I have some rules for life someone e-mailed me years ago that I kept because I liked them. Today, I'm reminded of one: Once a year, go somewhere you've never been.
I often forget how invigorating this little tid bit is. I personally never would have gone to Magna, Utah to the Great Saltair Theater to see a Panic at the Disco concert on my own. It was my daughter's new found interest in the band that took us there. (That's her in the pic in line ahead of me.)
She wanted to go, so as a birthday present, I agreed to take her. I was a little unsure what we were getting into, but after listening to the music, I figured it was probably harmless. In fact, it reminded me of 80's music. For someone my age, that might be considered a plus. Now, had I realized the venue had no air conditioning in July, I might have thought twice. The Great Saltair has big, open windows that let in the salt marsh breezes off the Great Salt Lake, so I guess the name makes sense. If you've ever smelled a salt marsh, you know it has a distinct smell, even putrid at times.
As luck would have it, the day was not extremely hot and the building was not the oven it could have been without all those windows, but that's not to say I didn't sweat like a pig because I did.
The Saltair is just a big, open room with a stage at one end. The balcony held the bar, which was nice. Kept all the drinkers upstairs and out of the kids downstairs. I mean, it is Utah. The beer is only 2% alcohol, so I guess you'd have to work pretty hard to get drunk on that. Still, it was nice not to have to worry about my kid mingling with strange drunks.
She mostly had other teeny boppers to mingle with who liked this off beat band as much as she does, which isn't really available to her in our rural Idaho town. I have to admit I feel a little proud of her for not being afraid to step out of the mainstream when there are so many obstacles to her doing so.
That said, she tried to ignore me the entire time. What's dorkier than going to a concert with your mom? That combined with the fact that most of the kids were older than her probably made her feel she had act cool. She met some nice kids though. And what interesting kids they were!
I don't know what you call this kind of clique these days because high school is such a distant memory to me. Maybe its the new normal? They weren't classic emo, although there were a lot of black tee shirts. They had hair dyed every shade of the rainbow, some with disastrous results. Piercings of all kinds, just the sort of thing you'd expect, but there was no angst. Just fun.
It was gold mine for this writer's mind. These kids are definitely going into my next book whether they like it or not. Yes kids, I'm the creepy old lady watching you. Hehehe! Just kidding. I wasn't plotting at the time, but looking back now, I can see an awful lot of great characters, which brings me back to the point of all this yammering here.
I find my best writing comes when I travel, when I step outside my comfort zone and go some place I've never been. Perhaps that's because of the nature of books themselves? The best books take you places you've never been, no? Yes, they do. That's the magic of reading and writing. Remember that writer friends~
Gotta share some little clips with you here, just to give you a flavor for the concert. You can't see much, but lights. Just enjoy the music and check out those pipes on Brendan Urie! Wowza! Great concert guys! :) Rock on!
