Tie-Dye Tranquility

The strobe lights stopped their frantic dance and for a moment came to rest on a silent blue hue which put the rock and roll stage into a tranquil trance. Tray Anastasio, as if feeling the pulse of the 10,000 people screaming his name simply stood still eyes closed, smiling, absorbing, breathing.

I take a second to do the same. To my left is Alissa, Brent’s little sister, I had watched her grow up from age seven. She now stands a beautiful confident woman, swaying to the soft rhythm of her own world. In front of me, Jaime, naturally wonderful and bubbly as can be, bouncing happily to the beat looking back intermittently to make sure we are doing the same. She is perhaps the most positive person I’ve ever known and her permanent smile tonight is not surprising.

And to my right, Em, best friends since age nine, she jabs my shoulder and points to her watch, “Pandz, 4:00! THAT is my new favorite.” I look at her watch and then realize which 4:00 she is talking about. Behind us to the right is a fabulous balding hippie covered in gray wisps and tie-dye, his bandana is secured by a bushel of glow sticks, and like Alissa the man is in a world of his own, frantically swaying with his eyes closed connected to everything and nothing at the same time.

Then Brent, relentlessly throwing his hands in the air or downward toward his air guitar laughing as if overcome by some kind of mad happiness. I should add that he also does this when riding rollercoasters, the purest form of unencumbered bliss. Over the years, I have come to learn that Brent only laughs manically when he’s truly happy and there’s just nothing like it.

Suddenly, the blue light has lifted from the stage, and chaos ensues as Tray begins his one-man trampoline show while still managing to pull off the most impressive guitar rifts I’ve ever heard. But I can’t pull myself out of the trance that that blue stage momentarily put me in. I look at the four of them, people I have grown with and loved for 15 years, people who, like Aer and our journey through Latin America, have inarguable made me who I am today.  I realized all at once, how much home holds. I may not have been surrounded by Amazon jungle or Andes mountains, but I felt equally lucky to be home, surrounded by four of the best people I’ve ever known and the tie-dye beats of Phish.