Lost And Found in And The Rest.

This was a lost weekend.

Lost in the drifting diaphanous dreamscape of a dimension suspended somewhere between memory and discovery; somewhere between reaching inside myself and reaching out to trace tentative fingertips to the forgotten surfaces, the textured touch of living. Lost in an internal oasis of connection, and surrounded by sound.

I had forgotten what music means to me, the way crashing crunching guitars can break barriers; the way the smoke-wisp breathiness of reed-thin vocals can tie so much together. The way it envelops every part of me in a sensation bigger than sound, holding my heartbeat in a hammock strung and swung by strumming strains. I indulged myself with a whole new playlist; a foundation of forgotten favourites heavy as pebbles in my palm, warmly weighted with memory, and sprinkled with a seasoning of new aural adventures scooped up in handfuls at random; on recommendations, instant attraction, or sheer flighty whim.

And I fell into that soft-sided canyon of volatile verse like it was a womb; curved close around my contours in a cradle of comfort, pulsating, vibrating and vitally alive in an inexplicably essential way. Ice-thin a cappella verses smashed to smithereens by wrecking-ball chorus-walls of solid sound, firing-squad riffs and sarcasm sneered in dirty punk-rock smears, the skipping tripping river-rapid gushing rush of lyrics rolled into one another at speed. Gritty-gravel guttural screaming and lilting light-reflecting refrains, I drank all of them as though nothing would ever be enough to fill me. I sang along to everything, and I drew.

The hands still remembered what the head had forgotten; over a decade of dusty disuse had not dulled the muscle-memory of connection and creation, communication carved in curves and caution, angles and abandon. It has been so long since I have been anything but a weapon in my own destruction that I had forgotten how it felt to construct; it was like feeling for the first time. I had no idea I could feel this thing; this thick warm syrup of calm that sits inside me, I feel like I have slept for a week, or set down a heavy suitcase that etched stretched, strained pain into the muscles of my back. I want to hold this feeling right here in my hands forever, staring entranced into its lacquered-liquiform reflective depths.

This was a lost weekend, lost luxuriating in the pure indulgence of tiny personal pleasures; lost in finding the smallest, simplest victories.