RIP Little Petes or why discontent is the new comfortable.

Full Disclosure: I started writing this as a eulogy to Little Pete's, the Philadelphia institution that sustained me through many debaucherous nights out through high school, in my twenties and one sweet, sweet time in my 30s. Little Pete's closed this weekend after 4 decades of service to the city. It was open at all hours, always with a delightful demeanor, even when they probably didn't need to. My off the menu request was always granted (a pizza bagel) and the idea that I ever thought a strawberry shake was a good idea at 3am after hours of drinking beers was never questioned. It is truly a loss to the city and is indicative in a lot of ways of the change the city is going through. It will always have character, more-so than most other cities, but I fear that with losing establishments like this one, which will be replaced with a boutique hotel, we are becoming more normal. Less unusual, less definable and more sensible. Philadelphia's never been a sensible city (see: Eagles Fans) and I hope it never becomes one. Driven by a chance live encounter with another Philly institution, The Roots, in writing the eulogy, I was confronted with another distinct Philadelphia memory, one that has stayed with me for close to two decades and one that is something that could only really happen in Philadelphia. So apologies in advance for the self involved essay that follows. I miss home and to get some of my discomfort out on paper created a bit of catharsis.----------------------------------------------------------

Darlings, 

Lately, every time I close my eyes, I see Philadelphia. 

I remember the first time I ever saw the Roots live.

I was 14, my friends were older.

I was a little bit stoned (Which when I was 14 felt completely acceptable, but as an adult, can't believe that I even knew what pot was when I was 14).

I remember the rush. I remember the sweaty smell of patchouli, pot, stale beer.

I remember the vibrations of the floor at the Trocadero.

And most of all, I remember for the first time in my adolescent life, being able to transcend my own self awareness, my own self critique and just be able to be. I have a visceral memory of that night. I remember being timid at first, the way I felt like my feet were glued to the floor, like everyone around me was moving to this glorious music and I couldn't find the beat. I felt awkward and uncomfortable - like everyone was watching ME. Which is a truly juvenile thing to think and do and feel. There's this incredible group of musicians on stage, thousands of people in the audience and I'm worried that people are looking at me? Watching my stiff shoulders and sticky feet? No way.

And I have no idea why or how at 14, that realization clicked in the moment. But it did. All of a sudden, I focused my energies outside of myself and onto the world  around me. I think that's hard for me to do if I'm being completely honest. But that night, at 14, I found it. I found it, I found the rhythm and I found sheer and pure happiness, fleeting as it was.

For years before that I took dancing pretty seriously. In the same way that I wanted to get good grades and be pretty to make people proud of me, I wanted to be a good dancer. I wanted to excel, I wanted to be at the top of my class. Of course, ballet would never be something that I was good at. Because there are so many rules in ballet. So much adherence to someone else's ideals and ideas. And I'm no good at rules, at authority, at trusting what someone else decided to be true and right. And of course, when I was younger, I didn't know that those were the feelings I had. What I knew is that when I was standing at that bar, I was at a distinct disadvantage from the girls standing behind me and in front of me. My belly protruded, forming weird lines in my blue leotard, my thighs, while strong, didn't look as graceful as my peers. Even before we started to move, I had to take heed of my own body and fix it. Part of the art of the dance was me fixing my body before movement. Somehow, even as a kid, I think I knew that needing to make such a significant change to who I was, to what I looked like, would preclude me from ever finding real happiness or success in the studio. Which was a shame because to this day, I can think of little that brings me more joy than the beautiful art of classical ballet.

I tried other forms of dance, which did indeed bring me more happiness than ballet. West African for example. My aunt introduced me to this incredible form of movement when I was living with her one summer attending ballet camp in New Hampshire. It was a break on Tuesday nights- we drove into Cambridge, walked up a thousand stairs to a building that seemed like a never-ending warehouse of dance studios. It smelled like rosin, sweat, dirty feet and bad popurri. I think any dance studio worth it's weight smells like a mixture of these things - something completely sour to anyone with an emotional connection to it. It was a magical place. There were live drummers, there were so many dancers. The dancing was opposite anything I had ever been taught - it was about engaging with the earth and the sky, the elements. There was no talk of lengthening, or any real mention of one's own body at all. It was more about the culmination of body and earth and what happens when a group of people get together to enjoy both.

Somehow when I was a kid, I thought that because there were less rules, less scrutiny, less of a physical ideal, that I couldn't like it more than I liked ballet. That to leave ballet and engage in dance that was intended to bring people joy would almost be cheating. That if I couldn't be very good at the most scrutinized form of dance, why should I want to be good at any of it? And I will say, thinking back on it now, I still felt uncomfortable in my body. That the way I looked still was a hindrance to how I could be or how well I could dance. I loved to dance, but I didn't want to look at myself while I danced, nor did I want people to look at me. So I think, for a while, I thought that when I danced, people were looking at me, judging me, talking about my belly. Or at least, I was judging myself. I mean, I'm 31 years old and am still convinced that people are basing their first impression of me as I dance through life by the way my belly protrudes.

So that night, at 14, the first time my own self critique seemed to take a nap, I remember the music and I remember the movements and I remember the smells. And mostly, I remember moving and smiling and becoming aware of my surroundings enough to realize that no-one was looking at me. That I was just normal and that was OK. That there were people in this world who wouldn't judge me for just moving through life the way that I am, the way that I was. It's easy at 14 to have a moment of resolution, especially when stoned. It's harder to live that resolution. And I certainly wasn't able to hold on to the idea that people weren't judging me for the way I looked from that night. If I told you that I've been able to embrace myself in that total of a way since I was 14, I would be a prodigy. And it's been uncomfortable lately. I'm a stranger in a strange land. My knees hurt, my hips are stiff and my heart is constantly racing. I fear judgment, I fear failure and I fear losing the elasticity in my skin.

I am 31 and I am still standing at the barre in the studio just trying to fix my body before I can even use it. I am fairly certain that I am incapable of  ever walking this earth totally in agreement with who I am. Living in a state of constant disagreement - It's fucking hard. But within the disagreement, there are moments of contentment and moments of sheer bliss.

Last night, I was 14 again. I was 3,000 miles away from the first time I felt the Root's live vibrations. I was in a crowd probably 10x the size. But there was a comfort in feeling like I was home. The smells were different, the people were different, but the energy and the tracks that faded from one into the other, The Roots becoming the greatest jam band of all time, created a space for me in the universe. I felt like I could breathe. I felt like I could dance. I felt like I could move in any way I wanted without being judged. I don't know if it's because The Roots are from home or if it's because I do have such amazing memories of growing up with their music live in front of me, or if it's because I just needed something that felt normal. Maybe a mix of all of those things. But for me, the memory is now how bliss can sometimes transcend these moments. That maybe it's more up to me than I originally thought to capture and replenish these pieces of bliss when I'm not able to be face to face with the things that make me comfortable. And that maybe when I can't replenish, that's really what life is. A constant stream of discomfort, of discontentment, of fixing yourself before you even start, that ultimately produces little moments of joy but makes you find the bearability in all the rest.

xoxo lcf