DAY 2
My eyes opened. Monster was to my left and Abby was to my right. We were snuggled up cozy in the back of that white Ford clubhouse, the rear window was popped and open and so were the side vanes. It was a second before the last night came flooding back to consciousness. Ahh, surreality. I looked at Monster and she opened her eyes and we smiled "good morning" with squinted eyes as the sun was already lit. But not yet the spliff. Soon though. "What time is it?" she asked.
I hadn't a clue and fumbled for my phone a little longer than usual. "Holy mackerel! It's just past 7:30." And it's already getting hot. But there was a breeze breezing through, and we weren't sweating yet. I closed the rear window so I could pop the trunk. Abby was up too, and we wanted to stretch our legs. Chloe, Callan, and the tent company were mulling about. Callan's dreamcatchers were busy in the light wind. Taylor was up, but Max, Grant, and BB were still lying where they'd fallen asleep late last night; on the ground on the side of the car where the shade hit. Everyone was happy. And looking back I can say it was such a treat it is to wake so, smiling in the early sun, and already giddy for the day. We could not to be disappointed, and nothing even came close. It was a perfect day. One of the few in a young life, and something special that stands out all the more when they're so rare.
A perfect day is one filled with pleasant surprises and smiles and friends by your side. And so it was to be, a day such as this graced me that spring Saturday in Indio. We nibbled on muffins and bread and gulped down Gatorade by the mouthful, and then Max made an announcement. His mother was picking us up and driving us to his aunt's house on a nearby golf course for a proper breakfast and a dip in the pool. What a treat this was, and before I knew it we were walking to the outskirts of the campground and Max's mom and brother Adam were there to greet us in a 4Runner. We piled in, the six of us - Grant, Max, Taylor, and myself in the back seat; Monster, BB, and Abby in the trunk - and were off. There was a present from the family; a joint in some inconspicuous tube for pool cleaner. We were already high, but it still warmed the heart. We pulled into an austere-looking neighborhood, then a driveway to some Nancy Botwin abode by the ninth hole. We walked through the house barefoot and light on our balls. The tile floor was cool to my feet. Max's aunt was already cooking up breakfast burritos as we passed the kitchen and she smiled and waved us through to the back patio and an infinity pool and a cooler of cold beer.
I didn't know what else to say but, "Thank you so much!"
"Don't mention it, darling," she said. "Now there's some cold Coronas out there and some cans of coke. I'll have some orange juice out in a bit and the burritos are almost ready. You're gonna love 'em."
I already do. "Thank you, thank you." A thousand times, thank you. She hadn't stopped smiling and she was the most precious thing ever. Max whispered something about chocolate chip cookies and that feeling of happiness was there sponging the mind like a pretty nurse.
"Oh, hush, hush. Those are for later, Maxwell." She was incorrigible. "Now if you want to wait, I can heat up the pool for you guys."
"How cold is it?" asked Grant.
Adam mozied over to the pool shed and chuckles, "Seventy-five degrees," he said. "I think it'll be okay for now." And we all laughed like little tikes just arrived at a sand-box and jumped in. The water was perfect.
It seemed to just float over the far edge and onto the fairway. And I floated there myself, on my back, in the middle of it all with a deep breath in my lungs so that my chest stayed just above the surface. And when I opened my eyes, it was all blue with cotton balls floating by and the white puffs you see when you dream in the day. They'd change slowly to please me and drift away. The taste of cold beer with lime was on my tongue, that blanket of Mary Jane in my mind and a room temperature water soaking into my skin. Happiness was served up and consumed by the lot of us floating lazily in our lives and the water lapped our ankles. Then burritos and burritos and orange juice and more beer. We lit the joint and killed it just before Max's aunt came out with some cookies. And not just any cookies. Those were the best damned cookies I believe I've ever had the pleasure to chomped on. They were miraculous. Satiating and soft. They bear-hugged our tired souls in that commercial bliss, the kind you see in TV ads. The too-good-to-be-true kind. Award-winning in my eyes. But there was still more. We had to see the casitas. Max's aunt insisted, we just had to. She was very adamant.
So we saw the casitas. It was lovely; entirely comfortable. And we all just sort of fell to slumber on the big bed, or to shower in the bathroom of glass and fair tile flooded by skylight. What a casitas. Sweet dreams came and went gently, and before we left, we felt rejuvenated to a pinnacle and ready for the day. It was the feeling only a casitas can bring, and that day it paid in full, and we loved it for that. One more beer was to be had before driving back into the fray. 2:00 and the grounds for camping were dry grass that padded each step as we walked. We stopped by the car for a spell to smoke another spliff. And a blunt. And suck Gatorade from the bottle and shotgun beers under the high afternoon sun. It was not long before we were once again frolicking towards the main gates, gatorade in hand, spliffs and molly in pocket. Silly, joy-caked faces in tank tops and shorts and sunglasses. No shoes on; just another day in Wonderland.
[stop]
We were washed, and the grass felt greener and my lungs sucked in the sweet surrender. It was already four in the afternoon so we decided to go to the Outside Stage and take in the Temper Trap. And when I say we decided, I mean of course, that we floated over to it, through Spring Break 2010 and past the giant origami swan in a spliffy haze that felt so alive. At the Do Lab, I flexed my toes and they sank into the swampy marsh of grass in front of the stage. We breathed in the spring desert air and the sun was shining and there was water falling from above. The water on the ground danced with the bass, and it wasn't long at all before my shirt soaked through so i took it off. When I closed my eyes, thoughts flashed to those days in the summer in the front yard when Dad would hose down the grass and make an arch with the water. My sister and I would always try and run through it and Dad would always bring the hose down at the last minute and spray us. The feeling warmed me more than the Indio sun. And the smile on my face widened. It brought everything together into a swirly amalgam as BB and Erica grabbed my hands in the air, and we spun and twirled and jumped, high as we could because nothing was sore from the night before. The feeling was something incredible and the soul at my core was full of light that shone through to the skin and made it tingle.
Eyes open again and we were laying in the grass and the mind erupted at the overwhelming perfection of it all. To every sense. The frontman for Temper Trap had the voice of a whining angel, so much so that we'd sit up straight and crane to see him far-off on the distant stage. We weren't close. But we moved up for Edward Sharpe as Temper Trap closed out and people began to disperse. We got close. Really close, and just hung out until Sharpe and the Zeros came out to set up. It was time to stand, but there was room around us and we weren't sardine-packed. It wasn't Jay-Z. The crowd wasn't so thick at that hour, which was nice because another spliff was gone and the breathing room was nice. Alex Ebert was already fucked up, something pronounced by his scraggly beard and hair tied in a the dirty knot of long hair on his head. He dressed in dirty off-white from head to bare toe, save for the thin, weathered scarf of red mahogany loose around his neck. Before the first song, he fell into the crowd and elbowed some guy in the face, so he threw him his sweaty white shirt. I couldn't help but laugh because I imagine it stunk like booze and cigarettes and BO.
Then they broke into "40 Day Dream" - the whistling came first and sent a shiver down my back - and all was forgotten and forgiven because I wanted so badly for each precious moment to last forever; presently in that short breath between just then and what comes next. They oozed dreary and excitable love, and all that happened just before was in that fog of the distant past that one did not care for. All that mattered was striving to feel as they all felt onstage. That carefree living to the fullest. We wanted to feel the look in their eyes , the love, the crisp laughing chorus, the way Alex and Jane sang to each other. Maybe I was too high because I wanted to sing along, but my lips moved without the noise as the words got caught in my throat. I was so in shock at how beautiful it was, I just stood there and breathed in deep. All those little hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stood at attention. So in love with the other they were, those two. We were just their fuzzy background with the aperture wide, wide open.
[stop]
That's what happens when you're in love. Everything else fades to fuzzy backdrops with that true and only in focus, center stage. All starry-faced and smiling, eyes whispering that sweet secret back and forth so that everybody who cares to notice sees it like a flare going off, but no one else knows what they're saying except you. It's precious. It's treasured. Guarded. Intrigued upon and held close. And it's not meticulous, and they had it in spades, shoveling it out over the crowd so that when their set was over, we didn't want to leave.
We stayed at the Outdoor stage and let the XX croon us and sink us in the grass where we lay. Max simply had to see Coheed and Cambria's set. He ambled off to our left towards where the Main Stage was literally burning down during Coheed. They both played into the sunset, but I didn't see it. T'was like a hole in a redwood forest. I was laying on my back next to Monster and the sky framed itself within the people standing around us and shot bright orange before getting darker.
[stop]
Hot Chip took the Outside Stage next, so we all took our shirts off and took molly by the hand. With some Emergen-C and a water bottle. Then we waited. The stage lights were up now. In a few minutes the high changed and it was a thing like laying on a cloud, and we floated up to our feet and started dancing. The come-up was beautiful. It was soft. And color-full. And it was warm and cozy and sweet. Skin breathed and everything was more real. Real to the touch. Real to the ears. Real to the eyes. Real to the heart and to the soul. Love swelled like a river through, and it shared with everyone close. There was a certain magic in it.
A guide to goodness, it was and shortly pulled us away towards the Sahara Tent and Kaskade and David Guetta. There was a pause between songs and we pranced off through the crowd. Monster on my back for a piggyback ride. But the next song was too good, and we were dancing again in the open grass. Over and over again. Every body part moved to the beat and flexed in the desert heat. We couldn't stop because we never wanted to not feel this euphoric. It was a triple negative maybe, but still oh, so positive. Love. The feeling of it became a reason for living. A bookmark for saving every minute of it. Because it was all so crystal clear. Living with purpose, the dreamer, walking through it with eyes closed and a hand outstretched wanting that dream to be real and tangible. Eyelids fluttering, waiting to take grasp. Keep on dreaming.
So simply, it never ended. And the we found ourselves dancing towards the farthest tent. Hot Chip's bass slowly faded and as we walked past the Gobi and Mojave, a new bass grabbed us in the loins, and the Sahara drew ever closer. It opened in sections on the side and was all pulsing pink and white light. The entire thing appeared to be moving, breathing, and alive with all tenacity, but it was just the crowd inside. So we refilled our water bottles, dance-pranced in one side, and soon we were in the thick of it. And it was absolutely, incontrovertibly amazing. It was bright and wild, even with our sunglasses on. There were lights before me and above me. It was hot, even with our shirts off. But not too hot. The place was embalming. A slight breeze coming in through the sides was felt, but just barely though. Like the heat, we rose. And soon everything was lighter and loftier and we floated in the air as we danced to Move For Me and held each other. There was that Imogen song and I Remember. Then David Guetta, and I danced and danced and half the time it was just by myself. But I've never noticed until now, or thought to think if I cared really. Probably because I didn't.
Salivating and ears in orgasm. The music took over and was felt in every inch of being. Now and again we'd grab everyone in a group hug and take off our sunglasses and look at how high we all were. And we smiled because we'd never been so happy before. Still, it wasn't over.
That night I wanted so badly to meet the inventor of the glow stick and shake his hand. We wrapped those twisty little light rods around our heads and wrist and ankles, and when we left the Sahara Tent for the rest of Muse's set and Tiesto at the Main Stage, we were a glowing snake in the crowd outside. The polo fields were now dark and thick with people. But nobody got lost, not once. Thanks to our trusty glows sticks, the tribe never separated, and it was only too easy to find each other after using the restrooms (which some will tell you, truthfully, isn't so easy, especially when you're really high). Muse was a wholly different experience. Their performance was beautiful like a herd of wild horses is beautiful. It was wild and fast and went everywhere with no inhibition. And the drums stampeded and the guitar riffs cut to the core, but not one horse would ever fall or falter and it was all spot-on. Every key. Every note. Matthew Bellamy was one of those beings from another place. The kind of thing one stands in awe of. It was overwhelming to say the least.
Muse finished in a flash of white light, and we cheered, stupified. We yelled at the top of our lungs, then it all went dark. Tiesto. People-training, we went to the center of it all in a glowie-stick dream. The crowd closed in around us until it could close no further, and we just had enough room to dance. And Max and I looked at one another and grabbed molly once more. When I sat down to rest my legs, it was once again a people forest, but it was different this time. It was darker, and at knee level in a mass that thick the middle music was muffled and above me. Thick darkness by the ground was punctuated with glow-stick blues and greens and pinks and yellows and the bass vibrated through the grass. The cool of the night wasn't felt down there. It was all body heat and a phantom breeze. Then it stopped. There was a cheer. A wild ecstatic howl, and it grew louder and louder until it was all I heard in that forest of feet. It was pulsing in my ears, so I stood and just then the stage exploded into light and lasers whizzing overhead, and it started. It was everything. Perfect.
