moment.

Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year: 

This is an amazing prompt. And there are so many moments within the last year that I can recall. But one in particular will always be strongest. The Everly concert at the Corn Palace in South Dakota. That entire trip made me feel alive; on the open road, seeing places we had never seen before. No time constraints, no schedules to abide by… stopping whenever we please, the fresh air whipping through the car, inspiration filling up my bones, freedom busting out of me. But this wasn’t even when I felt most alive. When the concert was finally upon us and my excitement was building, it started to happen. The music starting playing… notes and chords began to swell inside the walls (made of corn). Their faces came into sight and I was completely lost. I’ve never felt so alive and so not myself before. I felt like I was experiencing everything through someone else… but it was me. And it was more me than I can ever remember.  Peoples bodies brushed against me from all angles, smells of sweat and tennis shoes squeaking on the linoleum floor. The colors were bright and moving… pinks and blues and yellows. The sounds were familiar, yet different and all too close. I could touch it. In this moment, my inspiration standing a mere 3 feet in front of me, looking at me, singing for me… I felt alive. The music echoed inside of me; granting feelings of hope and gratefulness.  It was over all too quickly, lights diminished, bubbles crashed to the floor, as their shoes clicked off the stage. But I still felt it. And I still can.

I would give anything to go back and live that moment over again; to feel the way that I did then. To drag myself out of that stunned stupor and feel it even more. But I was there. I lived it.

Live performances have always been that place for me. A place where I could lose myself and  find myself too. The passion in the music, the inspiration in the artists, the energy of the crowd. It always does it for me. Seeing Death Cab in 2007, I never thought it would get any better than that for me. But I should have never been so naïve. Sometimes even artists that don’t mean as much to me, resonate with me live, in real life, more than ever before on recorded music. The atmosphere, the people, the energy, the emotions in you.. it all changes it. Other performances like Rogue Wave and Delta Spirit and Nathanial Hawthorne and Tom Petty and Billy Joel… all of them have touched somewhere inside of me. But seeing Everly that day- women that I have grown to admire and trust and value- seeing them so personally, and hearing their thoughts, listening to them pour their souls out for me. I felt alive. And important. And inspired.

xo's
Chelsea

(prompt 3; reverb10).