Dance As Though No One Is Watching, Love As Though You'll Never Get Hurt

Standing on the lawn of the tweeter in the warmth of the summer night air, Jane turned to me and said, "You know, I've come to realize it doesn't really matter how ridiculously you dance, as long as it looks like you're having fun." Jane’s always been wise like that. The minute she said it, I knew it was true of course. It seemed so obvious, but somehow, I had never really been able to see it before. Suddenly every person there, jumping and hopping and twitching, seemed so beautiful. Dave Matthews played on and the lawn became littered with more and more of the infamous “white people dancers.” I couldn’t help but smile.

Yesterday, we went to the Big Summer Classic Tour at Penn’s Landing. It was an absolutely amazing concert, the kind you look back on for years to come as a fond memory of your youth, the kind of day you look back on as a time in your life when you were truly and purely happy. You know what kind of day I mean. I wasn’t even fucked up. I was just sublimely at one with the world. For this first time in my life, I felt like I really understood what Tommy meant when he said that music flowed through him, that it changed him, that it helped him feel free. For the first time in my life, I felt free.

This all sounds kind of stupid I know. It’s just that I’ve spent my whole life trying to convince myself that it’s ok to look like a fool as long as you’re having fun, but am only now at 20, beginning to truly believe it, truly embrace it. Needless to say, I danced like a fool and had a wonderful time. Now it’s all I want to do. I forgot how nice it is to just let loose once and a while. I wish the feeling would flow over into the rest of my life somehow. I wish I could feel that carefree about everything. I wish the music could have played on forever and we could have danced like fools until the end of time.