I entered the arena ready to be converted.

Reliable sources had told me for years that Florence + the Machine was something special to see live: a religious experience hard to express. The depth of devotion and reverence of her fans, quiet and powerful, was not compelling enough for me to listen to her deeply, but the past few weeks I realized I needed a revival, so credit card in hand I paid the cost of admission, bought the vestments, and let myself be unironically swept away.

The most compelling experiences for me are when I feel the energy between the art and myself. For music, the sound waves bouncing off my body, my clothes, my hair, bass echoing through my bones, and in an arena feeling the distance between a drum strike and the sound wave through the portable seating. Not every artist connects, not every personality on stage synergistically engages. Some try for a more blatant invocation, ironically, malevolently, and with Florence Welch I found myself a ready disciple, willing to follow her where truth and love and light in darkness might lead.

Music, and art, is a conversation. Jon would talk about this often. On that stage was not just the artists, the dancing coven, the craft, but all that came before it, every piece a reaction by inspiration. Transmutation.

I give you my heart in words, in sounds, in pictures, marks on a page. What will you share with me in return?

Existing felt hard this week leading up to the concert. Work has been hard. The tedium, the lack of reward in life maintenance, finding myself voice cracking, stumbling, running to a bathroom to wipe tears when loneliness is a choice of fear because anything more invested than a vague acknowledgment is the most terrifying thing in the world. How dare I be anything more than perceived (which is probably the worst).

I’m happy to talk to someone who doesn’t listen. No.

I will talk, write, put whatever I have out there because I’m an alien in a strange place with rules I didn’t understand in places I didn’t expect with luck in my trust falls that I could never calculate. Making sense of it all in ways I cannot completely articulate.

How I’m feeling is not an emotion in simple terms, it is a picture I will paint with words. Can you tell me what it is? Because really, it’s hard to know from the inside. I get told I’m self-aware, but it’s only by the reaction of concern on someone’s face that I realize that maybe, maybe I’m really sad and scared.

Late last year I started going to some community events, niche and on the margins, but that’s where I’ve always fit in. Last weekend, the morning after attending an event, news started trickling through the community that the organizers of the event I had attended, events I had found some inklings of community in, had violated consent of at least two people, on more than one occasion in a pattern of negligent and abusive behavior. A lot of people are grieving in the community, because of a loss of trust, and loss of a space they felt safe in.

Community is everything, and I was finding a place where I looked forward to the opportunity to share those weird and wonderful pieces of myself with other weird and wonderful people. But of course, I’ve seen this before, and what do I do? With my limited time and energy? It’s not enough to seek community, community is something we create together, and so this week I’ve turned inward to find my shape in the world and put out a call to find the pieces that fit with it. So I close this week creating a group through the community platform, making plans for a potluck park social, and will call one person attending a success.

Jon’s short story collection (still looking for a publisher) is titled ‘Unfinished Conversations.’ He had so much more he wanted to write and refine. So many books to read, music to listen to, movies to watch, recipes and restaurants to try, each one in conversation with what came before and will come later, each an opportunity to engage with friends, the world, what he loved.

The thing I think about is that just like a person only is truly gone once their name is no longer spoken or remembered, his unfinished conversations, his stories, he may not get a rebuttal, but the ones that are out there now are still there for you to engage with.

It’s all a conversation, our existence in this world. Sometimes it’s hard to hear outside of my own noises in my head. Believe me, I want to hear you.