A Japanese Denim Quarantine Night
Things were just different last summer. I ended up in a new city with old friends and it seemed I was always tasked with choosing which flavor of my perfect life I was going to live that day. Do I go film for my new, cooler queue of clientele or do I get on a boat with all of my friends? Do I try the new-to-me pizza place on Alberta, or do I pack my balcony with good trouble and takeout sushi? I vividly remember waking up most mornings unsure how I ended up so lucky. My summer reel rolled on, scored by a cacophony of laughter and pounding heartbeats.The sun always came out and when she abandoned our streets, she splashed us with an incandescent amber that smoldered on the cheeks of my friends. I felt it was by their own design those golden hours lingered on for what seemed like days. At least that’s how nostalgia paints it. I’m sure I stubbed my toe or something bad happened, but I had it pretty good.
It was a melancholy evening while I watched the summer set, when Calvin first sang for us. I’ve already written about that week, but those acoustic evenings seemed to encapsulate my experiences in this new place in a way that made me look around and question the fairness of it all. My life was so beautiful that it hurt. Surely nobody could deserve this.
Last week, as Calvin sang to the damp evening air, I thought about how different the world around us looked in this new season of humanity. I thought about a time when Calv belted to busy sidewalks, now juxtaposed against a quarantined district made desolate as the bars and shops on my street were asked to close their doors to the public. As Calvin led us through a Daniel Caesar classic, I thought of the songs sung from Italian balconies over the past weeks. Once again, life was so beautiful it hurt.
Summer has long passed and my life has proven to be more than a few sunset beers and getting in just the right amount of trouble. I’ve watched the dank gray seep, cold, into my once blooming city. As the petals fell, my family experienced loss in a way that human beings simply aren’t equipped for. As COVID-19 spread, I watched talented creators, better than myself, give up on their craft and my closest friends lose their jobs. Three weeks ago I took my workstation out of my office and pulled a little desk out of my basement that used to constitute my home office. As I continue to do exactly what I love while so much is lost all around me, I’m reminded in a way, very antithetical of how I felt this summer, that I have so much more than I can ever deserve. I still wake up in disbelief at how I could be so fortunate. In the midst of a pandemic, I hope you’re in a position where you can look at the things that you’re most thankful for to reconcile the unfairness of it all.
As so many of us find ourselves locked in, I understand the immediate flinch to get on a home workout routine and finish that novel we’ve been putting off, but consider if in between our pushup challenges and overwatering our plants, we allowed ourselves some boredom. The world will continue to spin wildly on when this passes, but we shouldn’t deprive ourselves of self and rest in a time when that’s really all we have.Chances are there's a thing that you like doing that you haven't made time for lately. If you love to cook, stop panic-buying beans for a day and really go for the top shelf ingredients. It might be all that’s in stock, anyway. If you used to write poetry in college, bust that pen out, baby. Someone has a hot date with some rusty prose. If you always thought about doing standup, maybe get a few mirror reps to tighten up your tight 5. When the open mic opens back up, we’ll probably need humor more than ever. Be bored, be lonely, and get curious. These are awful, confusing times, but maybe life has been moving a little fast and we desperately needed a pause. I know a little Hoyt House Session was the wakeup call I needed to chill the fuck out and have some fun. Who knows; maybe I’m long overdue for a coffee video.
If you’re one of the essential workers like Calvin, and you aren't allowed this pause, know I appreciate you. We all appreciate you. Calv is currently in the throes of a 108 hour workweek at one of many overburdened hospitals and taking an evening in that schedule to play with us helped make everything feel a little less apocalyptic.
Call your mom, wash your hands, & let’s jam.