The Beautiful Now

The Inconvenience's The Fly Honey Show 8/1-3 at The Chopin

Dav Yendler said something interesting last night in the basement of the almost 100 year old Chopin Theatre on Division and Milwaukee after the dancing that ended the sexiest and most artful burlesque this side of Lake Michigan was done.

      The DJ had stopped playing and the lights were turned on and we all milled drunkenly from the dance floor into the gilt and incandescent lounge on our way up the stairs and onto the street. I was sweaty from from all the dancing - my feather earrings, Shannon had said, were curling - and I was happy from all the drinking. I was wearing new heels and, surrounded by all the vivacious burlesques, felt sexy.

        Dav was covered in glitter - big, fat, audacious glitter all on his chest and up the side of his neck. "How wonderful to be covered in glitter on a Saturday night!" I said. We laughed. We were loose and happy. 

     Dav said, "You know those old people who were young in the Jazz Age and they say 'Oh we used to have parties, and we danced, and we drank all the liquor, and we were young(!), and everything was beautiful!'?"

     I understood him exactly. "It's now!" I exclaimed.

     "Yes! That's now for us, like, now! And when we're like them, we'll look back and remember this and how everything was so beautiful!"

       And we smiled and knew it was true and looked all around us at the beautiful now.

     I drank my last drink, and under normal lights, the world began to set in again, and I grew tired. Now, in my last year before a certain age, I stand, one foot in a glittery place, and one foot somewhere else. One foot has on a strappy high heel, ready as ever for the dance and the romp; and the other wears something stylish but sensible. The other foot is moored and stayed, and I shift from one to the other, unsure of the ground. I shift and look back, remember the time getting high on the dorm room floor and the refrigerator was so funny, remember setting out on that little boat on the vastness of the Pacific and how there were whales. I shift and look forward, remember all manner of dancing, and remember, too, the time I met my soon step-daughter, and shaking her tiny hand. I shift and look around and there is much still that I hope to remember.

     Word of an after-party circulated. The Zebra Lounge, Dav said. I sighed. Maybe I'd go, drain the cup. But then again, for me, the night had been good and was done. I had drunk and danced, and it was enough, and I walked out into the street-lit night, feeling my way toward home and sleep, sated, happy, and with no need to cling too much to the glittered, vivacious night.