In memoriam

This past April 24, as many reading this already know, marked the third anniversary of Cara's passing. Thanks in part to some fortuitously timed concerts, April 24 and the days leading up to it brought numerous reminders of Cara. They also brought some fantastic time spent with my wonderful girlfriend Karyn.

Earlier this year it was announced that The Decemberists would be playing a show at Cleveland's Agora on April 24. The Decemberists were beloved by both Cara and me and were one of the bands we bonded over in the early stages of our friendship and relationship. In fact, just a few days after Cara and I started dating in November 2006, I saw The Decemberists play at the Agora and during the show I called Cara on the phone so that she (in Columbus) could hear one of the songs. I might have been shocked at such a significant concert occurring on such a significant date except that these sorts of things have happened so much now that my reaction is more just a bemused, Oh, again….

The Decemberists' show was not the only April 24 show in Cleveland by a band I like. Wild Ones (also, incidentally, hailing from Portland) played the Beachland Tavern that night. The significance of that band to me comes not from their music having any role in my relationship with Cara, but rather from the fact that their lead singer Danielle Sullivan is married to Kyle Morton, the lead singer of Typhoon, one of my very favorite bands and the band whose music I most associate with Cara's courageous struggle with lung cancer and with her death. I've blogged before about my experiences meeting Danielle and then later running into Danielle and Kyle at dinner before the Typhoon show I attended in Portland last fall. Oh yeah, and coming up on June 12, my and Cara's wedding anniversary, is a Typhoon show at the Beachland Ballroom. There's an odd sort of symmetry, I think, to the fact that the band whose music I associate with my wife's death is playing at the Beachland on our wedding anniversary, and the band whose lead singer is the wife of that band's lead singer played at the Beachland on the anniversary of my wife's death. (Did you follow that sentence? It was admittedly a bit convoluted.) It all seems rather strange, but as I often remind myself, evolution did cause our brains to become very good at finding patterns in randomness.

To get back to the main thread of this post, with both The Decemberists and Wild Ones playing in Cleveland on April 24, I could not go to both shows. So I decided to take a trip to Toronto to see Wild Ones there on April 22, and Karyn joined me.

Toronto

After a long and cold winter, Karyn and I were thrilled by the sunny skies and mild temperatures that greeted us in Ontario's capital. We arrived on a Saturday afternoon, and with the concert on Sunday night, we made great use of our opportunity to explore a city where I'd previously spent very little time. We found a nice deal online for the Fairmont Royal York (Queen Elizabeth II's choice for accommodations in Toronto) and we both declared it probably the nicest hotel in which we'd ever stayed. The main lobby was stunning:

We found many things to enjoy in Toronto, from delicious poutine to a gigantic Sephora store to scrumptious vegan treats at a bakery owned by a friend of Karyn's to a fabulous public transit system (we marveled at the fact that on the weekend the two of us, in addition to up to four youths for those traveling with families, could ride the subways, street cars, and buses all over the city on a single day pass costing just $12.50 Canadian - currently $9.65 U.S.). One of the highlights of the trip was a visit to Spadina House, an old house-turned-museum showcasing what life was like for a well-to-do family in 1920s Toronto. The fascinating glimpse into the past was made even more enjoyable by the family in our tour group with three young girls, the older two of whom provided numerous adorable and insightful questions and observations that our tour guide, a lanky young Canadian man, handled wonderfully. I highly recommend Spadina House as a site to visit during a trip to Toronto.

The concert was at The Baby G, a neat little venue that we had no trouble accessing via public transit. Before the first band went on I went to the restroom - and was stunned by the sight that greeted me amongst the graffiti on the wall.

The symbol pictured here, a muted post horn symbol from Thomas Pynchon's novel The Crying of Lot 49, is the same symbol that Cara had tattooed in the middle of her upper back. ("W.A.S.T.E." stands for "We Await Silent Tristero's Empire" and is from the same book; the muted post horn is the symbol of the shadowy W.A.S.T.E. organization in the book.) Cara got the tattoo, her first, near the beginning of our friendship and I remember her showing it to me when we went to a movie together in the summer of 2006, and me saying that it was cool but I didn't think I'd ever get a tattoo myself (wrong!). On that weekend when thoughts of Cara were already so much with me I was astonished and shaken by that familiar symbol showing up on that wall.

The concert was quite good. I enjoy Wild Ones' music a lot, but probably not enough that I would have traveled to Toronto to see them on the basis of their music alone. My having become friends with Danielle (and Kyle, although he wasn't there) was a larger part of my motivation for making the trip. Somehow their story has, to me, threaded its way into my own life story and it's something I find very special. I got to talk to Danielle after the show and she was very glad to see me again and we had a nice little chat.

Another odd coincidence occurred to me as I was in the middle of writing this post. The first time that I talked to Danielle at a show was on September 29, 2015, five months and five days after Cara's death. This most recent time was on April 22, 2018, five months and five days after another significant date - November 17, 2017, or my and Karyn's first date. Well, I'm certainly in a very different place in my life now than I was in the fall of 2015. It also occurs to me with my huge list of weird coincidences that I'm a scientist and a big part of what has brought me success in my research is that I am good at looking at data and noticing patterns. When you look at enough data (i.e., all the events that make up a life) and you have a tendency to look for patterns, patterns are going to emerge from randomness and a lot of them won't actually mean anything. But I enjoy noticing those patterns!
 
Nanaimo Bars

The day after the concert, Karyn and I left Toronto, but before returning to the States there was a stop I wanted to make near Hamilton, Ontario. It was a stop linked to significant memories from my past in more than one way. In the summer of 2008, Cara and I traveled to Hamilton to attend the farewell show of one of our favorite bands, A Northern Chorus. I blogged about the show at the time and I still consider it my favorite show I've ever attended. The day after the show we visited a local landmark called the Devil's Punch Bowl, an interesting waterfall and rock formation, and on the way to the Punch Bowl we happened upon a neat little market (Punch Bowl Market and Bakery). Among the baked goods there were several varieties of Nanaimo bars, a Canadian dessert specialty. Upon seeing the Nanaimo bars I was instantly reminded of a social studies project in sixth grade called the International Fair for which each member of the class presented on a different country, and part of the project was making a food from that country, and my mom and I made Nanaimo bars for my presentation about Canada. On that day in 2008 I bought a Nanaimo bar and then took it to the Devil's Punch Bowl and enjoyed snacking on it at the overlook. That trip was a very special memory for me and for years I had wanted to go there again, so I could hardly pass up the opportunity. And I was glad to have Karyn join me. The two of us stopped at the market and I bought the same type of Nanaimo bar and then Karyn indulged me in my request to recreate a series of photos of me eating a Nanaimo bar at the Devil's Punch Bowl.

After this recent trip to the Punch Bowl, I asked my mom if she had the recipe we had used, and she did still have it, and sent me a copy as well as a little story about how she had gotten the recipe at a cooking class she attended with a neighbor. I greatly enjoyed reading my mom's hand-written notes on the recipe page and imagining her writing those notes so many years ago.

And just as the flavor of that Nanaimo bar I ate almost ten years ago was familiar in a very nostalgic way, the flavor of the Nanaimo bar I ate last month was doubly familiar and even more nostalgia-inducing.

April 24

Various people have said that they know April 24 must be a hard day for me. I actually don't think it's an exceptionally hard day. I think people might think it would be because for most people who knew Cara, they would be thinking about her a lot more on the anniversary of her death than they would on most other days. And they would therefore be missing her a lot more than normal. But I think about Cara a lot every day, so while April 24 does carry some extra emotions, the extent to which that's true is likely smaller for me than for a lot of other people.

The day got off to a very moving start when, at just about midnight, Karyn posted an eloquent and heartfelt tribute to Cara on Facebook. All the ways that Karyn goes above and beyond to honor Cara, who Karyn never knew in person, really say a lot about the sort of person Karyn is. I'm lucky to have found someone like that.

The evening of April 24 found us going to the Agora and meeting up with some friends who were also greatly anticipating the chance to see the Decemberists live. (Three good friends of mine were there - one had never seen the Decemberists in concert; the other two had, like me, been at that November 2006 Agora show - but long, long before I knew them.) I've blogged about Decemberists shows on multiple occasions in the past and I won't extensively recap the concert, but it was another outstanding show. I had such a fun time. And I was very grateful for my being able to have such a fun time, not only because the concert fell on April 24, but also because for quite a while going back to last October it had been difficult for me to simply "have such a fun time" doing something.

Opening band Tennis provided a retro vibe with their groove-heavy and very danceable songs. I love dancing to music at concerts and it was nice to have someone to do that with!

The Decemberists' set was heavy with songs from their most recent album, I'll Be Your Girl, but also included a good selection from the rest of their catalog. I was stunned and thrilled when they broke out "Grace Cathedral Hill" from their very first album, 2002's Castaways and Cutouts. The new album is "depressing" according to Karyn after I played it for her in the car a couple of months ago. The songs on it are heavily influenced by current events (including the very aptly titled for the Trump presidency "Everything Is Awful") so it's not surprising that it's something of a downer. One selection from the album is "We All Die Young" (actually a very boisterous sounding song) and it did make an appearance in the setlist, and I recall Karyn glancing at me as if she was wondering whether hearing that song on that date would bother me. Nah. You have to have a sense of humor about these things. I chuckled at the appropriateness and gleefully sang along to the chorus with the rest of the crowd. We do all die young, if you think about the timescale of a human life relative to all of history. Some of us die younger than others. That's life.

The show ended, as Decemberists shows usually do, with "The Mariner's Revenge Song," providing all of us in the audience the opportunity to scream in unison as if we were all being swallowed by a gigantic whale. It's always great fun. I thought about all the other times I'd seen the song live, from last August in Montana, to the summer of 2011 when I was with Cara and a huge cargo ship passed on the Cuyahoga River behind the Jacobs Pavilion stage in unbelievably perfect synchronization to the epic nautical song, to the show at the Agora just after I started dating Cara, to my very first time seeing the Decemberists in 2005 at the Odeon when I had just very recently gotten into the whole concert-going thing. The song is usually accompanied by the appearance of some sort of giant whale prop on stage. At this most recent show, for the first time, the prop was a three dimensional, inflatable whale that soared through the air above the audience. We all gawked and laughed in disbelief. It was a perfect way to close the show and a perfect way to mark the passing of another April 24.

Wait for the light to come back on

The first time I saw the band Typhoon live, September 21, 2013, was about four weeks after I found out that Cara had cancer.

Yesterday I saw Typhoon for the fourth time. It was about four weeks after... well, you know. Funny how the timing of that worked out.

Shortly after Cara died, I wrote a blog post entitled Typhoon lyrics that make me think of Cara. In it I described the special meaning the band's music had taken on to me during Cara's battle with lung cancer. Typhoon's songs are largely inspired by lead singer Kyle Morton's near death experience from Lyme disease and the continuing effects of that disease on his life. Lyrics pondering our mortality and place in the universe backed by lushly orchestrated, complex folk-rock arrangements that are alternately raucous and tender make for really moving stuff. As I watched my wife be ravaged by a horrible disease and yet continue to face the world with an indomitable spirit, Typhoon's music spoke directly into my soul. Now, two and a half years since I wrote that blog post, the Portland, Oregon-based indie rock band has become even more meaningful to me. I find it a good opportunity to reflect back on the four times I've seen the band live (and the one time I was going to see them but then didn't) and the important events that were going on in my life at each of those points in time.

By total coincidence, I started listening to Typhoon at about the same time Cara was diagnosed. Earlier that summer I had noticed the band on the upcoming events calendar at my favorite music venue, the Beachland Ballroom and Tavern, and thought they looked interesting. By the time September 21 rolled around, Cara had been hospitalized, diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer, released from the hospital after a roughly one-week stay, then hospitalized again due to a buildup of fluid around her lungs that required surgery, and released again after another week. It was a total whirlwind and I was an emotional wreck. I remember standing in the packed Beachland Tavern and gawking at the eleven members of the band as they packed themselves and their instruments onto that tiny stage. And then the awe-inspiring performance, and me hearing lyrics like Count down the time that you have left, in a jar try to catch try and capture it and wondering to myself how much time Cara had left.

In the six months that followed between that show and my next Typhoon concert (on March 29, 2014), Cara's health took another even more dramatic downturn, but then miraculously turned around thanks to a clinical trial drug she started taking. Looking back at Cara's Facebook, I marvel at the things that were going on that week. On March 28 Cara rode in the Critical Mass bike ride for the first time since before her diagnosis. "I am slow. Holy shit, am I slow now," she wrote. "As I crept up the Lorain-Carnegie bridge I was reminded of how very slow I am. It's going to take some time to pick up speed again - my legs were on fire the whole time tonight but I would not change a damn thing about the ride. I've missed riding my bike."

Cara also posted that week about her "scanxiety" over her upcoming scans at the hospital. The scans, as it turned out, contained very good news, giving Cara considerable hope (and even me a more guarded hope) that her disease could be beaten.

On March 29, the day of the concert, Cara and I went to the West Side Market together, an outing we enjoyed many times over the years. That evening a massive snow storm hit Cleveland. I braved treacherous streets to make the drive to the Beachland for a show there was no way I was going to miss. Having still been new to Typhoon the first time I saw them, in the months since their music had captured my soul. I never told Cara just how much Typhoon meant to me, because explaining how would have meant explaining to her my constant thoughts of the possibility of her dying. I remember standing in the crowded Beachland Ballroom (the larger of two rooms at the venue; the band's audience had expanded considerably over those six months) and tears forming in my eyes as the opening notes of "Artificial Light" began Typhoon's set.

The first opening band that night was another Portland-based indie band called Wild Ones. That's an important part of this story, but the reason why would not become evident until a year and a half later. So I'll get back to that.

For my third Typhoon concert, I traveled to Ann Arbor, Michigan on September 6, 2014. At this point in time, Cara was receiving traditional chemotherapy, the clinical trial drug having lost effectiveness at controlling some of her cancer several months earlier. That scan in late March ended up being the best scan news we ever got. But Cara was still hopeful, and her positive attitude helped carry me. I had dinner with my good friends Adam and Jackie at their house in Ann Arbor that evening. Cara was not interested in going to the concert (she rarely felt up to going to concerts during her treatment), but would have liked to join me in visiting our friends, except that she was actually working at her job on that Saturday! I had a nice visit with Adam and Jackie, enjoyed another amazing Typhoon concert, and then drove the three hours back to Cleveland to get back to my Cara very late at night.

Typhoon's music continued to be there for me for the remainder of the roller coaster that was Cara's treatment for and eventual succumbing to lung cancer. And then, after keeping all those thoughts and feelings about their music and what it meant to me all to myself for those many months, just a week after she died I wrote that blog post. And that was the beginning of a massive transformation I underwent as a result of my experience with Cara, a transformation from a very reserved person who rarely shared his innermost feelings with others into someone who finds sharing of those feelings with the world a vital way to cope with and work through the enormous weight of my life experiences. I guess when I have one person with whom I can share everything, and then I don't have that, the result is that there are some things I want to share with everyone.

Later in 2015, Typhoon announced they'd be playing a special tenth anniversary concert in Portland that December. I decided that I would go.

On September 29, I saw Wild Ones (here's where that band, or specifically one of its members, takes on significance) play a show in Cleveland. It was, in fact, exactly one and a half years since the last time I saw Typhoon in Cleveland, which is extra funny because my friends Tom and Jeff were at both of those shows, and Tom's birthday is March 29 whereas Jeff's is September 29. At the show I got to talk to the band and mentioned having seen them open for Typhoon and how I was a big Typhoon fan too. They said they were also big Typhoon fans, as well as friends of the members of Typhoon.

Not long after, I was in Washington DC for a conference and I happened to notice that Wild Ones were playing a show there on a night I had free. I thought it would be fun and funny to go see them again and so I did, wearing my Typhoon t-shirt. After they played I went to the merch table to chat and Danielle Sullivan, the band's lead singer, looked at my shirt and said, "Hey, nice shirt," and then as she looked at my face, recognition dawned and she exclaimed, "You came to see us again!"

I explained how I was in town for a conference, and then decided that since she was a friend of Typhoon I'd like to talk to her about what Typhoon's music meant to me. So I did, and she seemed very moved by my words. I also asked her what Kyle (Typhoon's lead singer), was like in person, as he is someone I greatly admire. I remember she smiled a bemused smile and said, "He's probably the very best person I know."

So imagine my surprise when some months later I saw a news update from Typhoon, and it included in it the little fact that Kyle and Danielle were getting married!!

I realized that all the things I had been telling her, about all the personal meaning Typhoon's music had to me - it was even more personally meaningful to her. It was a powerful realization.

At that show in DC I also mentioned to Danielle that I was planning to go to the Typhoon show in December. She said she'd be there and maybe she would see me.

I ended up not going to that show.

It was only a few weeks after the Wild Ones show in DC that a horrific recurrence of an old chronic pain issue began and I became very depressed. As the Typhoon show approached, I debated whether I would still go, because I was worried my pain would prevent me from enjoying the trip. I was beginning to make some progress at combating the pain by engaging in large quantities of vigorous exercise. I decided I would go, although I still had reservations. Then, a few days before the trip, I badly strained a leg muscle while playing basketball, putting me on crutches, and also preventing me from exercising while the injury healed, causing my pain and depression to worsen again. I canceled the trip and it was one of the very lowest moments of my entire life.

As controlling my pain became the topmost priority in my life, Typhoon's music took on even more meaning to me, as I could relate to much of the content not only in relation to Cara's battle with cancer, but also in relation to my own health issues. The lyrics of "Common Sentiments," in particular, spoke to me:

When am I gonna feel better?
When am I gonna feel better?
When am I gonna feel better?
I have been patient for a long time now

And the haunting climax of the song, a repeating and building chorus:

I will be good though my body be broken...

In the year that followed, my life turned completely around for the better. On September 18, 2016, inspired by thoughts of everything I had overcome and how Typhoon's music had been there for me through it all, I drew the cover art for the band's phenomenal album White Lighter, along with a personally meaningful song lyric, at the Cleveland Museum of Art's annual chalk festival:

On the same day, not long after I completed that drawing, my good friend Shelli was hit by a car and nearly killed while riding her bicycle in Montana. It was another one of the most emotionally traumatic events I've experienced in my personal life, and my drawing quickly took on additional symbolic meaning to me.

Now moving on to this year: had it continued on the course of the first nine months, 2017 looked like it was going to be the best year of my entire life. A few months ago Typhoon, who have not toured since 2014, announced another tenth anniversary show in Portland, this for the anniversary of their record label Tender Loving Empire. Again, I decided I'd go to the show.

Again, in between my making plans to go to Portland for a Typhoon show, and the actual date of the show, something really bad happened to me.

This time I did not cancel the trip.

I arrived in Portland on November 4, which just happened to be the eleventh anniversary of my first date with Cara. In tribute to her, I went to Voodoo Doughnut - Cara talked many times about how she'd like to visit Portland, and how Voodoo Doughnut was a Portland destination she'd like to experience. She never did get to go.

For the first part of the trip I was mostly feeling despondent. The chilly, gloomy weather did not help. The forecast for November 5, the day of the concert, showed a lot of rain. But that morning, the forecast had completely changed. Although still not at all warm, it turned out to be quite a nice day. A nice day for a long walk. As I began the walk, I was still feeling pretty down. I walked a big loop of streets and trails that took me through lush Pacific Northwest forests, the majestic Hoyt Arboretum, and the beautiful Japanese Garden.

at the arboretum

On the way back into downtown, in much better spirits than I had been that morning, I also stopped at a record store and then to grab some pizza. That night, I walked to and from the concert venue (1.5 miles each way). All told, I probably walked at least 13 miles on the day, and there really is something to be said for the ability of exercise to help one's mood.

When I was out to dinner before the concert the most amazing thing happened. I was sitting at the bar of the restaurant, finishing up my dinner, and then I glanced over at a table not far from me, and... Is that Kyle Morton?

I wasn't sure. The Typhoon frontman isn't particularly notable in physical appearance. But then I looked to the woman sitting next to him, and it was definitely Danielle. They were sitting with three other people who I think were family. I finished off my food. They looked to be ordering theirs. I guessed that Danielle would probably remember me from two years ago because in retrospect it had been a meaningful conversation for both of us, so I thought, What the heck, I'll go say hi.

Danielle did remember me. I got to talk briefly to both her and Kyle (who I had not previously met). I told Kyle about what his music meant to me, and he, too, seemed very moved. I also told the story about my talking to Danielle and asking her what Kyle was like in person, and what she had said in response, which they both clearly enjoyed hearing. I received hugs from both. I left the restaurant smiling and laughing to myself and thinking something I've thought many times in the last few years: Wow, I have a pretty amazing life.

The Typhoon show (which also featured excellent opening sets by Jared Mees and Loch Lomond) was another magical experience. It was actually the first show Typhoon had played since that show in 2015 that I was going to go to and then didn't, and at the same venue, Revolution Hall, to boot. Kyle commented on this and how it seemed, being up there on that stage again, almost like they had been frozen in time for the last two years. This led me to contemplate my life over those two years, and how the position I'm in now is in many ways similar but also in many ways different to two years ago.

Numerous moments in the band's songs hit me as usual, some in the same ways as before and some in new ways. (From "Hunger and Thirst": It occurs to me that I have spent my whole life just starting over.) During the show, I also enjoyed observing the reactions the people around me had to the music. Live music can be a very spiritual experience, and that's true for Typhoon more than for most artists. One woman I noticed seemed to be utterly captivated and near tears during one of the songs. And if I positioned my head just right, I could catch glimpses of Danielle gazing up at her husband.

Rather than opening the show like at previous Typhoon shows I'd attended, "Artificial Light" was the final song of this performance. There's a particular part of the song that has always made me think of Cara ever since I first heard it:

I woke up in the morning
To a pale light tangled in your hair
And I never wake before you
But this time I caught you sleeping there
Yes, you are my sunlight
You are my last breath of air
I would try to hold it
I would try to keep the moment
Like a photograph of the sunset
Like a little kid with a bug net
Like a dying man, I swear

As Kyle went into these lines, his eyes turned meaningfully toward Danielle, something a casual observer wouldn't have noticed but that was obvious to me. The loving way they looked at each other in that moment was such a beautiful thing.

And I also must mention the moment in the show when Kyle looked to me, and said, "I want to give a shout-out to our friend Jeff who came here all the way from Cleveland, Ohio! I see you out there!"

Kyle Morton of Typhoon and Will Sheff of Okkervil River are my two most admired music artists and two of my most admired people period, and in the last few months I've gotten special shout-outs from both of them at their shows. How many people get to say something like that?

Between the great walk, and getting to talk to Danielle and Kyle, and the wonderful Typhoon show, as I walked back to my hotel I realized that it had truly been one of the most amazing days of my entire life.

That doesn't mean everything in my life is okay now. Far from it. But wow, what a great thing to happen at a time when I really needed it.

Death Cab For Cutie at Nautica

After having listened to indie rock band Death Cab For Cutie for eleven years, I finally saw them live for the first time on Tuesday night at Nautica, the riverfront music venue in the Flats.

Although I never considered them one of my most favorite bands, I listened to a whole lot of Death Cab from 2005-2008, most especially in 2005 and 2006. In subsequent years, I've listened to them much less. I didn't stop liking them, but my interest waned. (In fact, from when I started using the website last.fm to track my music listening in August 2005 through the end of 2006, the only bands I listened to more than Death Cab were Ozma, the Decemberists, and Nada Surf. From 2007 to the present, in contrast, Death Cab are in 44th place.) And so there were a couple of times when Death Cab came to Cleveland and I didn't go because I felt like I wasn't into them quite enough to justify the cost of the show. Now that I'm no longer a poor graduate student, I decided I might as well go. (There was actually one time in the summer of 2006 when I was planning to see Death Cab and had purchased a ticket, but ended up not going because I broke my arm the day before the show. That was, of course, the same injury that occurred just days before the first trip I took with Cara.)

In 2015, after I hadn't given a whole lot of consideration to the band in a while, two things happened that closely tied their music to Cara and to her death. The first was that Death Cab released a new album, Kintsugi, and after the album was released, Cara asked me if I'd listened to it. She said that she had and it sounded good. The album was released on March 31, so this was very near the end of Cara's life. As it turned out, sadly, I did not get around to listening to the album myself until after Cara died. And I do like it a lot. Although I wouldn't put it up with my favorite Death Cab albums, I thought it was a significant step up from the album that came before it.

By the way, kintsugi is a Japanese term meaning "to repair with gold," referring to the art of repairing broken pottery with golden lacquer. According to Wikipedia, "As a philosophy it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise." Fitting, no? In an odd coincidence, three different bands I like, Death Cab, the Rural Alberta Advantage, and Hey Rosetta! released albums with artwork and/or titles related to this golden repair between September 2014 and March 2015. I in fact attended a Hey Rosetta! show less than two weeks before Cara's death.

Hey Rosetta! album cover showing an example of kintsugi

The other event was that, as I was picking out music to play at the funeral home by looking through Cara's Spotify playlists, I came across a song she liked that I felt was a great encapsulation of her spirit: "Stay Young, Go Dancing." And so I chose this song to be played at the conclusion of the funeral ceremony.

Moving forward in time, now, to this past Tuesday. Going to a place, for the first time since Cara's death, that I had previously gone to with her always evokes feelings in me. This happened at both Nano Brew, the bicycling themed Ohio City bar where I had dinner (they have fantastic burgers), and at the music venue itself. Cara and I only went to one show together at Nautica, a very memorable Decemberists show the month after we got married, so I definitely thought of that show.

Unfortunately, my relative lack of experience with Nautica led me to make a very poor decision in purchasing tickets. Although the show was not sold out, when I went to purchase my ticket on the day of the show, I decided to also check StubHub, and I found some tickets that appeared to be better than any available from the venue and with no markup from face value: in the first row of seats. First row is good, right? (I did know that first row did not mean right by the stage, but rather the first row of seats after a standing pit.)

What I failed to consider was the layout of the venue. There is the stage, then the pit for standing room general admission, then a wide walkway, then a grandstand. The first row of seats in the grandstand is at ground level, at the same level as the standing pit, and directly behind the walkway through which people are frequently walking during shows. Therefore, the first row of seats is actually the very worst place to sit in the entire venue, because the view of the stage is partially obstructed by people standing, and people walking in front of you provide further annoyance.

The first band to perform was Pure Bathing Culture, who played a short but enjoyable set. This was actually the fourth time I'd seen the band in just nine months, which I'm pretty sure is the first time that's ever happened for me with a non-local band. I find this funny as, although I like the band, they are nowhere near being one of my favorites, so it's worth explaining how this happened. The first time I saw Pure Bathing Culture, they were on tour with another Portland, Oregon-based band I like, Wild Ones, and played a show at the Beachland Tavern last September that some of my friends also attended. The following week, I was in Washington, DC for a conference and as it happened I had a free night on which the same bands were playing a club in DC. I thought it would be fun and funny to go see them again, so I did. That show was especially notable because of the conversation I had with Wild Ones' lead singer Danielle at the merch table. I fondly remember the look of dawning recognition and excitement on her face after I said hi and she realized I was one of the people who had talked to her in Cleveland. The first time I saw Wild Ones, in March 2014, they were opening for one of my very favorite bands, Typhoon (also from Portland), and I had a very nice conversation with Danielle about Typhoon, Cara, and what Typhoon's music means to me. I was pleased to hear her say that she thinks Typhoon's lead singer Kyle Morton is one of the very best people she knows.

So anyway, to finish explaining how I ended up seeing Pure Bathing Culture four times. After the first two last fall, they then happened to be opening at two different shows I've seen this year: Lucius (an absolutely amazing show) and now Death Cab.

The second act Tuesday night was CHVRCHES (pronounced "churches"). I have their first album and I like it, and I was looking forward to seeing them, but unfortunately I found much of their live set to be bordering on obnoxiously loud (perhaps the thumping bass brought up unpleasant associations with noise problems I've had with my upstairs neighbor), and my annoyance with the seating situation was increasing. I could have stood up to get a better view, but no one around me was standing, and I didn't want to bother the people behind me. I did vow to myself that I would stand for Death Cab no matter what. But toward the end of CHVRCHES' set, I was wondering whether I'd made a mistake in going to the show. The fact that it came on the heels of the transcendent Florence + the Machine show I attended days earlier, I suppose, was also not in this show's favor.

Something great happened in the break between the second and third bands. I was walking back from a concession stand when I heard someone call my name. I turned to see one of my old college cross country teammates, Irene. We talked for a while, sharing memories of running and various concerts, including a Decemberists show in 2006 that we had both attended without being aware of each other's attendance. That show, at the Agora, was on November 9, just five days after Cara and I started dating. I called Cara during that show so she could hear the song "Red Right Ankle."

After I explained my unfortunate seating situation, Irene told me that she and her friend had seats much higher up in the grandstand and there was an empty seat next to them that I could use. So I joined them, and my new seat, in row S, was vastly preferable to my original seat in row A. Who would have guessed?

Death Cab quickly put to rest any doubts I still had about whether it had been a good idea to attend the show. As they played the opening chords of the song "Crooked Teeth" from their 2005 album Plans, I instantly remembered how much I had loved that song ten years ago. And it turns out I still love it today. I was surprised by how powerful the feelings of nostalgia were that were evoked by the songs the band played from Plans and the album that preceded it, Transatlanticism. Feelings of nostalgia for that period of time in 2005 and 2006 when I started grad school, lived by myself for the first time, got into indie music and going to concerts, and met and became best friends with Cara. I think the fact that I hadn't listened to those albums that much in the years since made the nostalgic feelings even stronger, because that music is even more tied to that time in my life than music by bands such as Ozma and Okkervil River that I listened to a lot back then but then continued to listen to a lot. I was very glad that Death Cab played several songs from each of those two albums, including closing their encore with a sprawling and intense rendition of the title track from Transatlanticism.

Before the concert, I thought about how I might react if Death Cab played "Stay Young, Go Dancing," the song from Cara's funeral. I guessed they probably wouldn't play it, though, and I was right, they didn't. What I didn't think about (because I hadn't listened to the song in years) was how I would react if they played "I Will Follow You Into the Dark," (like "Crooked Teeth," a track from Plans). It's a beautiful acoustic number. Opening lines: "Love of mine, someday you will die, but I'll be close behind, I'll follow you into the dark."

Yeah, I was in tears throughout the song, and also kind of just sitting there dazed. But as I've written before, I think it's healthy to experience those feelings, and music often helps me do that.

Cara and I talked about music a lot in our online chats as we were getting to know each other, and Death Cab For Cutie were one of the bands we talked about. So it shouldn't have been surprising that finally seeing them live would bring about a lot of feelings in me. I'm very glad I went.