Tucson is a place for flip flops, a place for shorts, and Tshirts. Nobody really brings jackets or scarves to carnivals in Tucson. That’s all I’m saying.
In Tucson, the town of our birth, there’s almost nothing as beautiful and pleasant as a spring night spent out of doors and under the stars. So when the wind began blowing bitterly and coldly last week just as we were setting up for an outdoor show called Spring Fling, most everyone was caught completely unaware.
Pretty early on in the show, I checked in with Ryan to see if the seemingly eternal flame in his fingertips had been cooled. Amazingly, even though he could have pierced my septum with the icicles on his knuckles, he was still able to play all of his guitar solos.
I was going to suggest to our audience that if they were cold, they could scoot closer together and closer to the stage and we could all keep each other warm. But when I looked up at them, they were already standing close together, close to us, dancing and clapping to keep warm. And they stayed the entire length of our set, figuring if we were going to play, they were going to stay for it. And we were figuring, if they’ll stay, we’ll play for them.
And in that way we all kept each other warm, even though we had flip flops and thin shirts.
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I guess I don’t know what else to do to stay warm, when a bitter and cold wind blows through a warm place like Blacksburg, Virginia. Maybe all you can do is stand close by someone else and cry and shake your heads together.