Peace Within

Phish

It’s summer and if you’re a live music junkie like myself, that means the start of festival season. For me it was always a coming home to a part of myself that was forced to lay in wait for most of the year. It represented the easy-breezy life of freedom, nowhere to be and no One to be. Smiling and familiar faces all around and the feel of magical exuberance. In a nutshell, a form of peace I felt I could not generate on my own.

When I first started going to festivals it was a wondrous beast. I felt alive in a way I never had before. Thoreau’s quote sums up my experience better than I ever could. “I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, To put to rout all that was not life and not when I had come to die Discover that I had not lived.” Everything was new and exciting and everything was something to be tried once, twice and beyond. But when I got home the light would extinguish and I would be left more depleted than before.

This fresh season so far has brought with it a little less magic and a little more wisdom. The newness is gone, as well as the desire to be a part of everything all at once. When I miss a show I don’t feel the loss that I once did. It now takes longer for me to recover once I get home. I am getting older and evolving. My musical tastes are changing and the activities I once thought were necessary to my enjoyment no longer serve me.

This revelation at first made me nostalgic for the girl of my past, who lived for nothing but following around a band she loved and watching them make music. I began to resent the fact that I no longer had the time to devote or the money to burn. However after a long weekend of good music and friends I discovered I was more than happy to be home. I unwound that thought to its base and discovered something incredible. I could find peace beyond the concert field. I can find it at my desk in 90 degree heat, knee deep in work. I can find it on a boat being tossed by waves. I can find it at home, on the couch with the small family I am beginning to form.

While I’ll never fully, as quoted by my folks,  ‘get over my music obsession’ I am beginning to make other aspects of my life the priority. I am beginning to plant roots and quench some of my wandering spirit. Just another change, another journey. I breath into the space I create. And learn to make each moment the best moment of my life.

Corinne Casella is a freelance writer, editor and yoga junkie based in New Jersey.