“Hypocritical, egotistical,
Don’t want to be the parenthetical, hypothetical,
Working onto something that I’m proud of, out of the box,
An epoxy to the world & the vision we’ve lost.
I’m an apostrophe.
I’m just a symbol to remind you that there’s more to see.
I’m just a product of the system, a catastrophe,
And yet a masterpiece, & yet I’m half-diseased,
And when I am deceased,
At least I go down to the grave & die happily,
Leave the body & my soul to be a part of thee.
I do what it takes.”
– Imagine Dragons, “Whatever It Takes”
There is something truly special about music. It touches the human soul in a way that words alone never will (a fact I must come to terms with every day given my chosen profession). Music has the power to make us feel any range of emotions, to connect across borders that seem to divide us, & to create movement in moments of life that seem stagnant & still.
For over a decade, my favorite band has been Imagine Dragons. Their lyrics are enchanting poetry, & the breadth of their musical talent has always made me want to turn up my headphones to the loudest setting & listen for hours. Even more than that, though, the authenticity & vulnerability of their music is something I both appreciate & respect. Their music helped me through some of my most difficult years. I grew up with their songs on my Favorites playlist. I started my day with them, & I fell asleep at night listening to their melodies. Their music inspired me to keep moving, to follow my dreams, & to never give up. Most importantly, their words taught & reassured me that, no matter what I was going through in life, I was not alone.
For my birthday, my husband, Joseph, gifted me the bucket list item I had been wanting to cross off for years: Concert tickets to Imagine Dragons. Because the two of us can never resist making a travel opportunity out of any trip, no matter how small, we booked an Airbnb & packed our bags for a weekend in Pittsburgh.
The drive in was a bit treacherous with moments of snow so thick we couldn’t see the cars in front of us. Driving along slowly, we finally broke free of the storm & arrived in sunny but chilly Pittsburgh. We crossed over the bright yellow bridge into the city, looking out over the harbor.
“You know, Pittsburgh is known for their bridges,” I remarked, looking out at the many bridges we could see just from our current point of view.
“Is that true, or are you just saying that because you see bridges,” Joseph asked, to which I laughed.
“It’s true,” I insisted. As it turns out, this is true, but not nearly to the extent that I had been thinking. Pittsburgh has 446 bridges, more than any other city in the entire world! It is actually known as the “City of Bridges,” & these structures connect all different parts of the city that used to be isolated from each other by valleys, creeks & rivers.
Our first stop was our Airbnb. We had booked a private room in a red mansion with high ceilings & chandeliers. In our room, old radiators, an antique sink with two faucets (one for hot water, & the other for cold), a wooden writing desk, & collectible toys & games added to the old-fashioned ambience.
We drove to Point State Park to see the fountain, which, unfortunately, was not currently in use. It was easy to see why – the river that surrounded it was covered in large chunks of ice. The wind off the water was bitterly strong – it stung our faces & cut through our many layers, chilling us to the bone.
We left the park to walk up the nearby streets in search of a spot for dinner. I had wanted to try a famous Pittsburgh pierogi, but all of the shops that sold them were closed or too far away to walk. Instead, we chose Revel, a refined American restaurant that serves hand-crafted cocktails & an array of breakfast, lunch & dinner options. The restaurant was full, but luckily there was one table left for the two of us. For drinks, we ordered the Barrel-Aged Manhattan (for Joseph), a drink that’s normally bitter but here went down smooth & warm, & the Blackberry-Sage Margarita (for me), a sweet drink with a well-balanced sour & earthy punch that went down far too easily. To give a nod to Pennsylvania, we decided to start with the Bavarian Pretzel, which was served warm, sprinkled with flaky rosemary sea salt & served with a ramekin filled with creamy drunken bechamel sauce. For dinner, we shared the Mixed Grill, a dish that allows you to choose your protein & sides to make a unique plate. We chose succulently cooked steak, buttery shrimp, roasted brussels sprouts that were drowned in a balsamic sauce, all served on top of savory, tri-colored fingerling potatoes.
Our seating & restaurant choice led us to a fortuitous encounter with another couple who were also on their way to the concert. We spent our dinner at two separate tables of two that really should have been pushed together to make one table of four – we chatted through appetizers, dinner & drinks, getting to know one another & swapping stories. Lindsey & Joseph connected over their professions in the mental health field. Lindsey & I connected over our love for Imagine Dragons, & Jason & Joseph connected over the fact that they are both such kind partners to gift their significant others tickets to their favorite band.
Near the end of the meal, Jason kindly offered their parking pass to us, saying it was just going to go to waste. He & Lindsey had booked a hotel close to the concert & planned on walking instead. Per his insistence, we accepted graciously. The plan before this was to walk all the way back to our car after the concert, which I was growing more & more anxious about by the second. The walk was going to be 20 minutes on the darkened streets in Pittsburgh in high winds & freezing weather. I was more than willing to trade sitting in concert traffic for 20 minutes in a heated car.
We departed to go to the concert, which was hosted at the PPG Paints Arena. The crowd was enormous! I had not been around this many people since the start of COVID! We bought merchandise to serve as a souvenir, & then found our seats just before the lights began to dim.
The concert did not just meet my expectations – it greatly exceeded them. Everything was perfect. All of the elements of the concert, including videos, lights, stage movement, & more, worked seamlessly together to tell a story. And it was a story we could all connect with – the pain, struggle, & grief that we experience in life, & yet the beauty that can be found as well. I can’t remember any two hours ever passing faster – I was entranced for the entirety of it, moving with the music, screaming the lyrics with the crowd, & wiping tears that had sprang to my eyes from the beauty of it all.
At the end of the concert, there was no encore. As we were reaching the end, I was wondering if there would be. It seemed they had played every song in their discography, & each one was performed at the level that an encore would be. What Imagine Dragons did was even more perfect. The concert began with the first song of their latest album, Mercury – Act 1, but they left it unfinished & moved on to the next song in their program. At the end of the concert, they picked it up where they left off & ended on the most powerful note of the entire night. It was a story that came full circle, with an ending so beautiful, there was no need for anything more.
It was all we could talk about on the ride home. It was all I could talk about while laying in bed that night. It was all I could dream about all night long. The concert had been cathartic. It had touched my soul in the way only music can. It was as if the songs brought up all of the deepest hurts I had experienced thus far in my life & all the memories I had experienced with this music as my only comfort, but then they wiped the tears from my face & whispered to me that I’m not alone, & it’s all going to be okay.
The following morning, my bliss was brought by an abrupt halt with a blinding pain that brought very different tears to my eyes. In an attempt to avoid the hot radiator in our room, I stubbed my pinky toe on the antique bed post. Eyes squeezed shut, thinking of nothing but pain, I hopped around the room on one foot, holding my other injured foot in my hands.
“Are you okay,” Joseph asked, staring at me with wide eyes. I glanced down at my foot to see the toe had already swelled & turned bright red.
We had a few plans still left in our Pittsburgh itinerary, & I am never one to quit, so I stuffed my injured foot in my hiking boot & insisted I was fine. Limping along behind Joseph, we went to visit the Monongahela Incline, a passenger railway built in 1870 that travels straight up the side of Mount Washington. At the top, we were able to get a fantastic view of the Pittsburgh skyline, complete with a couple bridges stretching across the river.
We stopped for coffee at Grand Brew & then went to Grandview Bakery & Sweet Shop for a small breakfast. I ordered the lemon bar, which was four times the size of the normal dessert. The tender crust was perfectly baked, & the curd was both gooey & tangy – precisely what a lemon bar should be. It was finished with a dusting of powdered sugar like freshly fallen snow. Joseph ordered his first ever eclair, & he was happy to report that it did not disappoint. The pastry cream was creamy & not too sweet, while the dough was so flaky it practically melted on the tongue. The chocolate topping was just enough to taste & add nuance to the dessert, but not so much that it overwhelmed the flavor. And once again, the portion size was enough to fill an entire family, but of course, we couldn’t let the sweet confections go to waste.
After breakfast, we returned to our car to drive to our final destination – Ohiopyle State Park, known for its spectacular waterfall views just an hour outside of the city. Despite my aching injured toe, we hiked the entirety of the three-mile Meadow Run Trail, which features two different waterfalls & natural waterslides. Most likely from the recent snowfall, the water was rushing over the rocks, crashing so loud that it was difficult to hear any conversation. But the result, instead of being chaos, was serenity. Long vines & branches dipped into the water, & where the current had touched the leaves, ice grew, weighing the trees down even farther. Where water normally cascaded off high perches, ice instead reached down towards the river below, sparkling in the sunlight. And all along the bank, stones made smooth by the rushing water were piled up amongst one another, revealing that, if we stand firm & strong, the pressures of life do not break us, but instead, smooth our rough edges & leave us even more peaceful than before.
There is so much pain in life. There are so many moments where the world around us seems like chaos, like water rushing past with a current so strong if we dared step in, we would be swept away. Life is plagued with grief & disappointments, & often, it can leave us feeling hopeless & alone.
But so many of these painful aspects of life actually contribute to its beauty. So often, we are focused on the chaos, when at any moment, we could turn & notice the peace that is just a few steps away in another direction. There are so many moments that make us want to scream, but an equal amount that make us sing. The finite nature of life is what makes the temporary moments of beauty so special. And grief itself is love for things that are no longer here with us on earth.
The most important thing to remember when traversing this life is that we are not alone. In the body of people at that concert, as we all sang as one, the lyrics touching all of our hearts, it was clear that we are all hurting, beautiful, complex, & magnificent beings. We are catastrophes & yet masterpieces. We are products of the system, & yet each us is unique in so many ways.
“I’m an apostrophe. I’m just a symbol to remind you that there’s more to see.” If you are struggling, I hope this will be the message you need. I am an apostrophe – so much of who I am seems insignificant in this world, & yet, here you are reading my work. And I want you to know that there is so much more to this life. There is so much beauty & struggle & joy & pain to experience, & you are not alone in any of those things. Your life matters, your presence brings value to the lives of those around you, & your story is not over yet.