May 21: Denver, Colorado
I got to spend some time with Cate and her daughter, and my own daughter in the morning of Sunday May 21st. We parted ways in early afternoon to let my little one have a nap, and so that Cate could take her very excited young lady up to Red Rocks, where the fans were already assembling for the festivities to come this evening. I took my Julie over to her dad's house for the night then headed out to the ampitheatre where U2 had recorded their breakthrough live concert experience on a dramatic rainy night 34 years prior. U2 had come so far in the decades since that performance, and so had we all, really. I was feeling immensely blessed to be heading there at this particularly magical time in my own journey.
In 1992, when I had visited Denver with my folks during the summer after I became obsessed with U2, but before my own first U2 concert experience in August of that year, I had only one request for my parents. I needed them to take me to Red Rocks, not to explore the geographical wonders there, only to stand in the same space I knew Bono had stood less than a decade before that teenage pilgrimage.
Now, in 2017, as I walked the long incline from the lower lot to the line of fans that wound around the rocks awaiting entry to the ampitheatre, I had many of my own memories that had come since I had moved to Denver fifteen years ago. Most, perhaps all, of these memories were hazy pot-and-alcohol infused impressions. This would be the first concert I would attend at Red Rocks since I had began my process of recovery nearly 18 months ago. I was excited and blissful, inspired and grateful, as I found my place at the end of the line of fans.
We could hear the first band playing as we wound our way toward the ampitheatre entrance. I thought of U2 friends who had been stuck outside BC Place while Mumford and Sons were playing, and I was mindful of my graceful feeling: to be in the midst of such beauty, so full of contentment as I gazed upon the surrounding beauty in these Rocky Mountain foothills.
Before too long, and just as The Oh Hellos took the stage, I found Cate and her daughter in Row 19. To be in Red Rocks, free of the burden of alcohol or marijuana, with this captivating young band wonderously emanating the sound of pure love from this gorgeous stage... I felt I had stepped into a dream. There was a relief there, a sense of "There is no end to love", as the magic of The Oh Hellos' freshness captivated the crowd.
There was one song from The Oh Hellos which came out around the time I was pregnant with Julie. The song had touched me so deeply those years ago that I had included it in a yoga class play list, during a brief time when I taught a small local yoga class. The song is called "Hello My Old Heart".
This evening, the song's lyrical bridge rang out like a clarion call through the ampitheatre, where a cool rain was beginning to drip down over us.
"Nothing lasts forever
Some things aren't meant to be
But you'll never find the answers 'til you set your old heart free
'Til you set your old heart free!
Hello my old heart...!"
Chills and tingles raced from the crown of my head and all the way through my body to my fingers and toes as tears sprang to my eyes. I sat down, remembering how Bono had sung "free yourself to be yourself; if only you could see yourself" during the I/e tour, and how even then through a haze of alcohol, I would know that I was being called to free myself of my addictions to alcohol and pot. At that time, I hadn't known how!... I hadn't known how to face my fear of trying for a life free of alcohol and marijuana. Only two years later, here I was at Red Rocks in the rain, feeling the childlike amazement of my old heart, beating free, now seen, and felt, and loved once again.
Later that night, after exchanging goodbyes with lovely Cate and her daughter, I walked out completely satisfied, heart full. I felt complete, and I still had three or four U2 concerts right in front of me, approaching surely on this journey of 40 days and nights.
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