let the music play...

one of my new year's resolutions this year was to see more live music - i am lucky enough to live in a city that has a lot of music venues and have felt like i never fully took advantage of that. so, this past weekend, i caught a wye oak show friday night at the black cat, and then saw grace potter and the nocturnals at the 9:30 club the following night. wye oak was sort of an "on a whim" thing, i picked up a free download card at starbucks (which is also how i found out about the civil wars, who i am now obsessed with) and liked the song enough to download a couple more on itunes. so i had heard a little of their music, but not much, and they kicked ass live, so i was really glad i'd seen on facebook that they were playing in dc and scored tickets before they sold out. i've been listening to grace potter for a while now, and i'd seen them once before and knew it would be a good show...and my god, they did not dissapoint me. grace's voice and her presence on stage are both pretty overwhelming and i don't know about you, but for me there is just something about that feeling i get when the lights go down and the band comes out...everything else in the world ceases to be important. when you can feel the music hit you in that space between your heart and your throat...that is the good stuff and i clearly need to have that in my life more often. they played a song she'd written about her grandmother before she died, and having just gone through that last year, i will admit i got a little choked up. it does amaze me how much of the human experience is universal - we all experience different forms of love and loss - but how people can get up on a stage and open up their lives to a room full of complete strangers is just beyond me. i am certainly thankful for it, though. in a way it kind of makes you feel less alone in whatever you're dealing with...because no doubt, someone else has experienced something similar and had the wherewithall to write it down and put some music behind it. and i can't even begin to imagine what it feels like to have that room full of strangers singing the words to your heartache or your happiness, because they know exactly what you mean.

anyway, the point of all of this is that i got to see some awesome shows this weekend and i'm already looking forward to the next one. if only all of my new year's resolutions were this easy (or this enjoyable)...

from sea to shining sea

just in case you are wondering how long it takes to drive from washington, dc, to portland, oregon, let me go ahead and tell you - it takes 4 days. and that's driving 12 to 13 hours a day. and stopping for things like cell phone chargers and spray butter and to see the random memorial to abraham lincoln on the highway in the middle of wyoming. and also to buy a cute new cardigan at a target in some random small town in nebraska. oh, and also sheltering in place at a gas station in kingdom city, missouri, so as not to be swept up by a tornado (the sirens were going off and everything!). we even gave ourselves enough time to catch some kickass live music (and a moonpie) in nashville, and go for an amazing run in downtown salt lake city (ok, it was amazing scenery, not an amazing run, since i forgot to factor in the whole "altitude" thing). you would think that spending 12 to 13 hours a day in a uhaul would be anything but fun, but in fact, we had a great trip and i would do it again in a heartbeat.

aside from tornados, getting hit on by drunk old men at a honky tonk, and kate nearly getting bitten by a dog (note to self: never pet a dog hanging out in the back of a truck in the parking lot of a target in nebraska), there were a lot of things that made the trip memorable for me. i have traveled a fair amount within the US, but i haven't spent a lot of time in the midwest or the northwest, and since i grew up below sea level, even the slightest incline in the landscape makes me giddy. literally, i kept clapping and exclaiming "that's a mountain! that's a mountain!!" and kate, who is from portland and knows what a real mountain looks like, would smile and shake her head and say, "just wait." but what does she know. if i say it's a mountain, it's a MOUNTAIN.

even though lincoln, nebraska was the most boring place i've ever been in my life, i have to say, the sight of the sun coming up over the farmlands on our way out of that godforsaken town was amazing. it turned the whole sky a pinkish blue and reflected off the silos in a way that almost made them look like they were made out of water. the mountains in utah and wyoming made me momentarily forget that i am a grown ass woman, and i sat there in the uhaul with my mouth hanging open in awe, watching as they got bigger and bigger in front of us until i finally felt so small i wondered if maybe we hadn't actually dissappeared. the sky in idaho went on for about 6 years in every direction, and it was so blue and clear it almost hurt to look at it, and for a minute it felt like i got to look god right in the eye...and that's not something i get to experience every day. there were times in nebraska that the fields stretched out as far as we could see and it was just earth and nothing else - no buildings, no parking lots or strip malls or neon signs - making it pretty easy to forget that we weren't the only people alive. and pretty much nothing on this planet can compare to driving through the rolling countryside of tennessee and kentucky with johnny cash and hank williams on the radio. i'm convinced that may be the closest to heaven that i'll ever get.

spending 3,000 miles (well, technically 6,000, since i had to fly all the way back) with america made me realize how lucky i am to live in such a beautiful country...not to mention how lucky i am to be able to just take off on a random 4 day road trip. i also got to spend a whole entire day in portland (not enough, i know, but at least i wasn't just driving by it in a uhaul), which i fell completely and utterly head over heels in love with. i'd been there before a couple of times, but it's been a while, so it was like seeing it for the very first time. because of the clouds that day, i never did get to see mount hood or mount st. helens (although kate swears they are there), but i guess i can make do with the mountains i saw on our way to portland. so. the moral of the story is: if anyone ever asks you to drive across the country for any reason, pack your bags and GO. even if you don't get to see the world's biggest ball of twine (which we did not, sad face).