this isn't about current travels, or planned travels, but travels remembered. i'm listening to flogging molly. i'm flooded with emotions, thoughts, memories, visions, images...
one of my very best friends introduced me to this band. he's the first person i think about when hearing them. we used to be crazy, we would drive around, music loud. go to someone's house, get drunk and dance. when we went off to college, me only to montclair but him all the way to vermont, he would always be home for my birthday because it was on or near a long weekend. a flogging molly cd was a gift one year.
i can remember standing on top of a parking deck in burlington, looking at the colors of a late afternoon autumn sky. i had somewhat tricked a guy i was hanging around with to drive me up there for a weekend visit to that best friend's college. that guy wound up giving me a ton of flogging molly stuff for my birthday a short time later, which i subsequently gave to my ex that i had started seeing again at the same time. the two of them spent my birthday weekend in the same hotel room that a group of us were staying in for a convention in south jersey. no wonder i was such a drunk. or perhaps these things were the result of being a drunk.
i saw flogging molly at 'warped tour' with that ex before we split the first time. they are fucking fantastic live. we danced through the entire set, a mixture of some kind of irish jig and a punk pit, and those around us did the same, switching dancing partners, twirling and laughing and yelling along to the songs. it was one of the most fun concerts i've ever been to in my life. it was one of the best times he and i had, and one i can use to see the good in our time together, instead of remembering all the bad things.
a friend i've acquired through my husband is also a flogging molly fan. when i still drank straight liquor, he and i used to throw back whiskey together. as abrasive as he can be, he's true. one of the best friends i've got in my life.
my husband collects vinyl. there is something wonderful about listening to flogging molly on a turntable. it is like all parts of my life coming together as one, all things that made me who i am being present at the same moment in time. all the bad has melted into the past.
my brother is considering attending a college near the one my friend went to years ago. i told him its a beautiful place, and he'll love it. hopefully he won't be a foolish alcoholic cunt like myself.
