Once upon a time, there was a girl. Her name was Meiska. She worked every weekday for forever and looked forward with great anticipation to the long Fourth of July weekend. Three whole days. Now, Meiska was accustomed to experiencing weekends of only two day's length, so this was a real treat. The extra day alone would have made the weekend special, but this was to be an enchanted weekend of delight: Tree of Life. Coffee. Shooting stars. U2 concert. Fireworks from the Woodland Street Bridge. Communal time at the cabin.
Let's start at the beginning: Friday, 4:31 pm . . .
Meiska rushed from her office to her car, Penelope, and sped away to the land of Hendersonville. There she dined with her mother and was then whisked away to see the film Tree of Life with the salad-bearing Joshua-friend (note: the words Joshua and Tree are in that sentence). No trip to Hillsboro Village is complete without a stop at Fido, so the two stopped in for a cuppa joe and to see where Meiska would soon be having her paintings displayed and then traveled on to their real destination. Then, at the Belcourt, Nashville's royal art house theatre, they watched in awe as a story of youth, innocence, guilt, family, beauty, fear, time, love, death, and life bloomed before their eyes. Meiska had a constant stream of tears flowing from her wide-open eyes as the purity of the emotions from the film seeped into her being. "Mercy," she thought, "am I going to recover from this one?"
As the two walked back to Penelope, the Joshua-friend looked up into the night sky and saw a shooting star. Meiska, being one to regularly fish for shooting stars, felt an intense need for a star or two herself, so off they drove to the highest point in Nashville: Love Circle. Their purpose was two fold in visiting this place:
1. Shooting star fishing
2. See the U2 stage before the show the next day
From the comfort of the handy green blanket, they could see that the lights were off in the stadium, so there was no spying of the claw, but there were indeed stars aplenty. They feasted on stars and good conversation until the wee hours of the morning.
The next day was the U2 concert. Now, U2 is Meiska's favorite band of all time, and she has seen them in concert before (Atlanta, 2009), but that concert she experienced from a seat, not General Admission. This time around, she had her heart set on being in the "inner circle," a ring around the stage that holds the first 2000 people. She wanted to really, really see Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr. And so she went for the general admission tickets in the pre-sale (yes, she is a geeky website-subscriber), and then she convinced her fellow concert goers to wait all day in line to get into the "inner circle." And so the day of the concert, the entire house slept in until around 10 and then headed straight to Vanderbilt Stadium. The Joshua-friend's car died in White House, so Penelope and Meiska rescued him, and then went to get a good place in line. Meiska and the Joshua-friend got the numbers 908 and 910. The parentals were right behind them. It should be stated that it was one of the hottest days of the year and waiting outside for several hours wasn't the most delightful thing you can do on such a day, but the flaming hot tediousness was eased by the Joshua-friend teaching Meiska how to play Mancala and card games, Meiska showing off some of her tintype collection, and watching ants attack and carry off the spoils of a war with the Joshua-friend's pizza box (ants love Schlotzsky's Mediterranean Pizza, apparently). Finally, at around 5:30, they got into the stadium. They walked very quickly, as they were told, to the gate to get into the "inner circle." They were in! They sat up camp directly in front of the stage, but close to the track that Bono runs around when he sings Where the Streets Have No Name in case he wanted to pull Meiska up onto the stage for a dance (which she wouldn't have been opposed to). Finally, after sitting on a scorching metal floor in the sun, the sun drifted further south in space, and Florence and the Machine began to play. Meiska was delighted. Florence Welch is a modern Pre-Raphaelite beauty. Meiska knew that Dante Gabriel Rossetti would have immediately fallen madly in love with Florence Welch, had he ever met her (not that that would have been unusual for him). Meiska's freshly married baby brother Luke, sitting in section A of the stadium, sent her a text while Florence was on stage that said,
"That lady is really weird!"
And Meiska's freshly employed production desiner/fashion designer/musician/artist brother, Gabriel, seated in section V of the stadium, sent her a text right after that that said,
"Her costume is gorgeous!"
Everyone loved Florence, but they were ready for the REAL reason they came to the concert: U2. Finally the speakers began to play Bowie's Space Oddity and Meiska's heart skipped a beat as the band came out onto the stage and opened with Even Better Than the Real Thing and three other songs from Achtung Baby. Meiska, the Joshua-friend, and the parentals continued to enjoy the show from the close, close range of less than 20 feet from the band. Meiska was so close, she could count The Edge's wrinkles (which were relatively few for his age). Bono and The Edge passed over Meiska's head on the bridges. They performed The Wanderer and Bono talked about Johnny Cash and visiting Hendersonville (where the parentals live!). Meiska sang and sighed and danced and took pictures until she thought her heart would burst. Finally the band played With or Without You, Meiska's favorite, and even though they left out the "Yeah, we'll shine like stars in the Summer night . . ." bit, it was glorious. And so real.
Bono got out his shiny light jacket for Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me. When it was all over, Meiska and the Joshua-friend made their way out into the streets, bought a shirt, and headed home. Meiska's fizzy mind, laughing eyes, and muffled ears floated home on a cloud of happy.
A little video I put together (it's not spectacular, but it shall suffice):
Set List:
Even Better Than The Real Thing
The Fly
Mysterious Ways
Until The End Of The World
I Will Follow
Get On Your Boots
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
The Wanderer
Stay (Faraway, So Close!)
Beautiful Day
Elevation
Pride (In The Name Of Love)
Miss Sarajevo
Zooropa
City Of Blinding Lights
Vertigo
I'll Go Crazy / Discotheque
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Scarlet
Walk On
Encore
One
Where The Streets Have No Name
Encore 2
Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me
With Or Without You
Moment Of Surrender
All I Want is You
The next day, Sunday, saw soreness like none Meiska had experienced before. Apparently standing in the sun for 6 hours, and then standing for 3 more hours in the moonlight, is enough to almost kill a person. Meiska's back threw a tantrum, and Meiska appeased it by taking it to Casa Vieja for a Chile Relleno. The Joshua-friend ate veggie fajitas. Then they attempted a rescue of his car. Mon pere said that the Joshua-friend's car probably just had a broken belt, which was excellent news to the Joshua-friend's ear, much better than he was thinking it would be. They drove to the car to discover if it was indeed the belt. As Meiska cut wild flowers, she heard joyful shouting from the Joshua-friend.
"There's no belt!" he (happily) cried.
And they drove away.
Meiska spent the rest of the day binge eating episodes of Grey's Anatomy (her great vice) and laying in the front yard fishing for more stars (once you get some, you just can't stop).
And finally Meiska made it to Monday, a day she would have normally been sitting at her desk in her office, drawing away, but was instead being spent cleaning her room (an activity she relishes). Gabriel finally came home, so the siblings drove to Cracker Barrel to eat American food on Independence Day. They had an excellent server named Terri who was amazing, then they went out to the porch to play checkers for FOREVER. It should be noted that Meiska hates the game of checkers.
Meiska drove into the city to find the fireworks. The Joshua-Friend met up with her and they made their way up onto the Woodland Street Bridge, over looking the temperamental Cumberland River. Soon, they were attacked by an army of insects: gnats, spiders, skinny moths, and one beetle. Soon they were joined by lots of people; lots of strangers and a few friends, all fireworks lovers. They were so close to the fireworks. Meiska couldn't stop laughing. The Joshua-friend couldn't pick his jaw up off the ground. The kids all around them couldn't stop squealing with delight! They were all delighted people. The celebrating continued at the Cabin, seasoned with laughter, good cheer, friends, descriptions of what velvet would taste like if it were a drink, and sleepiness. The day finally unwound into the next and after Gabriel opened the trick door to let her out, Meiska drove to work with a sleepy contentedness. Mmm.
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