Coachella Memoir

The air around my head was thick and smoky, as ghosts were drawn from the cherries of thousands of cigarettes. If you ever wanted to hear the sound of a heart breaking, I know of a place where you could listen. Or, you could be greeted with the familiar croons of a first love, possibly in combination with the awkward beats of your high school basement boredom.
The sun penetrated through the atmosphere, reaching the newborn skin of foreigners and forgetful first-timers. After willingly crawling out of the sauna that we once mistook for a vehicle, we excitedly trudged like cattle towards the heavy bass, loud enough that it could be heard from twenty minutes away. My feet had become lily pads, feeling thick and flat as I stumbled through the dusty terrain of the Californian desert. Hundreds of thousands of people flooded through the field, synthesizing in to one multi-colored puddle of avid music-goers, dehydrated lobsters, and drugged up, ecstatic party monsters.
Showing up unintentionally, but fashionably, late, my delirious feet carried me to the Outdoor Stage. I weaved through the collection of people like needled thread, bringing with me the person who I most wanted to experience this event with. My anticipation urged me forward, until the opening in the crowd closed off behind me. This left me placed beside an oversized Hawaiian man and his even larger friend, who seemed almost as enthralled as I was to be at this particular set.
A few minutes passed while I prepared my camera with the most accurate ISO setting for the new lighting. Dull murmurs emerged from the crowd, as I looked up to see what I had been imagining for years.
Donning an oversized and out-of-character cowboy hat, rolled up, worn-in jeans, and an awkward pair of boots, my musical God skipped onto the over-crowded stage in an intoxicated manner.
Before a word escaped Conor Oberst’s mouth, before his fingers caressed a string on his aging acoustic guitar, my heart erupted in unison with my eyes, as a river of tears trailed down my elated cheeks.
Like clockwork, my emotions set off the sounds of the Mystic Valley Band, fronted by the musician I fell in love with years before. During the third song, my parade of tears and delight continued with no signs of stopping, as the enthusiastic Oberst fan beside me sang along to every tune the way I did. Noticing my crying, the Hawaiian man and his friend snatched my camera to aid me in photographing the event, as my height and apparent emotional state was stopping me from getting a clear view. In addition, they laughed, hugged me, and insisted on snapping a memory of me in my blurry-eyed condition.
After the glistening tracks on my cheeks dried with the aid of the fiery sky, I managed to regain enough composure to sing along through my idol’s beautiful mind. As the sun hung slightly underneath half-mast, the oranges and purples of dusk drenched the stage, as Conor Oberst ended his set as perfectly as he began it.

“So thank you friends for the time we shared. My love stays with you like sunlight and air. Oh how I truly wish I could keep hanging around here but my joy is covering me. Soon, I will disappear”