i'm always running from something

i push it back but it keeps on coming

and being clever never got me very far.

—

Last week I went to go see Florence + The Machine at a shockingly-well-air-conditioned new venue in town. And, partly because it was a remarkable experience but mostly because things have been incredibly busy lately and I’ve filled my calendar with too many things which means I’ve got more than enough to procrastinate on and that old procratinator’s impulse and having gone to see Florence + The Machine last week felt like as reasonable a combination as any to try and breathe some life back into this thing…. here we are.

During the opening act I thought I might later find a lot of words to tell you about the way that Yves Tumor’s set made me wish I was seeing them in a dimly lit, grimy and too warm basement somewhere where their music would make more sense than it did in the cavernous arena. Not because I’m a person particularly fond of dimly lit, grimy and too warm basements and not because their music couldn’t fill the space but because you couldn’t feel it in the walls the way it wanted to be felt and because it took most of their set for the heavily flower-crowned audience to realize that what Yves Tumor opening for Florence + the Machine means is that we are not twirling in fields anymore, we are dancing in dungeons, we might dance ourselves to death… An idea that the folks in the sequins might have missed but the woman in the crown and fangs in the front row certainly did not.

And I thought I might later find the words to tell you about the dichotomy of push and pull, the tug towards community and the need to withdraw, that was so evident throughout the show but never more so than when, after climbing into the crowd to be held up in adoration through “Dream Girl Evil”, Florence retreated to the stage and screens lowered around her to enclose her in a box in which she danced her way through “Big God” completely separate, starkly alone.

And I thought I might tell you about my own experience with that song - about dancing to it alone in bathroom after a wedding years ago, far from home. About how there is the dancing one does in public to commune with others and there is the dancing one does alone to be able to get through the day.

And I thought I might tell you about the way that Florence’s choreographed collapse at the end of the Dance Plague-influenced “Choreomania”, looked like a near perfect imitation of the scene in The Red Shoes when the ballerina finally succumbs, or at the very least it looked like a near perfect imitation of my muddled memory of that scene.

And then I thought I might tell you about the way that through most of “Morning Elvis” she sings about getting through the long night to show us what it means to be saved, except that the very last time it comes up she’s going to show us what it means to be spared because there is a weighty difference between finding redemption and finding oneself not destroyed but from a bathroom floor only one of those things ever feels remotely attainable and it is certainly not salvation. And I thought that I might tell you that it took most everything I had not to cry when we got there because making it to the morning is worth celebrating even when salvation still feels out of reach.

And I then, perhaps, might have told you about how many times I wondered if I’d spend less time thinking about all the things I might someday find the words for if I had a wardrobe better suited to dancing.

And now I’ve only sort of told you about some of these things but I’ve reached the limits of where procrastination can carry me so I’ll leave you with these notes from my phone from four months ago when I tried to write about Florence + The Machine and the song “Free” and still didn’t quite….

And the thing is that I am no longer naive enough to believe that music will save us. Even though it is the thing that has saved me and saves me - in both the past and present tenses - I no longer expect that one day a sound will wash over us and we’ll all be released.

I am no longer naive enough to believe that music will save us - on my worst days, I’ll admit, that I don’t even know if I believe we, collectively, deserve to be saved.

And yet -

I do still believe in our shared humanity, in our fragile bodies that sometimes, most times, can’t be certain in what direction they should move.

And still -

I believe that if the right note strikes you and pulls you to movement when otherwise paralyzed, it might not be salvation but it’s not something to dismiss.

And -

Whether we’ve earned our redemption broadly, I believe in welcoming its small glimmers with open and flailing arms.

I believe we should dance now because I have learned that the next beat is never guaranteed.

And for a moment, when I’m dancing, I am free.

---

If not apparent, I think you should Listen to Florence + The Machine’s most recent album, Dance Fever.

As always, Listen to Ted Hawkins.