Here we are, a sea of hopeful warriors—some timeworn and sweat soaked, others, newly showered and enjoying a gloriously breezy, sunny, northern Michigan Saturday morning.
We’re in line to purchase tickets to see Madonna, live & in person for the opening of her film, I Am Because We Are that will be featured this summer during the Traverse City Film Festival.
The cacophony of conversation, downtown, Saturday-morning noises, the breeze, the waves of the bay, doesn’t overwhelm. It’s like a calming purring kitty, on my sundrenched lap. The sun beats down. My curly hair frizzes and I am moist, everywhere. I squinch and reposition myself on the curb. I close my eyes, and listen.
Ahhhh! (It’s so difficult to capture a guttural honk!) As I lovingly refer to the sometimes snort, other times shockingly silent guffaw which has been known to effuse from the lips of this ‘babe’. The difficulty is attempting, with any true sense of the glottal [not to mention guttural] fortitude physiologically erupting from the source of said unabashed act. Consonants just don’t do it. They cannot possibly discern, with their curling q’s…crossed t’s & dotted I’s.
Source of said-guffaw, you wonder?
Someone just said ”Aagghh! I’m going to be 40 in 22 years!!” (note, there are two, count them, TWO exclamation points for OBVIOUS intended emphasis).
HA!
What a moment. And one, as I do—stream-of-consciously-connect myself to the story at hand—that I relate to, which furthers the inner-workings of the guffaw. It descends, into my belly. My eyes water. I sweat some more.
Recently, while hanging at my beloved mom & daddio’s home…I realized that my dad, who will be turning 60 later this year, is, clearly, 10 years away from 70.
Seventy seems so much older than I think of my father being.
He is young at heart, albeit wind worn.
A bit early in the day it seems, but an almost sultry, spicy, summer’s wind, beckons me to stay lucid, in the heat, as I type this.
Listening to The Beatles play behind me, the young man who had the honk-producing-epiphany is sitting nearby on the brick & concrete sidewalk about 100 feet from The State Theatre. His name is Andrew Muirhead. He and his girlfriend are clad in hand made white baseball caps, strewn with silvery-glittered rhinestones, emblazoned with a single consonant, that of the elusive Madonna, the letter M, in pink no less. Inherent, alongside this paparazzi-attracting garb, are the hearts, pure as gold—filled with love for Madonna.
Pecking on the keys of my laptop, I squint, look up for a moment, wipe my brown, and see that my friends, Bobby & Joe have stopped by to say “only 28 minutes!” Diehards. True-blue. Devout. Fans. (Fanatics?) They have, (no lie) been here, on the sidewalk in Traverse City since, early Thursday morning. That means they’ve been here for more than forty-eight hours.
Yes. H O U R S.
I cannot help but to refer to this as blind ambition?
Ha.
Punny. Well, my wit-quotient may be affected by my lack of sleep, the heat, and the fact that my rear end has determined it may have become related to the familia-concreta (sidewalk-butt!)
Yet, for some, like the friend who I’m getting a ticket for, Madonna is larger than life. She is a Goddess. A source of something, worthy of 48+ hours on a summer sidewalk. To her, Madonna is important in a soul-affirming way that I cannot possibly describe. My friend found solace in Madonna in a way that helped her manage being a motherless daughter. Now, as the single mother of an adorable, lanky, 11-year-old boy, named Casey. Casey, the closest confidante to my Godson, Isaac, stands at the center of ‘why’ I am here, mid-morning, on a hot, summer’s day, in line with some true-blue warriors of the most devout capacity.
If you could capture the collective spirit of Casey and his mother Chas, and you somehow sorted the spirit-sauce, and sieved out the ingredients, Madonna would be in there. The magic of her myriad talents. The energy. The voice. The individuality. The light, emanating from the sun.
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