recoveringmale

Reflections on the Dresden Dolls show three nights past.
Early in the evening my friends, my housemate and I were gathered in front of the Aladdin, when we first saw them. At first there was only one: a girl in a white mannequin outfit and makeup standing quite still by the will call window. A doll. Soon another emerged, wearing a black leather corset and a sign around her neck, which read "Broken." She too stood on a stool off to the right and was motionless. Eventually a few more dolls came out, one spinning like a toy ballerina, curtsying for us now and again. Amanda Palmer herself was walking around taking photos of the theater troup, who apparently had organized this display simply to honor the Dresden Dolls' presence. It was beautiful and unexpected.
We entered the theater, where more dolls posed in front of the stage, while cabaret music played in the background, scoring their improptu performance. It made me miss the days when I was in theater all the more.
The first band was lovely. The second not so much. But then the Dolls came on, and everything else ceased to matter.
I was overwhelmed with constant streams of possibility and songs to be written and things to be done as I watched the performers and felt joy. I thought then how much I would love to learn to play the piano, and one day perform Wicked Little Town in front of an audience. I asked Ken that night what it was about the live experience, be it seeing a concert or play, that always brought that feeling of transcendence, of clarity. The feeling that everything was possible and within your grasp and the ideas and creativity felt fit to burst out of you, a million thoughts all at once, overwhelming. Joyful because you feel alive, sad because you know in your heart that it is a passing feeling. I asked him what it was about being there that made this feeling. He could not pinpoint it any better than I, but there it is: The same experience could not be gained by listening to music in my room, no matter how loud I played it, trying to block out all other noise and (especially) the noise and clutter of my own thoughts and mind. That seemed to be the reality: in the act of watching people on stage, instruments singing and love between the audience and performer thick in the air, I tuned all that out and forgot my doubts and turned off my watcher and felt only potential.
And I was bombarded by lyrics and melodies and this-and-that, desires of what I could make my life into. I wished I had brought pen and paper to the concert so I might record it all in a frenzy. The feeling was akin to being on psychedelics, when you seem, for a few brief hours, to rise above the haze of everyday life and the universe reveals its secrets to you, but at such a rate that you can never hope to record them all in time. It is a similar feeling that the live experience brings me. But as its not feasible to depend on being at shows all the time in order to unclench enough to act on my dreams, I wanted to understand what it was that made this feeling, and how I could recreate it, and eventually learn to extend it beyond those few hours of clarity. I firmly believe that it is a muscle, like anything else, that can be strengthened through practice. The night of the show I believed in fantastic things; now I feel again moored to the reality that there isnt enough time to do what I want.
But I remember the flashes that came while the Dolls played. Amanda tearing her heart out and offering it to whomever would listen. Brian engaged in a dance with his drum set so intense that his life seemed to depend on it. I gazed up at them enrapt, wanting to give myself to something as completely as they were in that moment. And in those moments the universe whispered in my ear. Wherever you are, whatever youre doing, give yourself entirely to being there. Make love to this moment. Every moment. I closed my eyes and did my best to give myself to the experience. A glorious one it was.