it's good to feel small sometimes

Chris Wiseman

Padding through the airport, dragging a bag behind me that jangles happily every now and again from the tambourine inside. I love imagining that I tread the same path all the time. I would like to be the person who is totally bored by the airport, but I get thrilled by it - I love the drive, I love the people, I love sitting and waiting with my headphones on and watching the planes pull into the gate. No matter how much I travel I don't think I'll ever get tired of the airport. 

Sitting in my seat I literally cannot believe that the only thing I want to do is listen to music. How can that be the thing that I want to do, when I've spent the last week (let alone my whole life) threading myself around it so tightly that I could barely sleep? Live, in big venues with round roofs where my heart swelled to meet the ceiling, or on screens, at 1am with friends, curled up on the couch in the hotel with the roaches and hair all done up in towels like a slumber party film.

I can't stop thinking about when we were standing in front of a monumental vortex of a sculpture at GOMA and beautiful, bright young G said so lightly :: 

"It's good to feel small sometimes."

I looked over at her and couldn't believe how effortlessly she had just constructed a moment that I'll never forget. 

(Kind of like the force of a good band playing a song you've only ever heard recorded live for the first time, and you're in it and it's happening there and then it's gone and all you can do is remember it.)

They come in sharp, glowing snaps - M cheersing a hot chocolate at me in the fancy lounge, S ambushed at the party on the rooftop with the massages and the funny caterer, sitting on the train in the rain reading receipts and thinking about how everything ever is always too short, J standing at the top of the balcony in his thongs waving L and I grandly out of the hotel, running into everyone's arms a thousand times.

Yelling "I'm so HAPPY!" to no one in particular, except maybe the universe as a thankyou for being understanding.