Ghosts
After I posted on Facebook about sobbing through Indigo Girls’ Rites of Passage as I drove to my Dad’s memorial, my friend Lindsey told me how much she’d also loved that album, at that same time in her life. Just a few weeks later they announced they’d be playing a benefit concert in Chicago, and a few weeks after that Lindsay turned 40, so it seemed like a no-brainer for the perfect gift (even if a bit self-serving). Last night we got to watch the Indigo Girls tear down the house, surrounded by fellow souls who’d obviously also had this music touch their lives in all the best ways. Dropped off and picked up by Lindsay’s generous father-in-law, it felt a little bit like high school, and I couldn’t have loved it more.
My voice is hoarse, but my heart is happy. There isn’t a lot that brings me more joy that watching artists love what they do, still immensely enjoying (after all these years and all these concerts) that WE enjoy them.
I felt like my dad was there with me, all around me, enjoying the show. And I couldn’t help but think about this piece I read at my dad’s memorial, about why a physicist is the person you want to speak at your funeral — it’s a long read (and worth it), but the gist is that *according to the first law of thermodyamics, no energy gets created, and none is destroyed. So all of my dads energy, every vibration, every BTU of heat, every wave of every particle that was HIM, still remains in this world. Not a bit of him is actually gone, he’s just less orderly.* And I think all those bits of neurons, or whatever scientific name they’re called, I think they somehow found a way to come together last night, to dance in Thalia Hall, to be present.
I don’t feel like I was only one who felt the extra energy, whether it was from someone loved and lost, or maybe just memories of who we were and who we’d wanted to be, lingering thoughts of a different time, or hope for a time when things are better— there is joy and grief in remembering, in believing. And we were there for it. And the Indigo Girls were there for it. And it was beautiful.
*paraphrased - find the whole thing here