July 27, 2014 by Caroline Leland
high on life (Nickel Creek edition)
The last two weeks may be lost forever in the murky drudges of my memory. I just invented a new use for the word “drudges,” for anyone who wasn’t fooled by my confident application of said invention.
I’ll try to work backwards.
This Nickel Creek concert is one thing I will never forget. |
This weekend has been wonderful. Every weekend in NYC this summer has impressed me with its fun-ness. Today I am sitting in my favorite cafe for hours, working on some fun school stuff — not class stuff but other school things, like the mentoring program I’m organizing for new Robertson scholars. Speaking of class stuff, my online class ended this past Thursday and I earned an A, woohoo! It had pretty much dominated all my free time for the past two or three weeks, so I feel that grade is well-deserved.
I had work all day on Thursday but needed to take the exam between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m., so I did the multiple-choice portion in a cafe before work and wrote the essay during my lunch hour. After work I walked to a Mexican cantina near the Slow Food office and bought two $3 tacos, which were a delicious and satisfying reward for myself. I’m definitely making that a lunch spot on future Mondays and Thursdays.
Then I went straight to Prospect Park in Brooklyn for a free Nickel Creek concert that has been on my calendar since the beginning of the summer. Nickel Creek is probably my all-time favorite band. I’ve liked them since the boy I crushed on in tenth grade gave me a mix cd with some of their songs on it. That was 2008, and they didn’t put out a new album until this May — which gave me six years to memorize all of their songs. So now they’re on tour, and I saw them and it was magical.
The opener, The Secret Sisters, was excellent. |
with Emily |
The venue was absolutely perfect. |
Just a gorgeous evening |
with Ellie, her friend Edward, and Emily |
The opener turned out to be a lovely surprise, a band from Alabama called The Secret Sisters whom I had seen in Chapel Hill two years ago at an Iron and Wine concert! I hadn’t recognized the band name but as soon as they came onstage I was super excited to see them again, because their music is fantastic.
And then after the concert, the food vendor was giving away bowls of free vegetarian food! I was in my own personal heaven. I could have burst from happiness. Or fainted. I hardly knew how to manage it. I just kept saying, probably to the annoyance of everyone else, “I am so happy. I am just so happy.”
SO happy |
Train delays meant it took us almost two hours to get home (most of which was spent standing in the hot stuffy subway station) and Ellie was miserable but I was still floating on my cloud of Nickel Creek ecstasy so I didn’t even mind. My online class was done, I saw my favorite band at a truly fantastic outdoor concert, and then I stuffed myself with curried swiss chard, tomato-breadcrumb salad, and sauteed summer squash. All of this in New York City, where I am living for free — three years after receiving that congratulations email, I am still incredulous of how incredible this scholarship is — while interning for two wonderful nonprofits for the summer.
To recap, things I love that all converged on me at one point in time:
Nickel Creek
being outdoors
pretty lights
friends
rediscovering great music
free things
vegetables
NYC
summer
finishing a class
tacos
beautiful weather
I am still basking in this, in case it wasn’t obvious.
My tweets from the night were unsuccessful attempts to use words when words were simply inadequate: