Life continues to be a roller coaster

Note: I started writing this post about two years ago. Obviously, a lot has happened since then. Life has been very busy. I've been meaning to finish writing this the whole time but various things have gotten in the way. Now I'm finally taking the time to do it. I'm in a very different place in life now than I was when I started writing it, which I'm sure I'll reflect on at the end.

Now, picking up from where I started writing in early 2023...

2022 was, without a doubt, one of the strangest and most difficult years of my life.

When I was in seventh grade, I wrote an autobiography for a school assignment, and its title was Life is a Roller Coaster, a nod to my passionate enthusiasm for the amusement park thrill rides. I wrote a blog post about this several years ago, and near its conclusion, made this observation: "Life is a roller coaster. I'm struck by the fact that when I used that phrase as the title of my seventh grade autobiography, I had no real idea of what was signified by that comparison. I had no idea what a roller coaster my life would be."

Certainly, one could say that the phrase "life is a roller coaster" describes my life more than the average person's. Certainly, one could also say that that was not true during my childhood, when I gave that title to my autobiography. It was an eerie bit of foreshadowing, in retrospect.

In 2022, the Jeff's life as a roller coaster analogy reached new heights. (Heh. I couldn't resist.)

And oddly enough, on one of the most pivotal days of that year, roller coasters appeared in both the metaphorical sense and the literal sense.

On August 21, 2022, I was in New York City and as part of my trip I took the subway to Coney Island in Brooklyn, primarily to ride arguably the most famous roller coaster in the world, the Cyclone. Just as odd was that this was the second time in the last few years that I found myself at Coney Island and also at a major turning point in my life. In fact, thanks mainly to COVID, that previous Coney Island trip in May 2019 was the previous most recent time I'd ridden a roller coaster.

Before I describe the events of August 2022, though, I have to go back to August 2021.

Every year in August, my family takes a vacation to Lake Placid, New York, in the Adirondack Mountains. It's a tradition I cherish. I love it there. I love the scenery and the time with family and the chance to get away from normal life but perhaps most of all I love all the great outdoor activities - hiking and biking and kayaking and swimming. At the beginning of our August 2021 vacation I felt so exhilarated because I was at my best physical fitness level in over a decade.

Something that must be understood if you want to really understand who I am as a person is how central my athletic pursuits have been to my sense of self. Growing up, I probably stood out most to my peers for my academic achievements, but it was far more important to me to be a good cross country and track runner. That was what gave me real feelings of accomplishment. There's just something about pushing one's body to its physical limits and then experiencing the steady improvement as you do that continuously over a period of time that nothing else could match for me. If you asked me in high school or college how I identified myself, the biggest part of the answer would have been as a runner.

It's been many years since I've been able to do any substantial amount of running at all, due to injuries, and this has not been easy for me, but with time, I've been able to move on. Other athletic pursuits have continued to be very important to me.

Another thing that has been central to my life, unfortunately, is my struggles with chronic pain. I can happily say that in recent years I've been doing much better than I had been for most of my life going all the way back to high school. It's not something that I expect will ever completely go away, though.

Something about those myriad chronic pain issues is that they can generally be divided into two bins: pain issues that are caused by anything other than sports injuries, and pain issues that are caused by sports injuries. And the thing is, at any given time there have generally been one or two out of a big grab bag of pain issues that are mainly bothering me, and if what's mainly bothering me is pain not caused by sports injuries, then one of the best remedies for the pain is invariably doing a whole lot of physical activity. But then if I switch to being mainly bothered by pain caused by sports injuries (which might, of course, be brought on by, well, doing a whole lot of physical activity), suddenly doing all that activity makes me feel worse instead of better.

This has led to repeated cycling between times when I was super physically active for a while and times when I wasn't very active, not because I didn't want to be but because of how my body was feeling. Another way my life has been like a roller coaster.

From the spring of 2020 to the summer of 2021 something remarkable happened. For the first time since, really, I was 20 years old, I had a long stretch of time where I felt basically not limited by pain from doing all the physical activity I wanted. Well, with a caveat, I still couldn't run much at all. But cycling, riding my road and mountain bikes, had long ago replaced running as my main form of exercise. Although cycling is easier on my hip and ankles than running is, for most of my post-running career I still felt my body was placing limitations on how much I could do. And then, somehow, it just no longer felt that way.

2020 was such a weird time. I don't have to remind anyone of that. I was so worried about the pandemic and about so much else. But I was also very lucky to suddenly be working from home and able to make my own schedule and there were so many times that summer I just took off on one of my bikes in the afternoon and enjoyed being alive and being outdoors and being healthy and feeling the wind in my face and the air going in and out of my lungs.

As I rode more and more, I got stronger and stronger. I tracked my results on Strava and it started to feel like my old running days. I was doubtful at first that it would last. Always in the past, going back to age 20, there would be some setback and I would have to take time off and lose that fitness. So I tried not to push too hard. But that setback kept not coming. I don't know when exactly it happened, but at some point I started to think, maybe this time was different? Maybe a setback wasn't going to come? Maybe I'd be able to keep getting better at cycling for years and years to come?

It almost seems like a dream now. But it was real and it was amazing.

By the middle of summer 2021 I found that I was in the best shape I had been since I fractured my pelvis in a cycling accident in May 2010. Age 38, and able to ride my bike faster and farther than at any time since before I turned 27. It was so exhilarating.

Taking into account both my fitness and that I was able to do all those rides with a remarkably low level of pain by my standards, I genuinely think that in the summer of 2021 I felt the best physically that I had in 18 years. It's staggering to think about, now that I'm writing it out like this.

(That finishes what I had written in early 2023. Huh, I thought I had gotten farther than that. Oh well.)

But then, that August, as the trip to Lake Placid approached, I started to feel a weird pain in my feet. It felt like a pretty minor issue at first. An unfortunate thing about pain is that there are all sorts of things that feel like minor issues and really are minor issues and will go away on their own, and then there are things that will become major issues, and there's no way to tell them apart at first. As usual, going to Lake Placid, I didn't want to miss out on all the great cycling and hiking I could do there (there's just so much to do, and so little time for it!), so I pushed through the pain. This was probably a mistake in retrospect, but I also suspect that it was already too late, and I was already in for a bad time.

On one of my first days in Lake Placid that year, I set out on a ride on my road bike. It was a ride I'd done once before, in 2009. 2009 was the year when I reached the best physical fitness of my entire life. Thanks to the double whammy of horrible, long-lasting ankle tendinitis brought on by training for a marathon that fall and then the pelvic fracture when I crashed my bike the following spring, I had never since reached anywhere near that level of fitness.

This ride was a 36.7 mile loop with over 2600 feet of climbing within it, easily the hilliest ride I've done in my life. I titled my August 10, 2021 activity on Strava "The 2009 loop." On August 10, 2009, exactly 12 years earlier, I'd averaged 18.7 mph on the ride (two months and one day later, incidentally, I would come in second place in the first and only marathon I've ever run). In 2021 I averaged 18.2 mph. I was tantalizingly close to being in the best shape - on a bike, at least - that I'd ever been in.

I remember well how I felt upon completing that ride. Exhausted, but also exhilarated, and full of endorphins, and so powerful. It was an incredible feeling. It felt like I was on top of the world.

It wasn't long after that I felt like everything was falling apart.

(An odd thing about the life as a roller coaster metaphor is that on an actual roller coaster, the downhill parts are the most fun.)

I had a great time on the 2021 Lake Placid trip and when I returned home I kept up with my busy training schedule, getting out on one or the other of my bikes most days and continuing to set numerous Strava segment PRs. But it was starting to feel like that pain in my feet was not just a minor issue. It was sticking around and growing worse and then in mid-September it kind of suddenly got really bad and I realized, damn, this is a problem, I have to take things easy for a while.

This didn't lead to an immediate improvement. In fact, at first the pain just seemed to get worse. I recognized what was happening because I'd experienced it before. Being in a lot of pain feels really bad. Not being able to ride my bike very much when riding my bike had become my favorite thing to do? Also a really bad feeling. That added up to me being depressed. If I was struggling with my mental health for other reasons, riding my bike would be the best treatment. Now riding my bike made my pain worse. Maybe just going for a nice walk? That also seemed to make my pain worse.

All in all, a recipe for deepening depression.

Just as this was happening, my at-the-time girlfriend was falling into a bad period of mental health herself - and as a result, was withdrawing into herself and largely pushing other people away from her. This meant that suddenly, just when I really needed a lot of emotional support, I was hardly ever seeing the one person I had regularly spent time with since the pandemic started.

I don't know if I really blame her for it even now. She was in a very bad place and I don't know how much control she had over how she reacted. But it was definitely a sign that a relationship that had at first seemed great actually had serious compatibility issues.

Anyway, the whole thing really sucked.

And then, in the ensuing months, a bunch of really, really crazy stuff happened. I don't feel like spending time on it in this post. If you know, you know.

Fast forward to August 2022. At the start of the Lake Placid trip, in contrast to the previous year, I was in a horrible place. I think it was obvious to my parents when I showed up at the house they always rent. I'd spent the summer trying to salvage a relationship that should have been left for dead and it was really one of the bleakest periods of time in my life because something that had once made me so happy now only made me incredibly sad. I was also still not feeling great physically - the pain that started the previous summer had improved, but was still very much present, and I continued to feel limited in what I could do.

My spirits did rise considerably over the course of the two weeks on vacation. It was nice to spend time with my family, and I did enjoy a lot of outdoor activities, albeit on a limited basis compared to the previous year. At the end of the trip, rather than driving back to Cleveland as I normally would, I drove to New York City for a two-night stay (at a hotel in Jersey City) centered around seeing Sharon Van Etten, Angel Olsen, and Julien Baker at the last stop of their Wild Hearts tour, at SummerStage in Central Park.

Although the two weeks in Lake Placid had helped my mood considerably, it plummeted again when I got to Jersey City. Spending time with my family and especially my parents (the last few days in Lake Placid, after both my siblings had departed, was the longest period of Jeff and parents with no one else around that had happened since I became a big brother at age 2) had helped me feel better, but now I was alone again. Alone, again, for a trip to a concert that I'd originally planned to attend with someone else. Alone, thinking about all the previous times I'd been in similar situations - on trips to see concerts for which I'd purchased two tickets and then, for one reason or another, had ended up going alone. Toronto in September 2013 to see Ohbijou. Denver in June 2015 to see Belle and Sebastian. Portland, Maine in December 2021 to see Weakened Friends. Denver again in June 2022 to see Andrew Bird. And now New York.

I actually often really enjoy going on trips like that by myself. Sometimes I plan them as solo trips. But I was getting tired of having planned trips for two turn into solo trips.

I was getting tired of being alone, and being alone that evening left me with little to distract me from contemplating the horrible trainwreck my love life had turned into, and feeling miserable about it.

I did go to Liberty State Park along the water in Jersey City and it was a lovely evening with a beautiful sunset and great views of the NYC skyline. One thing I saw while there was a public wedding proposal. Actually, I noticed that some props were being set up for a public wedding proposal, and I hung around for quite a while (along with some other curious onlookers) to see the proposal take place. This was an interesting decision on my part, looking back. It was a cute thing to witness, but it was also very much a reminder of my own problems.

The next day, August 21, 2022, was a day like no other I've lived. In the roller coaster of life, there are some dramatic ups and downs. Perhaps never before have I experienced such dramatic ups and downs in a single day as I did on that day.

That evening was the concert in Central Park. My plan for the day was to travel by train from Jersey City to Coney Island, spend some time there, and then get on the train again and head to Central Park to get to the concert close to when the gates opened.

That morning I felt just as glum as the previous evening. In addition to being alone, another thing that was getting me down was that, thanks to me (predictably) pushing perhaps harder than I should have on outdoor activities in Lake Placid, my feet and ankles were again really bothering me a lot, and with my planned day including spending a lot of time on my feet, I was very worried that this would make it hard to enjoy myself - especially at the concert! Which would really suck, if that did happen.

Something I've realized about pain is that if you are thinking about and worrying about something hurting in a particular situation, there's a good chance that just thinking about it will make it hurt more.

It was about an hour and a half train ride from Jersey City to Coney Island including one transfer. On the train, I was listening to music, looking out the windows at the city scenery, and worrying about whether I'd be able to enjoy what should by all rights have been a very exciting day ahead of me.

And then something remarkable happened.

The Cyclone roller coaster came into view through the train windows, and my mood instantly transformed.

I've loved roller coasters since childhood. I remember how incredibly excited I felt about going to Cedar Point as a kid, looking out the car window at the coasters looming in the distance. As an adult, riding roller coasters stopped being something I do frequently... but that feeling of excitement never went away. An anticipatory feeling that can also be stirred in me by going to see one of my very favorite bands in concert, but by few other things in my adult life. "Like a kid on Christmas morning" is a common descriptor for the feeling.

And yes, sitting in that train car, where moments before I'd felt worried and sad, upon seeing the Cyclone out the window I suddenly felt like a kid on Christmas morning.

Minutes later I departed the train, walked the short walk to the famous Coney Island amusement park, and quickly obtained a card to pay for rides and made my way to the queue for the Cyclone.

As a young roller coaster fanatic in the 1990s, I'd read on the Internet about how this ride, built in 1927, remained one of the most thrilling in the world, and was a destination for any diehard coaster enthusiast. I'd always wanted to ride it but never got around to it until 2019, and it had lived up to the expectations that I'd carried with me (dormant and not thought of for many of those years) since childhood. There's just something about these old wooden roller coasters that exhilarates me in a way that few fancy modern rides can quite match. Far too few of them remain with us, and thank goodness that the Cyclone, regarded since its debut nearly a century ago as one of the best, is one.

Seeing the Cyclone had a profound effect on how I felt that day. Riding the Cyclone had an even more profound effect.

The wait for the ride was short. This is kind of amazing. One of the most important roller coasters in history, and still arguably one of the best in the world, on a hot summer weekend day. The Millennium Force at Cedar Point, one of the only roller coasters I like at least as much as I like the Cyclone, surely had hour-long waits that day. I think most people don't appreciate what they have with these classic wooden coasters, but hey, I'm not complaining about the short queues that result from this lack of appreciation.

I boarded the train, we exited the station and started up the lift hill, and that kid on Christmas morning feeling intensified.

As I mentioned, I'd been experiencing a lot of pain in my lower extremities, and was very worried about how I'd hold up in a day that would include a lot of time on my feet, something that invariably made such pain worse. I was especially worried about the concert that evening.

The train crested the lift hill, I let out a whoop of delight as we plunged downward, and I forgot about the pain.

This is normal. Pain has a huge mental component, and one of the best ways to reduce pain is to be distracted from it. A physical therapist of mine once used the example that if you were crossing the street and stepped on something sharp that went into your foot, you'd be in a lot of pain. But if a large truck were bearing down on you when this happened and you had to scramble to avoid being run over, in that moment you wouldn't even notice the pain from stepping on something sharp.

The ride was just as intense and fun as I remembered - so many sudden drops and turns and exhilarating g-forces and "headchopper" moments where you feel like you have to duck to avoid the coaster's structure (of course you don't really need to, but it looks this way) and for those two minutes I wasn't aware of that physical pain that had been bothering me so much earlier that morning, and that wasn't surprising, but what was surprising was this: for the entire rest of the day, the pain was at a dramatically lower level than it had been before I stepped into that roller coaster train.

It really felt like a magic spell had been cast over me!

My mood, naturally, was also much improved from where it had been earlier that morning and especially how it had been the previous evening. As you can see, I felt quite exuberant on the ride, and this feeling lingered:

(I'm wearing my beloved Julien Baker t-shirt in this picture, by the way.)

I spent a couple hours at Coney Island, enjoying a few more rides on the Cyclone, a couple of rides on newer and far inferior but still enjoyable coasters, a little walk on the beach, and a chili cheese dog and fries from Nathan's.

The last thing I did at Coney Island, of course, was one last ride on the Cyclone, and then I walked back to the train station and boarded the train for another nearly hour and a half ride to Central Park. My spirits were much higher than they'd been when I'd boarded the train that morning.

I arrived at the Park with plenty of time to spare, and spent a little time walking around, and also grabbed a (mediocre) pretzel to eat before heading to the venue. I'd heard about SummerStage at Central Park before but had never been there. I was surprised when I got in because I'd been expecting something bigger. It was a really nice setting for an outdoor concert on a good day for one. Before finding a spot close to the stage, I went to the merch table and bought this tote bag, not knowing at the time just how accurate it would be:

The show started early in the evening with a short set by opener Quinn Christopherson, which I enjoyed but which was basically a distraction before the three performers who I could hardly believe I'd all get to see in one night: Julien Baker, Angel Olsen, and Sharon Van Etten. Three women who have all made music I love and cherish and three women who had each previously played live shows tied to significant moments and memories in my life.

Baker was the first of the three to play. She's blown me away with her live performances every time I've gotten the privilege to see her (this was the fifth in person, plus one of my favorite streamed shows of the pandemic era), going back to the first time in July 2016 when this tiny young woman whose music I'd never heard before stepped onto the stage of Mr. Smalls in Millvale, PA to play an opening set for Daughter and left me utterly in awe with her heartwrenchingly beautiful music. The only thing I wished were different about this show would have been longer sets, and Baker's was especially short, but she made the most of the limited time. The set mostly consisted of songs from 2021 album Little Oblivions, one of my favorite albums of the 2020s.

 

Baker always brings such intensity to her performances and it's a marvel to see and hear. It's hard to believe that that voice emerges from the lungs of such a physically small person.

This was the final show of the Wild Hearts tour. Near the end of Baker's last song "Ziptie," numerous members of the tour crew and other bands (including Sharon Van Etten herself) emerged onto the stage to rock out to the extended outro, and it was a delight to see - especially because Baker herself seemed so delighted!

It was a joyous moment. I'd been riding an emotional high for much of the day, pretty much since I'd arrived at Coney Island, a gigantic contrast to how I'd felt the previous evening. But now the emotional roller coaster continued. After Julien Baker came the performance by Angel Olsen.

Angel Olsen's music was inextricably linked for me to the failing relationship that was the cause of most of my emotional distress that summer. When the relationship had been good, I'd liked listening to Olsen's music. When things went downhill and I started to really doubt the relationship would work, I mostly stopped listening to Olsen's music because it just made me feel sad.

After what had been a great day to that point, when Angel Olsen stepped onto the stage to begin her set, I found myself awash in the same melancholy feeling that had consumed me for much of that summer.

Olsen had released her new album Big Time in June, but I still hadn't been able to bring myself to listen to it, which was pretty telling considering how much I'd loved her previous two albums. I'd merely watched, once, the video for title track "Big Time." The song is a really sweet love song, a happy song, which is pretty unusual in Olsen's catalog. Since it was the title track, and it was a happy love song, I had the impression that this album would be much less sad in lyrical content than most of Olsen's work.

Because I hadn't listened to her new album other than that one song, this concert was my introduction to most of the songs Olsen played that evening. She opened her set with "Dream Thing" from the new album and I stood there and watched and felt miserable. She played "Big Time" next and my misery deepened because I was absolutely not in a place where I wanted to hear Angel Olsen play a happy love song.

But then something funny happened.

The third song in the set was another new song, "Ghost On." The opening lines of the song go thusly:

Tell me how I should feel
How can this heart learn how to heal?
When should I believe the things you say?
You change your mind from day to day

And those words shot straight into my heart because they matched so well with the thoughts and feelings I'd been having about that relationship.

No, Angel Olsen's new album was not an album of happy love songs. The title track, it turned out, was an outlier.

The funny thing that happened was, I started to feel better.

It's interesting how when you're feeling sad, sometimes hearing happy music can make you feel more sad, and hearing sad music can make you feel less sad.

The haunting performance of "Ghost On" had already shaken me from my melancholy. The next song in the setlist was another I'd never heard before, "Right Now." The first line of that song?

It's time to let it go

I think I probably laughed a little to myself at that point. Okay, I see what's happening here, I thought.

 

 

The next two songs were the only songs not from Olsen's new album, "Shut Up Kiss Me" from 2016's My Woman and the title track from 2019's All Mirrors. These were songs that I loved and that I hadn't much felt like listening to for quite some time, but now I was getting into the music. Next up was another new song, "Go Home." Choice lyric?

We watched it all burn down and did nothing, nothing

Yeah, pretty much! I thought.

Olsen closed her set with yet another song I'd never heard before, "All the Good Times." She introduced the song by saying, "Y'all ever been mad before? Me too, and when I do, it's kind of funny!"

 

(This is a direct quote. There are several YouTube videos people have posted from that concert that I've repeatedly gone back to and watched.)

It's probably one of the best breakup songs I've ever heard. And whereas in earlier songs from the set, there was a line here or there that stuck out to me, in this song pretty much every single line was relatable.

 

And I guess that was exactly what I needed to hear at that moment in time.

 

After Olsen sang the lines, "Was it always so broken? If these thoughts were spoken/Would it bring us together again?", she sardonically interjected the spoken "Definitely not" and I sardonically smiled, laughed and nodded.

My mood had been completely transformed over the course of that set. And looking back on it, it's really interesting to think about what exactly happened in my mind over the course of those 45 or so minutes.

Sharon Van Etten closed out the night, and whereas Angel Olsen's set had me working through all sorts of complicated feelings, Van Etten's was just a delight. It had been eight years since I'd seen one of her concerts, so I'd been eagerly anticipating getting to finally see her again, and she did not disappoint.

Van Etten emerged on the stage dressed in a sequined top and leather pants and along with her hair and makeup, as she began her performance I couldn't help but think how simply badass she looked.

This is a screenshot from a YouTube video posted by joelrchan.

 

She just had this aura about her that felt thrilling to be near. Julien Baker's performance had been in broad daylight; the sun had gone down during Angel Olsen's. It was now fully night and the light show illuminating Sharon Van Etten's shiny outfit gave her such rock star vibes.

A highlight of her fantastic set was "Mistakes" from 2022 album We've Been Going About This All Wrong. Van Etten introduced the song by talking about how she had always felt very self conscious about dancing, until she had a child, and when she danced with her child, she no longer felt self conscious, because it didn't matter what she looked like; she loved dancing with her child!

When I make a mistake
Turns out it's great, it's great, it's great

I loved this story and I love this song. Throughout the more up tempo songs in her set, Van Etten danced exuberantly, confidently, sometimes in a silly way but always in a joyful way that was delightful to witness. Dancing is such a great thing and I sometimes think about how people who are too self conscious to do it - at a wedding, at a rock or pop concert, even in the privacy of their homes - are really missing out on a great part of the human experience.

The show, and the Wild Hearts Tour, ended with Baker and Olsen joining Van Etten on stage to play "Like I Used To," a Van Etten/Olsen collaboration that was easily one of the best songs of 2022 and that I can't believe still hasn't been released in any physical format. It was such a joy to experience and you could see the joy on the faces of all those on stage as well, which was wonderful. I marvel again and again at the power of music and the wondrous effects it has both on those performing and on those listening to it, especially in a live setting. 

Another screenshot from a joelrchan YouTube video.

As the trio soaked up the raucous applause and I enthusiastically contributed to it, I found myself thinking, Wow, that was one of the best concerts I've ever seen. Pretty remarkable that that morning I had been worried about whether I'd be able to enjoy the concert. Also pretty remarkable that partway through the concert I'd been plunged back into a deep melancholy and had again emerged from it and now felt on top of the world. It had been a roller coaster of a day and it was a day I didn't want to end!

I joined the crowds walking out of Central Park and went to a nearby subway station, but instead of heading directly back to Jersey City I first made a stop for a late dinner (having not yet actually eaten dinner that day) at one of my favorite restaurants in the world, Coppelia.

There I sat at the bar and enjoyed a drink, an appetizer, an entree, another drink, and dessert (an especially delicious tres leches cake), and also just kind of enjoyed the feeling of being alive and being unreservedly happy. On my many solo travels I've come to find there's great pleasure in going out to eat alone and consuming some really good food and drink while also just sitting there and taking it all in, the other people in the restaurant, all the interesting little things that people say or do in the little moments of life. I think my appreciation of such experiences has greatly heightened since the pandemic.

Coppelia was a great nightcap to a great day. I then returned to the train and eventually to Jersey City, where I ended up walking some ways on a very lonely path next to the water before reaching my hotel. It was a little eerie. It was also beautiful.

I was in a still exhilarated yet also contemplative mood as I stared back across the water at the city. I marveled at it all. The sky. The buildings. The amazing day I'd just had. My crazy life.

Emotions are funny things. If you're in a really bad emotional state, it can feel like you'll feel that way forever and it can be hard to imagine feeling better. Then when you do feel better, it can seem like there's no reason why you shouldn't just stay feeling better and it can be hard to imagine you'll ever feel that bad again. But emotions are transient.

At the end of that magical day, I felt like I was so ready to just put all the bad stuff behind me and that my life was simply going to be better going forward.

Of course, it wasn't that simple in reality.

The emotional roller coaster wasn't over.

Once I got into a relationship with Erin, a relationship that (unlike my previous few) had basically no real reason it shouldn't work, things seemed perfect at first but then it was like my brain couldn't accept it and had to make up obstacles to the relationship succeeding.

I was wracked with horrendous anxiety, something that had been a long-running theme of my dating and relationship experiences ever since my first relationship as a widowed person traumatically ended. The relationship before Erin was one in which I frequently experienced dramatic mood swings as I cycled between feeling good and bad about the relationship, and now it seemed like somehow my brain had become entrained to those cycles and I would go back and forth between feeling totally at ease and happy with Erin and feeling deeply, viscerally uncomfortable - a pretty horrible way to feel when you know intellectually that the person you're with is a really good match for you.

It's been suggested to me by others that the feelings I was getting might be some form of PTSD or panic disorder. It was very hard to predict when, how intensely, and for how long these feelings would strike. The only predictable thing was that if I was feeling good, at some point I would start to feel a lot worse, and conversely, if I was feeling bad, at some point I would start to feel better.

"No feeling is final." These words from Rainer Maria Rilke's poem "Go to the Limits of Your Longing," which Erin shared with me when I was having a bad anxiety episode, became a mantra. (Extended quote: "Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final." Words to live by for sure.) When I was feeling really bad, and it was hard to imagine not feeling that way, I'd repeat the words to myself, "No feeling is final."

I think it helped.

Erin was very patient and helpful. She also got me to do at-home yoga with her. For a while we did it (either together, or separately on days we didn't see each other) almost every day. This also helped.

It was a long journey. There were a number of times when some significant experience or event happened and then I felt like I was all the way better and the feeling persisted for some time and I imagined concluding this post by saying something to the effect of, "and then [x] happened, and after that, the emotional roller coaster was finally over." Examples: Erin and I moving in together and then going on a great camping trip to Ohiopyle, Erin and I eloping in Yosemite... also several really good concerts. That's something really interesting I noticed. There were multiple occasions when I had been feeling pretty troubled emotionally and then I went to a really good concert and after that I just felt so much better and my head felt so clear, and not just in the immediate aftermath of the concert but for weeks. I'd love to understand the neural basis for that effect!

But over and over again, I'd go from feeling better to once more feeling very unsettled with life. For no rational reason, which I was perfectly aware of, and that made it all the more frustrating.

Gradually, though, the bad times became less frequent and usually less severe, and I started being more and more able to just enjoy finally having, well, I guess something like a normal life. Which I guess was what I was striving for all along, but I was also so used to having a crazy and traumatic life that it was difficult for my brain to accept at first.

Maybe those weird, anxious feelings won't ever be 100% banished 100% of the time, but for the last few months I'm finally at a point where I feel at least almost all the way better, almost all the time. There were a lot of things I did to help me get there, but I think two things were really the most important:

1. The passage of time. Time may not actually heal all wounds, but I think almost all wounds do become less painful given enough time.
2. Getting married to a great partner, and then having an amazing baby with her!

It's funny how events of the past are continuously recontextualized by our feelings in the present. All those difficult times in the early days of my relationship with Erin, that seemed so big and hard to overcome at the time, are collapsing more and more into a minor hiccup in our lives. And August 21, 2022? It was a tumultuous and thrilling and beautiful day when it happened. Looking back now, it feels like something more: a portal between the chaotic life I had leading up to that day, and the mostly happy and contented life I now enjoy.

The next time I got to ride a roller coaster after that day was in October 2023 at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, days after Erin and I got married. About nine and a half months later (people will be doing the math!), Erin gave birth to our daughter. Life is a roller coaster, indeed! And I'm sure it will continue to be a wild ride - but I also feel like, for the first time in most of my adult years, the emotional roller coaster aspect of my life has, well, pulled into the station and I've exited it for a while.

I wonder what little 12-year-old Jeff would think of all this.

Music for the apocalypse: the albums of 2021

I was thinking recently about the albums that have touched my life over the past year and I realized that 2021 has been an incredibly strong year for new music. I count a whopping four different albums this year that, had they been released in 2020, would have been my favorite album of that year. It's been a long time since there was a year with so many albums that I loved so much. I think the pandemic that had many of us staying home for much of 2020 and that put live music on hold for more than a year is a big reason why so much great new music came into the world. With no touring, many musicians seem to have focused extra hard on honing their craft at home and in the studio. And the distressing reality of the modern world - with not only a still raging global pandemic, but also an ever worsening climate catastrophe, and the growing threat of American democracy collapsing - has certainly provided plenty of inspiration for great music. I don't know if it's appropriate to say this is a "good thing" that came from the awful pandemic era, but I'm definitely grateful for all that music.

This isn't an attempt to make a "best albums" list for 2021, because there are lots of undoubtedly great albums that I didn't get around to listening to. Rather, it's just a list of my personal favorite albums of the year. I'll give a little blurb for each of those four albums that stood out the most to me, counting down to my most favorite. Also, honorable mentions to Lucy Dacus's Home Video (incredible songwriting and so evocative of high school nostalgia) and Olivia Rodrigo's SOUR (if I had to name a favorite song of the year, the ridiculously infectious "good 4 u" would be a contender).

And now my favorite albums of 2021.

Weakened Friends - Quitter

This is a late addition, coming out just last month, but it quickly zoomed up my list. I realized recently that Quitter brings to mind for me Piebald's 2002 classic We Are the Only Friends We Have, which coming from me is incredibly high praise. I'm not saying the two bands sound alike, just that both albums are packed from front to back with incredibly fun to listen to emotional rock songs full of crunchy guitars, catchy hooks, and memorable lyrics, and the high quality of the songs is so consistent that I'd be hard pressed to name a weak track. Also that both albums feature noticeably higher production values over their respective bands' also excellent previous albums. And hey, both albums also feature horn parts on the closing tracks!

As usual with Weakened Friends, a trio from Portland, Maine, there's great musicianship all around, but Sonia Sturino's distinctive vocals are what really set them apart from the crowd. I think she speaks for most of us with the caustic way she spits out lines like "World's a fucking mess, spin me round, I feel nauseous now" on "Tunnels."

Essential tracks: "Everything is Better," "Tunnels," "Spew," "Haunted House"

(Note for other Weakened Friends fans: I also got really into Sturino's old band The Box Tiger this year and I highly recommend them as well; a distinctly different sound but arguably just as great or close to it.)

Typhoon - Sympathetic Magic

We cross the country to the other Portland (Oregon) for the next entry on my list. The release of the digital version of Sympathetic Magic in January came totally by surprise and it was a wonderful surprise at a time I really needed it. Typhoon's music has touched me personally in a way that very few artists have. After grappling with mortality in such a beautiful way on 2013's White Lighter, a contender for my favorite album of all time, Kyle Morton began to move toward themes more inspired by events of the modern world in certain tracks on 2018's Offerings and has moved further in that direction on the band's latest brilliant release. The band's orchestral indie folk rock sound is somewhat understated here compared to previous releases, fitting for the subject matter.

Second track "Empire Builder," a narrative centered around a cross country train ride, begins with the lines, "The apocalypse is incoming, only moving slow and unevenly" and that really does capture this moment in time. I do also really like the not-totally-giving-up-on-hope closing lines: "Everybody's angry/Everybody's lonely/Maybe it's hopeless/And maybe love is not enough/But let's not rule out the possibility." And some of the lyrics from subsequent track "Motion and Thought" are so evocative to me of the strange feeling of the early pandemic days: "Told you you could call me/Anytime you want/It's not as if I've got anything going on."

Essential tracks: "Empire Builder," "Motion and Thought, "We're In It," "Welcome to the Endgame"

Julien Baker - Little Oblivions

This album continues an incredible run for the amazingly accomplished young artist whose debut Sprained Ankle would be a career highlight for many musicians, but who proceeded to take her music to another level with Turn Out the Lights and has now pushed even farther with the stunning Little Oblivions. Baker toured with a full band backing her for the first time this year, and the bigger sound is evident on the album, and it works really, really well. Listening to her first album, you might not have guessed she would make music that rocks this hard, but clearly you'd have been wrong. Baker's astonishing voice still stands out above the great textures of guitar and synth sounds.

Baker's music has always been extremely personal, her struggles with mental health so beautifully testified to in her lyrics, and it's something I think more and more of us can relate to as the world seems to come apart around us. On closing track "Ziptie," she asks, "Good God, when're you gonna call it off, climb down off the cross, and change your mind?" It's a timely question! I also have to mention that any time Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus, the three members of boygenius, come together on a song, it's one that you aren't going to want to miss. Apparently, vocals for "Favor" from Little Oblivions were recorded on the same day as those for "Please Stay" on Dacus's Home Video and for "Graceland Too" on Bridgers's 2020 album Punisher, and all three tracks are among the most gorgeous you'll hear in a while.

Essential tracks: "Faith Healer," "Ringside," "Favor," "Ziptie"

The Weather Station - Ignorance

I've already written at great length about my love for this album, which has truly become one of my all time favorites. It's a staggering achievement by the Canadian band (a project of singer-songwriter Tamara Lindeman) who had previously released a string of very good albums but nothing that came close to, or would have led one to anticipate, the masterpiece that is Ignorance. The propulsive, jazzy rock sound is a surprising change from the folk leanings of the band's previous releases, and it works wonderfully. Lindeman has always had a knack for piercingly insightful lyrics but she takes her lyrics game to the next level on these ten tracks pondering a human being's place in a world beset by catastrophe.

This album is, to me, a distillate of the experience of being human in 2021. The anxiety and the grief and still the wonder of it all. Marveling at the beauty of the natural world ("My god, what a sunset; blood red floods the Atlantic") while unable to escape "all this dying" in the headlines. Taking a moment to watch a bird in a parking lot. Remembering that "everywhere we go there is an outside, over all of these ceilings hangs a sky." "Always reeling, through long midnights of feeling" but at the same time being unable to conceal love, love for this troubled world and for other people inhabiting it with us. Years from now, I'll look back on this year, and this album will be the soundtrack of my memories.

Essential tracks: "Atlantic," "Parking Lot," "Heart," "Subdivisions"

And in conclusion, thank you, musicians, for making this sucky time suck a little less. It's hard to imagine life without you.

"Everyone here has anxiety" (the boygenius concert trilogy)

After one and a half years with almost no in person live music - one and a half years that somehow felt both like an eternity and like almost no time at all had passed - suddenly it seemed like everyone and their brother had scheduled tours for September and October of 2021. When these tours were originally announced, it looked like the pandemic would be largely behind us by the time the shows happened. The delta variant changed things. The shows went on, with vaccine and sometimes mask requirements, musicians and fans adapting the best we could to this strange new reality. In a time of many difficult questions and no clear good answers, we try to choose the least bad answer and make the most of it.

For me, a magical Weather Station show on September 9 in Detroit kicked off a period more densely packed with exciting concerts than any I can ever remember, a period that has made me realize oh, how I've missed live music so, so much - and not only that, but how I've missed simply being around people so, so much.

Among the numerous shows over the past two months, Megan and I managed to catch all three members of fabulous indie rock supergroup boygenius - Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus - in separate live appearances. If you'd told me prior to COVID that I'd have an opportunity to see separate shows by each of the three in a period of less than a month, I'd have been astounded. These are very strange times indeed.

This post is about all three of the shows.

The first, by Bridgers, was on September 18 at EXPRESS LIVE! (yes, that is really the name of the venue - barf) in Columbus. Megan and I drove down from Cleveland, found unfortunately expensive garage parking (thanks to a simultaneous arena concert also in downtown Columbus that night), made our way over toward the venue, and quickly noticed there were just so many kids. So many kids.

I had not been in such a large crowd of people in a very long time. (An outdoor crowd, it's worth mentioning for COVID concerns - Bridgers scheduled all her shows on the tour at outdoor locations.) And so many of those people were so young. It was an interesting experience. I remembered attending an Arcade Fire show in 2007 at the same venue with Cara and my dad, and my dad looking around for people in his age bracket. This was almost like that for Megan and me.

It made me think about what a weird time this must be to grow up in. Especially now, because of COVID. But then, even before COVID. And I guess it's nice to see that some things stay the same. Young people find music that speaks to them and their concerns in whatever era they live in. With everything going on right now, it's not surprising that so many connect with what Bridgers is doing.

When Megan and I were waiting in a very long line to enter the venue prior to the show, someone drove up the side street along which the line stretched, stupidly in too much of a hurry, and loudly honked their horn right next to us at some people who were walking up the street to get to the end of the line that occupied most of the sidewalk. We and everyone around us flinched, startled, and shot a glance at the passing car. A young woman in front of us in line quickly let forth the best line of the night: "Everyone here has anxiety!" A witty and timely complaint directed at the already gone driver.

Megan and I laughed in agreement. Yes, the audience of a Phoebe Bridgers concert, or a Julien Baker or Lucy Dacus concert for that matter, is definitely enriched for people who "have anxiety." (Although how could anyone not have anxiety in the year 2021? If there are people who don't, although a part of me is envious, another part feels sorry for them because they must be really out of touch with reality.) The music of these amazing young women provides at least something of a balm for that anxiety.

After entering the venue, we took our places on the lawn and settled in amongst a crowd of people mostly at least fifteen years our juniors, and it struck me that for some of those kids, this must be the first big concert they'd ever attended, and some of them must have spent the last year and a half waiting for such an opportunity. What an experience it must have been for someone in that position.

Indie pop band Muna opened with a great, energetic set, but one that was marred by the extreme chattiness of numerous audience members. Megan said that being annoyed by that was a sign of getting old. I pointed out that I found it just as annoying when I was in my twenties as I do today.

The audience was more attentive during Bridgers's headline set, although still not as much as we'd have liked. But it was a great performance. And wow, it was just so good to be experiencing something like that after so much time without it!

It was a very warm day, with temperatures dropping only a little as the sun went down, and on two separate occasions the show was paused because someone in the pit had passed out. At a Phoebe Bridgers show! So there was a lot of excitement for sure.

One weird aspect of COVID is that despite us having been together for two years, this show was the first time that Megan and I got to see live performances of songs that were already meaningful to our relationship prior to the show. This included Bridgers's haunting song "Funeral," which Megan loves to point out was a hilariously dark choice for the first song I ever sent to her when we were texting and just starting to get to know each other. Lyrics excerpt:

I'm singing at a funeral tomorrow
For a kid a year older than me
And I've been talking to his dad, it makes me so sad
When I think too much about it I can't breathe

And I have this dream where I'm screaming underwater
While my friends are all waving from the shore
And I don't need you to tell me what that means
I don't believe in that stuff anymore

Jesus Christ, I'm so blue all the time
And that's just how I feel
Always have and I always will

After she pointed out how strange and funny it was that this was the first song I ever sent her, I obviously had to admit she was right. The thing is, "Jesus Christ, I'm so blue all the time" was not, like, a representation of my feelings about life. Okay, sometimes things seem like that, but not most of the time. I just really connect to music that gets at that sort of emotional state, that leans into the sorrow that's an inherent part of life. It's also just a beautiful song, and was a definite highlight of the concert.

An even bigger highlight was a solo performance of boygenius track "Me & My Dog," one that I was not expecting, another song meaningful to Megan and me and just an astonishingly good song. (Indeed, we "cried at [the] show with the teenagers.")

The great music was accompanied by striking visuals, something that was true of all three shows in this trilogy, the Bridgers show on a larger scale than the other two. During most of the songs, a large screen behind the stage displayed beautiful artwork matching the content of the song.

Bridgers's band was great, with the trumpet player in particular earning appreciative chants from the audience on more than one occasion. And watching those musicians on that big stage, I thought, wow, they're all so young. I thought that too at the Baker and Dacus shows. And another thing I thought, they all just seem like such good people. Not that you can know for sure. But I think you can kind of tell when you watch them interact with each other and with the audiences. It's really nice to see. The kids are all right, you know?

It was a great show. But it was just the beginning of a trilogy that would get even better.

At last year's Grammy awards, Phoebe Bridgers was nominated for four awards, including Best Alternative Music Album for Punisher. It's an excellent album, so I'm not criticizing it at all but rather praising the works of her boygenius bandmates when I say that among the most recent albums by all three, Punisher would come in third place in my rankings.

I'm glad that Phoebe Bridgers has achieved such well earned success and that so many people have connected with her music. Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus have also achieved a lot of success, but as of now, at least, don't draw nearly as large crowds, and honestly? That results in a better experience from the perspective of an audience member. Megan and I got to see both Baker and Dacus up close in two of my very favorite venues and with audiences that were totally there for the music and not to chat with their friends!

The Julien Baker show was the second of the trilogy and it took place on September 29 at Mr. Smalls Theatre in Millvale, PA, just outside of Pittsburgh. Again, Megan and I made a late afternoon drive out of Cleveland. A nice thing about living in Cleveland is that when artists schedule tours that don't hit Cleveland, there's a good chance that they'll at least hit one of Pittsburgh, Columbus, or Detroit, all very doable drives.

Our trip to see Julien Baker was marked by a remarkable amount of serendipity. This started when we missed a highway exit and ended up taking back roads through the Conneaut area, which led to us seeing a hand-painted sign next to the road advertising the amazing website ForKin.net, which led to even more amazing discoveries that I won't go into here! We marvel at the fact that we would never have known about any of it if we hadn't missed that exit. The serendipity continued as we were waiting in line to enter the venue and heard the two people behind us, a young man and a young woman, talking about the fact that the woman had offered up what she had thought was an extra ticket to the show, then after having found a buyer in the man with her, had discovered she had actually bought just one ticket to the sold out show, not two. And was therefore planning to leave rather than attend the show herself. The serendipitous part was that Megan had accidentally purchased three tickets to the show, and thus we found someone to use that extra ticket.

This was my fourth time seeing Julien Baker live. She never fails to blow me away. It was the first time I'd seen her headline a show, and she lived up to my expectations.

She is a tiny person. As illustrated in this picture of me and her taken at the 2018 Homecoming festival in Cincinnati:

When you watch her perform live, you wonder, where does that voice come from? And that voice is something truly astounding.

During the show, Baker mentioned the first time she had performed at Mr. Smalls, opening for the band Daughter in 2016. As it happened, that show was also the first time I went to Mr. Smalls, and the first time I saw Baker live. It was an unforgettable experience. I went into that show knowing nothing about her music. I left it a big fan for life.

I remember well watching her, so petite, so young (she was twenty at the time), come out on stage by herself and then just marveling at the power of her performance. She's come a long way since then; her performances now are just as powerful but in a decidedly different way. Whereas I would describe her 2016 performance as stripped down, rawly emotional indie folk, in 2021 she's a bona fide rock star with a full band and light show. Whereas many of Phoebe Bridgers's songs felt like they would better fit a more intimate venue, in Julien Baker's show the crashing, post-rock-ish guitar chords of the live arrangements of songs like "Turn Out the Lights" and  "Ziptie" would have easily filled a much larger room. So I felt very lucky to be able to experience the performance in the beautiful intimate setting of Mr. Smalls, a building that was once a church, fitting because seeing Julien Baker live borders on a religious experience.

A mid-set solo interlude including some songs from debut album Sprained Ankle took me back to that evening in July 2016 in a wonderful way. When Baker's band returned to the stage, I quickly noticed that each member was wearing a shirt I'd appreciated at the merch table on the way in - a shirt emblazoned with a large picture of Baker's face.

It was hilarious, even more so when Baker turned to her band to introduce them to the crowd, and it dawned on her that one of them was wearing that shirt, and then she had to have it pointed out to her that they were all wearing that shirt. It was her birthday, so that was how they'd decided to honor her! And as a result of this, I had to buy the shirt for myself after the show. It's such a delightful shirt, and a delightful memory - how could I not?

2021 release Little Oblivions, almost every song of which was played in the show, is an astoundingly good album. Baker's previous effort, 2017's Turn Out the Lights, is also an astoundingly good album. Sprained Ankle is an amazing debut. She has easily become one of my very favorite artists of the last few years, and one that I will never miss seeing live when the opportunity arises. And in this particular show, there was something really special about watching her perform. There was so much joy in her performance. There were so many beaming smiles. There was so much gratitude at being able to be on that stage after the dreadful last 18 months. Gratitude at the opportunity and gratitude to all her fans who got vaccinated and wore masks and came out to appreciate her music. It was gratitude that was shared by me and by most other members of the audience, I have no doubt.

Another thing I have to mention from this trip - the next morning before heading back to Cleveland we made a stop at Attic Records and it was the most amazing record store I've ever been to with a vast collection including the most random stuff that I could have spent all day browsing! We'll have to return some day to spend more time there.

The final show in the trilogy did not involve an out of town trip. Lucy Dacus made a late addition to her tour with an October 14 Cleveland date after having had to cancel a Toronto appearance. Unfortunate for her fans in Toronto, but very lucky for us here. Of the three shows covered in this post, it was the one that Megan and I had the least expectations for, but it was also the one that easily shot past both of our expectations. Dacus has put out some great music - I'm currently in love with her recent album Home Video - but she also really elevates that music in the live setting. I'd seen her once before, three years ago, but I'd forgotten just how outstanding she is live.

There was more serendipity after our arrival to this show. I was (of course) wearing my recently acquired Julien Baker t-shirt, and after Megan and I entered the ballroom and found a spot near the stage, one of a pair of women near us complimented me on the shirt. I mentioned having seen her in Pittsburgh and it turned out they had also been at that show! They were from Pittsburgh, so whereas we had traveled from Cleveland to Pittsburgh for the Baker show, they'd traveled from Pittsburgh to Cleveland for the Dacus show. They, too, had seen Bridgers recently - in Pittsburgh, the night before her Columbus show. One of them said something like, "these shows are my only source of serotonin right now," and, yeah. Yeah.

Things are so weird and hard and overwhelming right now, for just about everyone, everyone in their own way, for some more than for others, but I think we can all say, this is not the life we ever imagined we'd be living. And in a lot of ways it sucks. A lot. Thank goodness for live music. It's one of the best kinds of medicine there is. And thank goodness for vaccines for making these shows possible.

The Beachland Ballroom is one of my favorite places in the whole world. I've seen so many amazing shows there. Prior to the Lucy Dacus show, I hadn't been there in more than twenty months. That had definitely never happened before, and it was so good to be back. It felt like a homecoming of sorts. We took our place toward the front of the room on the left side and I remembered previous memorable shows I'd experienced from roughly the same spot, like Nada Surf in October 2005 (one of the very best shows of my early concert going days) and Sufjan Stevens in December 2012 (a truly magical holiday extravaganza). In a lot of ways I think this most recent show will go down as being just as memorable for me.

Bartees Strange opened the night with a great set. He originally gained recognition for an album of National covers, a couple of which he included in his live set, and which he introduced by asking the audience, "Does anyone here like the National?"

I laughed and looked over at Megan, who gave an enthusiastic "woo!" I laughed because, you see, Megan is obsessed with the National, and in fact one of the main reasons I originally swiped on her Bumble profile was that it included the fact that she listens to the National a lot. I asked her whether she had ever before been somewhere where someone asked if anyone liked the National, and she, not surprisingly, said no.

Lucy Dacus completed our boygenius concert trilogy in a perfect way. She played most of the songs from her fantastic new album, one I think I'm especially connecting to right now because it leans heavily on memories of high school and I recently attended my twenty year high school reunion, and also sprinkled in a few older songs, new unreleased songs, and covers. Like at the Phoebe Bridgers show, a (smaller) screen at the back of the stage displayed some lovely artwork matching the content of certain songs, like this for "Christine":

Dacus has an incredibly charming stage presence. She's also very adept at going between quieter songs that tug at the emotions of everyone in the room ("Please Stay" might be the most heartbreaking song I've ever heard) and louder songs that get the crowd moving. The last three songs of the main set demonstrated this nicely. From the devastating "Thumbs," with Dacus's voice over understated backing music just captivating the whole room, she then introduced the next song as a cover and launched into Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark," which I was just as thrilled to hear as Megan had been for Bartees Strange's National covers. Strange then came out on stage to play guitar on "Night Shift" and that song in particular was one of those sublime experiences that can only happen when a musician is in a room full of their devoted fans.

As the song reached its climax, the whole crowd bellowing out the words to the chorus, perhaps even louder than usual to get past our masks, I got chills. It felt like a release of all the emotions of the last year and a half. It was such a great communal experience. It was easily the best singalong I've experienced since before COVID. It was what live music is all about. I think most people in that room felt similarly.

It's a feeling I'll try to hold on to as we enter another dark winter.

Concert reviews: Daughter and Lucius

I had quite a busy couple of days early last week, going to two shows in two days in two cities - neither of those cities Cleveland. On Monday I left work early, drove two hours to Pittsburgh to see Daughter play at Mr. Small's, then drove three hours to Columbus and spent the night at my parents' house. On Tuesday I had a very nice visit with my mother-in-law (who I hadn't seen since Christmas!) and in the evening went to see, with my parents, Lucius perform at the Newport Music Hall before driving two and a half hours back home to Cleveland. It was a whirlwind couple of days, and well worth all the driving!

While on the road, it occurred to me that Daughter are, by a wide margin, my favorite music artist that I've discovered since Cara's death. Maybe that's a strange thing to think about, but obviously, that event was a major landmark in my life. It was in January of this year that I first became aware of the UK-based band led by Elena Tonra. One morning as I was driving into my parking garage at work, a song on the radio really caught my attention. Both the music, a haunting guitar melody, and the lyrics - specifically the lines "And if you're still breathing you're the lucky ones, 'cause most of us are heaving through corrupted lungs." Ever since Cara was diagnosed with lung cancer, songs that mention lungs or breathing have always grabbed me. In this case, the actual subject matter of the song "Youth" (the lyrics continue from there "Setting fire to our insides for fun, collecting names of the lovers that went wrong, the lovers that went wrong") wasn't really relatable for me. Nonetheless, I was so taken by the song that I had to listen all the way to the end despite already having found a parking spot, and I bought the album on which it appears, If You Leave, soon after.

The album is full of some of the most beautifully melancholy music I've ever heard, and I fell in love with it. The mood it creates went very well with some emotions I was feeling, and although I couldn't relate personally to lyrics about bitterness over failed relationships, there are lines in some of the songs that I strongly connected with - for instance, from "Human," "Underneath the skin there's a human, buried deep within there's a human, and despite everything I'm still human, but I think I'm dying here."

A few months later I bought Daughter's second album, Not To Disappear, and found it just as great as the first. One day it occurred to me to look up whether the band had any US tour dates, and I happily discovered that they were playing in Pittsburgh - and it was the day before I was already planning to see Lucius (for the second time this year) in Columbus! Instantly I decided I had to go.

Sometimes before going to shows I take some time to check out the opening artist first; sometimes I don't bother. In this case I did not listen to any of Julien Baker's music before I saw her open for Daughter. It's a magical thing when you go to a live musical performance by an artist you have never before listened to, and are instantly captivated from the first notes. That happened to me on Monday. The young (just twenty years old!) singer-songwriter, up there on the stage by herself with just her voice and her guitar, mesmerized me and the the rest of the audience with her powerfully haunting songs. She was a very fitting opener for Daughter; in some ways I might characterize her music as like a very stripped down Daughter, without the wall of sound contained in some of Daughter's songs but with similar emotional impact (Baker played most of the songs solo, and was joined by a minimal percussion accompaniment on a few songs). It's interesting. Both artists at this show played music that seems to come from places of great pain. At the same time, both Baker and Tonra were full of smiles on stage. Both were incredibly appreciative of the great audience. The audience and venue really were great, by the way. I had never before been to Mr. Small's, and the building, formerly a church, provided a beautiful setting. Meanwhile, the crowd wonderfully provided rapt attention with no annoying chatter even for the opening artist.

Baker's debut album is called Sprained Ankle. Another health-related issue that I relate to personally! The lyrics of the title track include the line, "A marathon runner, my ankles are sprained." Her music is so beautiful and I feel very lucky that I got the chance to see her. I bought her album without hesitation and highly recommend it. Check out the song "Rejoice" for an example of her stunning vocals.

Up next, Daughter's performance was something I was highly anticipating, yet it managed to surpass my high expectations and was the highlight of my whole trip. There are those rare artists where just about every song they have is (at a minimum) really good, and for me Daughter have quickly become one such artist. It was such a thrill to see them live. Tonra's vocals, the highly atmospheric guitar, percussion, and synth parts, and a great accompanying light show combined for an unforgettable experience. Most of the set could honestly count as highlights, but a few songs particularly stood out. One was an achingly gorgeous performance of "Shallows," the final track on If You Leave. The aforementioned "Youth" came near the end of the set and was obviously a song everyone was waiting to hear, and did not disappoint. Tonra adorably said something about not being sure she could do it while playing the opening guitar part to the song, with the crowd of course enthusiastically spurring her on. The main set concluded with my very favorite Daughter song, "Fossa," the second-to-last song on Not To Disappear and a song that provides a stunning climax both to the album and to a live performance with an amazing buildup over its six-plus minute length. It's a perfect release of the emotions that build over the course of the album (or show), and I felt totally overcome by the music, my body moving to the beat in a state of ecstasy.

Then, as on the album, after the climax of "Fossa," the encore performance of "Made of Stone" provided a fitting denouement.

Sometimes a musical performance takes me to places that nothing else can. It happened earlier this year when I saw Florence + the Machine. And it happened again Monday night at Mr. Small's. Driving to Columbus, I listened to Julien Baker and Daugher albums to try to relive the wonderful experience I had just had. Despite arriving at 2 am, I was still totally amped up and enjoyed a walk in the balmy night air before settling in at my parents' house.

The following night, Lucius had the unenviable task of trying to live up to that Daughter show, and although to me they did not quite reach the same heights, it was another fantastic performance. Whereas I had never seen Daughter before, this was my fourth time seeing Lucius and second this year alone; I saw them here in Cleveland back in March. That March weekend my parents visited me the day after the Lucius show and my mom, having checked out some of Lucius's music, suggested that perhaps I should have invited them to the show; I reminded her that I had in fact mentioned it to them a few weeks before, and explained that it had subsequently sold out. When I saw that there was going to be a show in Columbus, I thought it would be a good opportunity to get my parents to experience Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig's enchanting musical stylings.

This show, in more ways than one, took me back to the wonderful summer of 2011, the best time in my whole life. You see, the last time before this past Tuesday that I was at the Newport Music Hall, it was on June 11, 2011, the night before my wedding, when Cara and I joined our very good friends Jordan and Ruth to see a show by my favorite band Okkervil River. And it just so happened that my parents and I were standing in nearly the exact same spot in the music hall that Jordan, Ruth, Cara, and I occupied over five years ago. Furthermore, the opening act for Lucius was Haley Bonar, and back in 2011, just six days after our wedding, Cara and I joined our very good friends Adam and Jackie to see Cara's favorite artist Andrew Bird perform up in Ann Arbor. And at that Andrew Bird show, Haley Bonar was the opening artist.

After seeing that show, I wrote, "Haley's strong, twangy vocals and the complex, atmospheric guitar parts in her songs are a surprising combination, and one that worked very well for me." The same held true this time. My mom, on the other hand, said she liked Haley's voice but thought it was too lost in the music and would have liked to hear the vocals better. (I was not surprised that my mom reacted this way.)

With Lucius, the dual lead vocals of Jess and Holly come much more to the forefront, and those vocals are such a delight to experience live. The band has come a long way since I first saw them at the Beachland Tavern in March 2013. Back then Jess and Holly were already doing the matching hair and outfits thing, but their budget has clearly expanded in the intervening years. Their show has gotten bigger in every way, and they've really come into their own as performers (and they were already quite good!).

(Above: March 2013. Below: July 2016.)

Lucius's newest album, Good Grief, is one whose title and artwork feel very fitting to me personally.

(A friend once said to me something about it being funny how the cover portrayed someone hugging an invisible person; I replied that I thought of it more as "hugging someone who isn't there anymore.")

This concept of "good grief" isn't really a theme that ties together most of the songs on the album, but the album closer, "Dusty Trails," definitely goes with it. And that song is just amazing live, a real showcase for Holly and Jess's vocal talents, with the two of them standing on opposite sides of a single, old-style microphone, facing each other, their beautiful harmonies filling up the room. Another showcase of their great singing and stage presences came on "Gone Insane," where they again faced each other but this time each clutching her own microphone and dramatically acting out the growing sense of insanity that pervades the music and lyrics.

My one criticism of Lucius's shows - and it's not a huge one, but it's surprising considering they only have two albums - is this. My favorite song from their new album is "My Heart Got Caught On Your Sleeve." They seem to never play it live. My favorite song from their first album is "Hey, Doreen." They seem to never play it live either. I don't really think it's a case of me having unusual favorite songs, so when a concert contains the majority of a band's catalog, it's disappointing for some of the very best songs to be left out (Daughter, as a counterexample, consistently closes out their main sets with the awesome one-two punch of "Youth" and then "Fossa," which I'd consider their two best songs).

Oh well! It was still a really great show. Another standout moment came when, after a mid-set break (with the rest of the band staying on stage to provide instrumentals) for a costume change, Jess and Holly appeared at the side of the pit and proceeded to make their way through it as they sang the next song, thrilling all they came near.

The crowd loved the whole performance, and that included my parents. They were really raving about Lucius afterwards. I think it's wonderful that my parents are still trying and enjoying new music, because not everyone continues to do that - in fact, I was talking to someone at another show very recently who mentioned how one of his friends seems to think music stopped after the 1970s! Nope, great new music has never stopped being produced; you just have to look in the right places, and the great thing is that today it's easier than ever to seek out and find it!

Kudos also to Lucius for donating their merch profits from the show to Stonewall Columbus. Jess and Holly had some very nice things to say about the importance of love and how everyone should be able to love who they want. That's a message we should all heed in these unusual times.