling apart. My bottle of cheap wine was only a quarter-inch, and then empty, and I was drunk. I don’t really get drunk anymore, don’t really drink except maybe a sip, a half-glass with amaretto or a shot of tequila in the middle of an event. Otherwise I don’t really care or miss it. But last night I did sip and Katie and I were giggling messes so sweet by the end of it, dancing to The Working Poor playing and I spun her around and I stumbled on the uneven bumps of grass. I realized in the moment how amazing these minutes were and I tried a new way of standing still. Another bit of me found.

On the long ride back past two a.m., small car and warm bodies and shivering when the windows were cracked for just get going cigarettes. I was buzzed and tired and fell asleep against the window. I woke up and we were stopped in front of my place of residence–I gathered my brought from home blanket and ruined dress and waved a tired but content goodbye to the other passengers, unlocked the door and fell into bed, and this morning I still smelled like campfire–my hair, my clothes, the air around me. I slept for over 8 hours, woke up past noon, walked a long time with gloveless hands, unsure of where to put my tired smile at, unsure of what I would do today after such an exquisite night. Grand choice–so glad I went. I can’t wait to shout my words again.

It happened again before going to bed last night–me standing in the bathroom trying to figure out where my medication was so I could take it. Some habits are so hard to break. There is no medicine. It’s gone and done. I realized this and went back to my room, a quiet giddy for the goodbye to pink pills that may have ruined everything I was working on at one time. No more. My body is still reacting to its absence but this too will pass. It’s worth it to be writing again, to be feeling like myself again. To concentrate on being inspired and knowing that everything else will find its place and most of all, I will be fine.