A performer at one of the venues I visit told me that she appreciates the vibe I bring to a room, especially since I'm frequently occupying space in venues not catering to black people (this comment was from a fellow black woman). In essence she was calling me a whole vibe, a party starter, a “wild flame, a live wire.” I truly appreciated the thought and her directness in telling me so!

But how did I get to being a whole vibe? For years, after my husband's passing, I was stuck on Elegy Island. Joy was elusive.

The solution was that either I put up or shut up--and I did my fair share of bed rotting self-pity sessions. But at a certain point, I had to acknowledge that l'd been granted more life than my husband for a reason.

It took me a while to show up for myself, to stop missing out on fun because I was afraid to go to events alone. But I started to ignore my own discomfort and just show up to the party, the museum, the restaurant.

I have some tips regarding getting to whole vibe status below:

1) Lean into to what you love but do it on a scale that feels right, on a scale that does not overwhelm. I love music, but I don't go to huge venues. Many people think going to a concert means seeing an expensive headliner in a stadium meant for professional sports. I instead go to shows by working musicians (like the woman who gave me this splendid compliment) who appreciate me being there in the first place.

2) Dance like nobody's watching, even if someone is. I often get told by other women at events: “I wish I could dance like you.” It's not that my dance moves are great. It's because I'm so into the music that I don't care if anyone's watching. It pains me to think there are women who sideline themselves from joy because they're scared to be seen. Join me next time, I should say. But I don't. It's up to each individual to unfurl their own wallflower.

3) If you keep showing up for yourself, other people will start showing up for you. After attending a lot of events alone, I started getting to know my fellow light up a room people. Before I knew it, I had dance buddies in various places throughout the state of Illinois. Weekends are now about seeing shows and seeing friends at those shows.

4) Bring a spare set of clothes and make sure your dancing shoes work on multiple surfaces. I have danced on wood, on grass, on concrete, in parking lots, and in municipal parks during outdoor free concert season. I get up as close as I can to the stage (and have ear plugs in my purse in case it's too loud).

5) Practice your boogie alone. I'm a “dance while cooking dinner” fan. I'm a “dance in the supermarket” kinda gal. I'm even a “dance to the telephone hold music” type of person. Normalizing moving to music when I'm not at a venue makes being at a venue to move to music all the less daunting. Despite all my trips to hear music, I'm still frequently alone, with my own record collection and my own mirrored reflection.

6) I never rely on alcohol to turn me to a party starter. But if I do drink, I make sure there's food in my system and plain water for hydration.

7) Most importantly, relax. I usually am among the first, if not the first, on the dance floor. But if there's an evening where I'd rather be spectator than spectacle, I lean into that. Even dancing shoes need a rest sometimes.

Exception: if “September” by Earth, Wind, and Fire is playing, I'm contractually obligated by the ghost of Maurice White to dance. After all, as he told us in “Boogie Wonderland,” we have to “dance and shake the hurt.” That's how we know the hurt won't drown us.

A big contender for me is Led Zeppelin's “Fool in the Rain.”

Not only is that song a jam and a persuasive argument that Led Zeppelin could be funky, but it would pop into my head whenever, in this summer of unfathomable heat, I'd get caught in the rain and I'd end up soaking wet.

I got caught in the rain in Aurora, coming back to my hotel from the oddly Christian thrift store on the hill. I caught in the rain in Chicago walking to LaSalle Station from Union Station, wearing a bright blue spotted poncho and clutching my dark blue spotted umbrella. I got caught in the rain dashing to J's car after that train ride from LaSalle Station. Just call me rainmaker.

I wish I could tell you I felt like an ancient fertility goddess each time I got caught in a downpour. But I felt more like a naked mole rat drowning in a sewer. Summer rain is odd because you're already warm and sweaty but nature is telling you, “wait up, girl, I'm about to show you what true showers feel like!”

Despite the rain and the heat and the hours I spent traveling from one end of Illinois to the other, I had a delightful summer. I danced whenever and wherever I could. I went to as many concerts as my budget would allow. I found my dancing shoes (which I wore despite the rain) and bought another pair of dancing shoes. I saw friends and made friends and left enough time for solitude so that my ambivert nature was fed, but not overwhelmed. I read my poems in a brand new bookstore located in a mall where, decades earlier, my late husband and I read poems as an event during a corn festival. I read my poems under the trees in New York's Bryant Park, where I told the crowd I'd come full circle: a girl from from the Bronx who loved poems was now reading her poems at a lectern in Manhattan, bringing her Midwestern poetry professor bonafides with her. I had to read fast however, because of the threat of--you guessed it--rain.

The rain didn't wash me clean of sin or anything redemptive like that. But it did make my summer shenanigans all the more shiny, slick with the sheen of raindrops and my own sweat, which is way preferable to the tears of previous summers. Anytime the rain canceled plans, there was an alternate plan for hijinks that I ended up loving just as much, if not more. And as a big fan of the television show “Parks and Recreation,” I got to yell “PONCHO” Jen Barkley style (iykyk) upon donning my polka dotted garment that wasn't quite a raincoat.

Yes, I was a fool in the rain, and this summer, I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Rain blurred poncho pic--ha ha!

So imagine my surprise when, at this stage in my life, I have found myself with a lively and hilarious friend group. The group chat is worth the price of admission alone.

How did I do it? Well, it wasn't anything I rationally set out to do. But I kept seeing the same folks, over and over, attending the same musical events that I spent this summer going to. The nods of recognition turned into singalongs turned into plans to see each other at other events again. We made the shenanigans official by instituing the greatest invention of the century: the friend group dedicated group chat. Thus the in jokes and hilarious text chains can continue during the work week. I don't live near the other friend group members but that doesn't seem to be impeding the fun.

I'm glad I opened myself up to the possibility of being part of such an entertaining enterprise. As an ambivert, I don't mind going to events alone: the hard part for me is knowing who is safe to talk to and who is not safe. With this friend group, I have built in conversation pals, musical resource historians, and transportation safety personnel at my disposal.

My fall semester will begin soon, and with that, I'll have fewer opportunities to visit with my friend group. But there still will be visits on holidays and weekends and school breaks. There will be more dance floor singalongs and more chicken wings and soft pretzels shared before hitting the dance floor. I'll bring the wet naps so no one has to wipe buffalo sauce on their pants. I promise to uphold the by laws and conditions of this precious group, even as we are making them up as we go along. Spontaneity rules, and also has rules of its own. I'm just grateful to these lovely folk for taking a chance on me, for meeting me where my heart truly comes alive: on the dance floor.

I am a bridge and tunnel NYC teen. Somehow it doesn't bother my otherwise strict Caribbean parents that I'm going out dancing in Manhattan with my high school friends. This is the era where I'm not a punk, but I'm definitely a New Waver, a fan of groups like the Talking Heads, the Police, XTC, Blondie, Squeeze, the Style Council, the Pretenders, the Clash, and the Cars. I end up in with my high school friends in a cavernous club called the Ritz. There's an enormous video screen and I'm mesmerized at the video playing while we're dancing: an enormous Ric Ocasek in a cartoonish video landscape, his spiky hair and dark glasses filling the screen. It's not my favorite song by the Cars, but I can't take my eyes off the screen and its cavalcade of images.

So when three nights ago, the lead vocalist of Best Friends Girl, a Cars cover band playing their first Chicago-area gig ever for the crowd at the Lyric Theater, mentioned that song and that video, for a moment I was 17 again, getting into clubs with a fake ID and a smile, worried about high school math while some stockbroker in the men's bathroom was doing lines no one taught me about in geometry class.

But back to reality--what I actually was, there on the dancefloor, wad a late-middle-aged widow with a dopamine sticker on her thigh and a bottle of Tylenol PM back at the hotel. For a brief moment though, I felt as if I were simultaneously that girl who knew grief (her beloved mother was dying of cancer all through her late teens) and the woman who now danced at the Lyric, a woman who has embraced life despite grief, despite her steady accumulation of losses.

You might think all this would be overwhelming but it actually was liberating. The music I loved then is much of the same music I love now, except now Gen Zers host YouTube channels where they discover my era of music like it's the Paleolithic era they're referencing. Ric Ocasek, the surviving lead vocalist of the Cars, died a few years ago. His model wife, who cared for him during his illness even though they were exes, has happily remarried, a People Magazine article reveals to me.

I am beholden to the power of music and memory, but I also hope to draw solace from my past: all the griefs and the groans, the agonies and the joys, the actions and behaviors that gave us all bad reputations, well-deserved or not. I will survive, and I will treasure every single era of music I get to experience.

I go dancing as often as I possibly can. During my marriage, my husband wasn't big on dancing, though we once hosted dance parties in our grad school apartment in Bloomington. In widowhood, I've decided that dancing equals joy.

I've danced at the free summer concerts in my little college town. I've danced at all the tribute shows I go to in Urbana, Aurora, and Chicago. I've danced on dance floors in New Orleans (my favorite memory is dancing in a lace up corset and a blue tutu at Tipitina's while Rebirth Brass Band brought that NOLA funk).

So finding the right pair of shoes is a particular struggle. Of course, there are shoes that professional dancers wear, but those are more than I need. There are sneakers, but sneakers can be a bit heavy for dancing all night long. High heels are much too painful for me to walk in, much less dance in for hours on end.

So that leaves me with flats. I have tons of flats for everyday walking, but I like to think of dancing shoes as special--cute but sturdy, stylish but practical (I'm often walking home or back to my hotel when the show's over and the dancing is done).

I was just about to give up my search when I spotted these shoes that I'd bought last Halloween for my Tinkerbell costume:

I hadn't worn them since last October, since I don't usually dress as a cartoon fairy sidekick. But I slipped them on a few days ago as I was planning another trip to go hear music and hopefully dance.

And dance I did! The cute little fairy shoes held up as I danced at yet another tribute show. Tonight I'm headed over to the Lyric Theater in Blue Island, another favorite spot of mine--it's a reclaimed movie palace that now hosts lots of concerts and other events.

I'll be wearing my cute little fairy shoes tonight on the light up dance floor at the Lyric. I'll also remind myself of their lesson: when searching for what you think you don't have, remember what you've already got. This applies to much more than shoes, don't you think?

That may sound like a rhetorical question but it's not. At least, it wasn't last night.

Yesterday my friend B and her adorable daughter M joined me for a concert in Bloomington, Illinois. It was one of those free summer concerts that are popular this time of year--the bring your own lawn chair and cooler type events.

The band on stage was our favorite Steely Dan tribute band, Chicago's very own Brooklyn Charmers. I've seen this band so often that I know the major dudes in it a little bit--the bassist in particular (he's a young dad whose wife is expecting another child soon).

The band is eminently polished and professional. The dude on lead vocal is a second generation rock musician (his dad is a local Illinois legend who was in that “Eye of the Tiger” band). Everything was set for a fun night of free music.

Except the sound system and crowd amplification kept cutting off. The band would launch into a song, the crowd would start singing along, and then the sound would cut out. This kept happening--starting and stopping, until the band left the stage that had been set up across from the local history museum.

I thought that was the end of the day's shenanigans. Surely no one could blame the musicians if they packed up then and there to drive back to Chicago.

But then something extraordinary happened then. One of the band's two lead guitarists stepped back on stage, guitar strapped on--and since there was enough power for his amp alone, he proceeded to electrify that college town audience (which at this point, had gotten restless from the prolonged wait) with a string of Hendrix inspired guitar solos. The crowd was invested now. We were all rooting for him!

Eventually, after more waiting, and after an apology from the manager of the theater who brought the band down from Chicago, the band members took the stage again. This time, whatever repairs the sound techs had enacted held, and we sang along with the Charmers to those cynical but beloved Steely Dan classics. The band stayed way past the alloted time, playing deeper into the evening than anyone had a right to expect.

There's an object lesson here: when things are breaking down and joy is on pause, find a way to step forward, to seize the moment with brilliance, to make music happen despite whatever adversity is being thrown your way.

It's a lesson I sorely needed. In my loneliness, I have tended to give up, to shut down, to make myself feel small and adrift. I need to learn to step forward when things look like failure, and declare--in whatever fashion--that I'm here to stay. I need to stand up and stand out before doubt seizes me and I crumple like a folding chair. I owe that much to myself. And so do you.

You may wonder, is there really such a need for such a day? Being widowed is terrible but why the acknowledgement of private sorrow?

I happen to be a very lucky widow. There were only a few months where my becoming a widow was an economic crisis as well as an emotional/spiritual crisis, and as soon as I got my husband's death certificate, I changed that condition. I'm lucky in that I deal with isolation and depression, not poverty, as a consequence of marital loss.

Globally, widows often deal with terrible poverty, and are left to feed and care for minor children in war zones and disputed territories. In some societies, widows are shunned as if unclean.

I have the luxury of grief. That sounds weird to think of grief as luxurious, but I could afford grief counseling when the world felt like it was closing in on me. I was able to pay off the mortgage on the house my late husband and I bought together, so I never have to worry about not having a place to live, as some widows do. When I do retire, I can choose to live here or somewhere else of my choosing.

In honor of International Widows Day, I invite you to join me in making a donation to any organization whose aim is to help women in poverty, whether they are widows or not. I'm going to donate a few dollars to my late husband's favorite charity: the Heifer Project (heifer.org).

Many times during my grief process, I lost my way, literally (I have a terrible sense of direction) and figuratively (harming myself and letting people harm me). But I never had to find a way to feed starving kids or had to fear if an enemy combat soldier was going to assault me. Widowhood, for me, has been a struggle, but it hasn't been a day to day existence of sectarian violence and extreme penury. I'm not really a praying person but there is a faint hope in me that we, as global citizens, will move our nations toward peace and reconciliation. I bow my head in that hope, and wish for a better, brighter, safer world.

Why are we here? Who are we?

What is the meaning of life?

Why, after years of silence, do ex lovers suddenly decide to contact the person they dumped?

I don't have answers to the first three questions, but I'm grappling with that last one.

Early into my widowhood journey, I found myself horny as hell. My late husband and I had fallen into the rut of many married couples--putting romance last when so many other things were calling for our attention. Then his various illnesses and maladies took center stage, and though his death was wrenchingly sudden, it wasn't entirely unexpected.

Thus I found myself, middle-aged, lonely, and horny in a world that had changed dramatically since my husband and I fell for each other in graduate school.

I had some catching up to do. Dating apps were something I'd heard of, but hadn't experienced. Men online in their profiles presented themselves in all sorts of ways: holding dead fish, holding dead deer, posing in sports stadiums dressed head to toe in team colors, straddling motorcycles. Ugh.

The profiles were barely literate. So when I happened upon one that was well written, with a handsome older gentleman on stage playing a guitar, I was interested and intrigued.

He turned out to be a professional man who, in his semi-retirement, spent his time playing in bands. Upon initial contact, he scolded me--my loss was too recent for me to be dating. I agreed, and gave him my number anyway.

Thus we became, as my students call it, a situationship. As the pandemic took hold, our quasi relationship grew in secret: texting, phone calls, explicit pics and horny nicknames. I never met his family or friends, though I heard all about them.

I never did meet his people. Our trysts took place in my town, in a local hotel. Since most of the relationship took place under of the cover the world's shutdown, there weren't any romantic dinners, just take out pizza and complimentary hotel breakfasts.

He dumped me as restrictions eased and his life picked back up--gigs with his band were back, and I was no longer of interest. He claimed he was seeing another woman (later he claimed she didn't exist, and that he dumped me because I was a messy hoarder who was never going to leave her little college town). I think the actual truth lies somewhere in the midst of all those contradictions.

After wailing to him over Google Meet (RIP to our video conferencing sneaky link), I pulled myself together. In the aftermath, I was not only mourning my dead husband, but also mourning this sex-fueled situationship, and then coping with illnesses of my own. I educated myself on narcissistic behavior and learned that I was “supply”--someone used for a while by another only to be eventually discarded. I grew more confident in what I wanted from other relationships, though I still made mistakes.

So when a message from that man appeared two days ago in my direct messing app, I was dumbstruck. It was video of a recent performance of his band, accompanied by the sentences “It's been a minute” and “Hope you're doing well.” It's been far longer than a minute and I'm finally out of grief's ringer. But I didn't tell him that. I answered his message with a single word: “thanks.” I don't intend to say anything more. He's got a life far more filled with friends and family than mine. I remain, as I told him in one of our last correspondences years ago, “a lonely widow,” and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that being who I am.

I was back in Urbana, at one of my favorite spots to hear music, sitting at the bar with friends, when the tall stranger popped up once again. This was a gentleman who I'd danced with four times previously, the last time being the occasion for him to utter “just so you know, I'm married.”

Here he was again, handsome as all get out. He wanted to dance once the music started again. When it did, we took to a little bit of room in that dive bar, dancing to an impromptu band of musicians who brought the funk.

By now, I knew he was married, and as we danced, I made sure to keep my distance, despite the longing in my nerves. After the show was over.and the musicians were packing up, I decided to learn more about this happily married man who had somehow become my preferred dance partner.

He told me me that he had research privileges here at this Midwestern big 10 university, a rare arrangement in his field. He talked of his background and I shared mine, describing my lost love.

It's not easy being a grieving widow, and life keeps putting unavailable men in my path. But this was just dancing, nothing more, despite the attraction I fight every time I see this man.

Finally, I asked the question that had been haunting me all the previous times this tall stranger and I connected on the dance floor. Bluntly, I said: “does your wife know you dance with strange women in bars?”

He said yes, and explained that his wife didn't share his taste in music, so he had carte blanche to dance to the blues away from home. His wife, a decade younger than he, preferred 80s music. And thus I uttered the “no homewrecker” line.

I kind of wish I were though: a siren to lead men into messy affairs. It sounds interesting, at the very least.

But no, even in my sorrow and grief, I'm not able to destroy other people's relationships. I'm barely capable of flirting. I'm just too fundamentally honest.

The tall stranger and I parted ways after a little more conversation. I will return to my home tomorrow, and I won't think of him calling his wife, or him headed back to their home. I'll find other ways to fill the silence at the center of my life, without capsizing other people's lives. But oh, wouldn't I love to be disruptive, just for one day. I'll keep my wild hungers to myself, despite the desires that run beneath my skin, the desires that spark whenever the music begins and a stranger joins me on the dance floor.

Minutes prior, I'd noticed the gold band on his finger.

It was the fourth time this tall stranger had asked me to dance at this establishment in a town where, it turns out, neither of us live.

The first time we danced, he'd startled me by dancing directly in front of me and, startled, I moved away from him. But later that evening, he apologized for startling me and I consented to dance with him. We ended up dancing together for so long that evening to the extent that a woman nearby said something to the effect of “you must be a couple the way you dance together.” Startled again, I declared “oh no, we just met!”

Flash forward to last Saturday. The tall stranger wanted to dance again and asked me to join him on the makeshift patio/parking lot. Unlike the first time we danced, this was outside under a tent. I said yes, partially because male attention is scant in my version of Widow World.

I was having a great time, sipping gin and tonics in the almost-summer humidity. Between dances, we finally sat together at the same table, and I noticed the thick gold band on his ring finger.

“I just love to dance,” he explained. As we talked, we discovered we were both academics: he retired, me still teaching. We both had our reasons for spending time in a college town where neither of us were on the faculty.

I started to think: how would I feel if I were the wife at home while my retired professor husband was dancing in bars with other women? No lines were crossed (at least with me). After this tall stranger admitted to being a married man, I put more distance between him and me on the dance floor.

Maybe I'm making too much of this, but I'd be sad if I were his wife. The joy he was expressing by dancing with a stranger isn't joy she's privy to. It feels innocent, yet sneaky.

I told him I am a widow. Unlike most people, he didn't utter a platitude in response such as “I'm so sorry.” I told him I was contemplating retirement soon myself, to which he responded “you look too young for that!”

Ha! My vita would beg to differ.

At evening's end, I gave the tall stranger a hug. He said something akin to “see you next time.”

But should there be a next time? I thought about that as I walked the short distance back to my hotel. His marriage issues aside, dancing with him all night prevents me from meeting someone NOT married, someone not entangled.

And just for the record, the tall stranger is an excellent dancer, prone to shuffles and spins that I found enchanting.

I'm looking forward to dancing again at this establishment. But should I see the tall stranger again, I'll think twice about dancing with him. I'm already touch-starved and prone to limerence. I can go overboard on the slightest bit of male interest.

The question for me remains: dear sir, why isn't your wife here with you to dance? Why are you outsourcing a pleasure you should be sharing with her? Inquiring minds want to know.

The first time I was alone in a hotel room after my late husband's passing, I wanted to die.

I had the means with me. I was in Chicago, alone, early November. I had been a visiting poet the day before at a high school in suburban Chicago. My husband and partner in all things literary had died mere weeks before, but I saw my commitment through and did my author appearance at the festival. But the next day, alone in an unfamiliar hotel, I could no longer keep the despair back. I wanted to swallow the entire lot of sleeping pills in that bottle I'd persuaded my doctor to prescribe. I wanted to feel nothing--to crawl back into the protective numbness I sensed in the immediate aftermath of loss.

Flash forward to right now: I write this from the City of New Orleans train, stretched out on a bed in a train compartment complete with its own bathroom.

Getting from grief-stunned widow to intrepid solo traveler was no easy journey. I marvel that that woman was me: feeling utterly raw and devastated with loss, she wanted to erase her pain in one fell swoop. Somehow I turned aside the pain for long enough for reason to kick in. I didn't even touch a single pill that day, and I kept that vial of pills in my medicine cabinet for years. I never refilled the prescription.

I had many times where the grief was like an eternal anchor. I wanted to mute it, to consign to a hour a day instead of this steady wail of pain I felt. But slowly I felt the pain subside--it wasn't with me 24/7 anymore, and grief was changing with me as I was changing--becoming more independent, more essentially myself (learning to say “I” rather than “we” took eons). Several half-realized relationships and one pandemic later, I realized that my suffering didn't honor what my husband and I stood for in life. We stood for pleasure, for curiosity, for side quests and road trips, for trip playlists and unfolded maps.

I'm on my way to New Orleans, a place we loved as a couple, spending one of our wedding anniversaries there. I returned to New Orleans the December directly after my husband's death and that November high school visit. I was utterly miserable, too frightened by grief to let loose in a city where letting loose is the fiercest economic engine.

It took several subsequent visits to NOLA to regain that feeling I'd had when we explored it as a couple. It took starting to know the city beyond its most blatant tourist traps for me to revisit that feeling of lovely wonder, that delight in exploring unfamiliar places.

I'm so glad that version of me waited out the pain. I get to live for both of us. Missing J will always have a deep plangency, but I am thoroughly convinced now that he'd want to see me thriving. I am working more and more toward that joy he'd want for me. It's not easy work, but I'm steadier now, able to embrace all the possibilities we once plotted together.

But for me, as a childless widowed person, this time of the year can be tricky when it comes to loneliness. At semester's end, the college town I live in empties out. I “hood” my graduate students at graduation and send them off to their next adventure. Our graduation weekend is usually the same weekend as Mother's Day, a day where people awkwardly wish me “Happy Mother's Day,” despite me having been only a kind mentor, not an actual mother. My own maternal figures are all gone from this world, and that never feels right.

It's a joyous time for a lot of people and I do feel a bit of that joy. It's an tremendous honor to send people into their next lives. But I'd be lying if I didn't admit to how empty I feel when I get back home from graduation ceremonies and there's only single person silence.

It takes me a few weeks to adjust to the slower, lonelier pace of summer. I try my best.There are summer concerts in town where I am known to dance if the band is hot. There's ice cream to lick and food trucks to visit. There's the Saturday farmer's market to get fresh flowers and vegetables from (and to people watch at). Occasionally I'll see someone I know at the farmer's market and will chat with them, not confiding how deeply lonely I am. I go on solo picnics, on longer walks, making sure I take care to stop at familiar cafes and thrift stores. I'll randomly text far away friends to let them know I love them. It's a beautiful yet sad life.

And yet there's absolutely nothing wrong with that sadness. It's not depression (if it were I'd accomplish absolutely nothing--no dancing or long walks, just bedrotting and doomscrolling). To quote that famous philosopher Lana del Rey, it's just that “summertime sadness,” and it's much easier for me to cope with than midwinter melancholy. I don't exactly look forward to this time of year, but by now I'm pretty fluent in accepting how bittersweet being no one's mama and no one's graduating human is (the days of my own graduations are long in the past). I may be sad, but “summer dress and sandals” sadness feels like living, like growing more beautiful in that sadness, more wise. It's a gift that feels like a burden. By summer's end, my feelings will reverse: I'll recognize that burden actually was a gift. That switch in recognition takes time, but I always seem to get to that epiphany, one ice cream cone at a time.

Don't mind me, I'm just going to go find a rocking chair.

This isn't my era of music. I'm Gen X, so I listened to the Talking Heads, Blondie, David Bowie, the Pretenders, the English Beat and the Clash/Big Audio Dynamite as a college kid (if I wasn't listening to Prince, new jack swing, or early hip hop). But I'm deeply nostalgic for this post Y2K to around 2014-5 period in music.

Why? I was faster then, having had gotten deeply into running (my idea of a great time then was running a 5K and a half-marathon in the same weekend). A lot of these songs were on my running playlists. My husband was not only alive, but both of us were publishing and teaching and editing and traveling, spending our days talking poetry and all things writing. Social media was barely a whisper.

I realize this era of rock music could be called Talk Show Indie Rock because so many of these acts had their first studio television appearances on the Letterman/Craig Ferguson/Conan ‘O Brien/ Stephen Colbert late night shows. These bands tended to have charismatic yet awkward frontmen, badass drummers, and enigmatic bass players. This era (beginning before yet concurrent with the initial rise of superstar solo performers such as Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, the Weeknd, Drake, Bruno Mars, and Beyonce) was the last gasp for rock groups. I don't think my students could name a contemporary rock group (sorry, Geese), but I teach a lot of Taylor/Sabrina/Billie (Eilish, not Holiday)/Olivia/Lana del Rey fans in their age cohort.

So I shall educate my dear children (metaphorical children since I'm childless) about this time period. These bands started their careers 20-30 years ago, yet many of those bands still tour. Some of those charismatic yet awkward frontmen now have charismatic model wives/ex-wives, or ex-drug habits (looking at you, Paul Banks of Interpol).

Speaking of Interpol, on my watch my students will know about the creepy crash test puppet in the video for their song “Evil.” My students probably know the White Stripes but I will make sure they know The Raconteurs and the Dead Weather. I shall make sure they adopt “The Future Freaks Me Out” by Motion City Soundtrack as a Gen Z anthem, once I explain who “Will & Grace” are. The playlist I envision for them also includes Bloc Party, Rilo Kiley, Metric, the Kills (not the Killers but the duo with one member (Alison Mosshart) who is the only rock star I know of who shares my first name, albeit spelled with only one l), and TV on the Radio. Back then, the groups had inscrutable names: Franz Ferdinand, Arctic Monkeys, the Hives, Jet (no the), Kaiser Chiefs.

I can't hand my students the relative stability of those years. I say relative because Foster the People’s breakthrough hit was about a school-aged spree killer. Things were definitely less bleak then though--and my mile time was a whole lot faster. I'm nostalgic for a time before Covid took Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne. I'm nostalgic for the time when we were mighty impressed by OK Go doing a routine on treadmills in a video that was one of the first to go viral. I want to back to that time before TikTok force-fed us songs in snippets and we were patient enough to listen for 3 whole minutes.

This wasn't my era, but damned if I won’t share it, weeping along with Karen O.s as she sings “Maps.” This wasn't my era, but I still have my CDs from PASTE Magazine. This wasn't my era, but I'm still going to belt out “Mr. Brightside” whenever I hear it, because that song reminds me of David Bowie's “Queen Bitch.” What goes around not only comes around but eventually gets used in TikToks, Instagram reels, and YouTube shorts.

Yes, so often in my experience of meltdowns could I have used this acronym! How many times have I been somewhere, tears welling up in my eyes out of sadness, fear, frustration, or just plain crankiness, where I could have helped myself by asking about my own hunger, my own anger, my own loneliness, my own fatigue?

In addition, I realize that hunger is deeper than just being fed. I often hunger for companionship, for touch, for knowledge of places beyond places I already know. I'm angry at so many people, institutions, occurrences, and phenomenon. My loneliness is so multi-faceted that I started this Substack to talk about it. My fatigue isn't physical per se--I'm tired of so many issues from my childhood being repackaged and used to harm communities I care about.

Now that I have this acronym, I can pause when my emotions threaten to overwhelm me. I can breathe through my anxiety. I can think about what I can do in the moment to feel better and what I can do in the future to ward off emotional crashouts.

Of course recognizing my issues doesn't solve those problems. But it's easier to get on the path to solutions if I get a surer footing beneath me, or a seat at a table that isn't constantly tilting.

As a companion acronym to HALT, I'd like to offer HOPE=hope, originality, purpose, and eagerness. I ask myself: What in life makes me feel hopeful? What can I create that's original--a poem, a meal, a dance step? What's my purpose? What am I eager to see in the world and how do I plan to get there?

With HALT and HOPE, I'm feeling more at peace than I have in a while. I'm still lonely and still a friend to my losses, but I feel that HALT and HOPE are tools to keep me from harm (that one's not an acronym; there's just a lot of heartbreak and trauma in the world). Harm may find me anyway but at least I'll know how to calm my nervous system when it does.

It's a brilliant idea: pay someone to unkink my back or massage my heels, soles, and arches. I've cried before and after massages, stumbled into parlors in major cities (shout out to the storefront massage shops of Canal Street in New Orleans), and I know I'm really getting to know any place I'm visiting if I have a favorite nail salon in that town.

Recently, I was at my home nail salon, Pro Nails and Spa in Carbondale, IL. I started getting manicures and pedicures there after my husband's death because I was looking for ways to feel better and feel pretty. It's a salon run by Vietnamese folks, with versions of the “Got Talent” shows from around the world playing on screens mounted on the walls, and massage chairs with foot basins along the wall.

I was way overdue for a mani and a pedi. I climbed into the correct chair and looked to my left. I was a little stunned to see a man several chairs down. But this gentleman looked like a pro, feet in the basin of swirling heated water, glass of red wine in his hand. I surmised that the woman next to him was his wife and I was right. He declared aloud, “we have five kids! This is the only time we get to ourselves!” Aha, I thought, this man has learned the secret!

I was even more surprised when another gentleman came in to get his feet done. He sat directly next to me, drink in hand. “Found the good life, I see,” I said to him. He mentioned the fact he could not bend over anymore to clip his toenails so why not get pampered as a solution to that problem? I had to agree.

There's something wonderful and indulgent about having hot stones and oils and creams and pampering strokes on one's legs and feet. Sure, I could just get the old polish taken off and it would cost less, but the feel of the smooth warm stones on my calves and stones, the strong hands massaging my insoles, the swirling warm water in the foot basin--all of it makes me feel seen.

I chose an blatant pink for my toenails and a more subtle pink for my fingernails.

Nail salons, beauty and barber shops, and massage spas are third spaces for their customers: not work and not home, they are spaces where we can literally emerge feeling new after time in the hands of a capable professional. For people who deal with loneliness and “skin hunger,” such spaces allow us to be touched and feel touch, to feel a little bit of renewal when much about existence is excruciating.

Here's to treating one's self, to happy painted toenails, and to hot stones on tight calves. May you leave the nail salon or massage shop with a bit more color in your life and less stress in your back.

During the Conference, a former student of mine and fellow poet asked me if I was being treated well in the little college town where I live and work. This student is gloriously happy now, married to the woman of his dreams, and is a dad now to boot. I think his real question beneath his apparent question was “are you doing ok alone now without our JT?” This student of mine knew and was also mentored by my late husband.

The answer I told this student of mine from way back: I'm the only one treating me to anything. I'm responsible for my own happiness, and there's no one in the little college town looking after me.

But maybe I need to be more like the seasonal lady bugs mentioned on a flyer I spotted at my hotel. The flyer mentioned that at this time of year, guests of the hotel should not be alarmed to find clusters of lady bugs inside, because the little critters join forces in a group and come inside the hotel to hibernate.

It sounds like an excellent plan, frankly. Find your kindred souls, come inside, snuggle together, and survive.

I'm hoping to find my cluster of bugs soon. Solitude is beautiful, but so is community.

In the meantime, I think some 🐞 earrings, bought perhaps on this trip, will signify my ongoing quest for community. Red and black is great color combination, don't you think? May we all find our bug squad(s) in these perilous times.

And that's okay.

Recently in a text message, I said to my friend B: “You may have noticed that I aggressively sing along with the band when we're at a concert.”

B texted back, “yes, that's one of the things I like about you!”

Then yesterday, riding solo at another music event, I was in the bathroom when I heard a request from another stall for toilet paper. I finished what I was doing, gathered a sizeable wad, and offered it to the person in the nearby stall, hand beneath the locked door. It turned out to be one of the beautiful vocalists from the group I'd just been dancing and singing my heart out to. She recognized me and said “I want you there any time we play!” before she rushed back to her place on stage.

My ambivert nature has me aggressively singing along but shy during the “meet and greet” afterwards. This contradiction may be maddening to some. After all, if I'm willing to dance exactly as if no one is watching, why won't I talk with the actual musicians?

I have spent a lot of time in life apologizing for being either too much, too over the top, or too withdrawn, too reluctant to draw attention to myself. But at my big age (ha!) of almost 6 decades, I'm not going to worry about that contradiction anymore. I'm doing the best I can with what I have. Sometimes what I have wants to sing “Rehab” really loud at the Amy Winehouse tribute. Sometimes what I have wants to hide in the bathroom between sets.

If I could push myself toward either pole, I'd opt for more extroversion. As a poet, I do a goodly number of public readings from my work; as a teacher of poetry, I constantly give lectures based in my deep love for the genre. But damned if I wasn't all kinds of nervous the one time I did karaoke!

If you have been accused of being both too much and also not enough, please realize you aren't alone. The folks who dislike you when you're dancing like a drunken toddler will also dislike you when that tipsy toddler wants to hide in the nearest curtains. But those folks are missing out on the wonder that is you. Make a spectacle of yourself if you want. I'll join you soon as I'm out of the bathroom.

The stage at Hanger 9, Carbondale, IL.

A day for love! And massacres.

Since I am a widowed person, you might think this love-besotted holiday would be rough on me. After all, I deeply miss my late husband. It's been difficult living without my person.

One reason Valentine's Day doesn't send me into a grief spiral like other holidays is that we, as a couple, didn't make much of the day. We loved each year round, so one day in February didn't matter much to us. We would exchange cards and have a nice dinner, but we were not dependent on Valentine's Day to do those actions anyway. We regularly wrote poems for and to one another, and as a couple with no kids, our date nights were frequent. I was not a “buy me flowers and candy” type of wife.

The fact that stores get crowded with Valentine's Day crap before the Christmas clearance sales are over bugs me. The merchandise is all crappy red plastic hearts and low grade chocolate. Ugh.

My advice to anyone alone on Valentine's Day, whether single by circumstance or by choice, is to do whatever you would do anyway. If you are alone and you like celebrating couples on social media, like their posts. If sentimental couple posts on social media usually make you uncomfortable no matter the time of year, scroll on by.

If you aren't in a clearly defined romantic relationship, but have people you love platonically, by all means, let them know. But be clear that your love is indeed platonic. No one need get or give mixed signals on a love-centered holiday.

Speaking of mixed signals, don't contact exes. I innocently wished the first man I slept with after becoming widowed a Happy Valentine's Day (this was long after he'd dumped me, and was merely a brief email greeting). I thought I'd get a similar greeting back. What I got back was a deeply angry reply--no ex-lover of his had even wished him a Happy Valentine's Day after he ended a relationship with them. The fact I had made him furious for reasons I still don't quite get--was he angry because I wished him well?

My plan for the Valentine's Day weekend is my usual response to potential pitfalls. I'm going to go hear some music, do some dancing, and maybe get some sushi. I'm going to wait until the low grade chocolate goes on discount to buy some because even cheap chocolate tastes good at a discount. I'm not going to go see any movies because movies are triggering to me (my late husband was a big movie person so movies are lonely without him). I'm going to lean into the behaviors that soothe and bring solace as if February 14th were any other day.

My mom, who was born on February 14, never made a big deal of the holiday. As a child, I was much more concerned with what I could get her with my piddly allowance than I was with Valentine's Day. She would treasure anything I'd give her, even if it were knock off Jean Nate cologne from McCrory's (my generation's version of Dollar General).

Taking a tip from my mom, I'll treasure whatever gifts come my way, but I won't make a big deal of the day itself. I'll feel grateful that I was the daughter of such a sensible woman, and I'll think about all kinds of love, not just the kind of love restricted to a single day in the shortest month of the year.

Because my texting you that word means a man is harassing me, and I need a rescue phone call.

By harassing me, I mean following me, and/or wanting me to engage in conversation when I'm walking alone or riding public transportation or sitting down at my table when I'm eating alone in a restaurant.

I thought as I got older this problem would disappear. But it's actually gotten worse. Just a few weeks ago, a man attempted to follow me into my hotel after walking next to me for several blocks as was returning to my hotel from a blues club in Chicago. You might be tempted to blame Chicago, but this sort of thing has happened to me in small towns and suburbs as well.

Case in point: I was on the BNSF Metra line from Chicago to Aurora today. A man on the train walked past me, turned, looked at me and said “you look familiar.” He was clearly unhoused and I said no, you don't know me. He sat behind me, confessed that he had a shitload of particularly stinky weed on him, asked me my name, my martial status, and then told me all about his life. He complimented my looks and my “aura.”

In these situations, I have to decide if a man is an actual threat or not. I decided this man was not. I let him talk and talk (he raved about the pizza he was eating, told me of his deceased sister and her culinary magnificence, and told me how hard it was being homeless and lonely). I answered some questions (yes, Metra is building a line to Rockford. No, I won't tell you my name). Eventually he fell asleep and I was able to slip past to exit the train while he dozed.

I've been told to carry mace or a gun. I've been told to dress differently or not go out by myself at night. But why is the onus on me?

Lest you think this phenomenon is restricted to homeless men, it's not. I've been approached by men while in the company of their girlfriends and/or wives. I've had men run up on me and start dancing suggestively behind me on dance floors.

So if I text you the word “stranger,” I'm letting you know I'm perhaps in a dicey situation and that I'm going to pretend it's my boyfriend/spouse on the other end. Bonus points if your voice sounds stereotypically male, because a man harassing me is more likely to back off if he thinks I'm the property of some other guy.

I made to Aurora safely, and fortunately there's only a parking lot between my hotel and the site of tonight's concert. The front desk folks here have seen me before. I have no doubt that they'd call the police if someone were to follow me to front door of this Holiday Inn. But they shouldn't have to.

On a day when the current president of the United States shares a video that depicts a former president and first lady as primates, I choose to dwell instead on the life, lineage, and music of Robert Nesta Marley, aka Bob Marley.

There are celebrations of Marley's legacy all this weekend--I personally will be on the dance floor at Two Brothers Roundhouse in Aurora, where Fyre Productions will present reggae band Ikonik as a Marley tribute. There's something incredibly healing about the music from Jamaica and it connects me to my childhood as the daughter of West Indian parents.

The music makes me dance, of course. But it offers hope between the rhythms, hope for “one love, one heart.” It offers comfort. But the music is also rebel music: I teach my writing students how Bob Marley's adaptation of Emperor Haile Selassie's speech “War” is a trangressive act, an act of assertion. It reminds me of Gil-Scott Heron’s “The Message Will Not Be Televised”: similar truth telling set to music.

Also, Bob was sexy AF. There's a reason the man had so many children with so many women. That smile. Those mighty locs--nothing dreadful about them. Marley also was rather short (despite him being portrayed by a tall actor on screen in that recent bio pic). We love a short king.

I love that Marley's legacy continues to this day through his children, and through all the reggae bands around the world who perform his music. I am not so naive to believe that music can solve the world's ills, but if any music has a shot at doing so, it's Marley's.

Happy Birthday to that natural mystic, that Rasta man full of holy vibrations, that singer of “sweet songs, melodies clear and true.” On a day when others are choosing hate and humiliation, I choose your brilliance, your sexiness, your courage. Catch a fire, indeed.