The other afternoon I was walking through the streets of the town just adjacent to campus. There are lots of little shops, on those streets – books, music, pizza, Chinese food, sub sandwiches, little handmade curiosities and whatnot. As I walked past one of them, I heard a familiar sound. It was blasting through the speakers in the doorway, pouring out into the street. And it was zydeco music – not the cheap kind that sounds like it’s gotten trapped in a tin can, but the good stuff. The genuine Louisiana article. And then I started to cry.

I can go for months at a stretch without hearing that sound, and then I’ll stumble across it by accident. And every time it’s like remembering who and what I am.

I remember dancing barefoot with my little sister in the muddy field in front of a stage, letting the music move up into our bodies from the ground. And eventually the music from the speakers is so loud that it cracks the sky open, and the rain comes down. So we run and hide, in the safety of the wooden dance floor under an enormous white canvas tent. The rain fucks up our carefully painted faces, and we laugh about it. But the music is happening here, too, and so we go on dancing. Swing apart, swing together, awkward two step to the left and then back again, and I spin her around like I know what I’m doing, and she laughs.

And we are the zydeco music, the accordian and the fiddle and the bassline thrumming in the wooden dancefloor.

And this is who I am, just in case I ever forget, just in case I ever lose sight of the fact that there’s something in me that exists to be held and shared and understood. And maybe not everyone is going to be able to understand, but maybe that’s okay, because this self that I have doesn’t need anyone else to understand in order to matter, to just be.

I am the zydeco music.

I’m the trees and the grassroots, the dirt flying up underfoot in front of the stage. I’m the hula hoop, spinning around. I’m the drumbeat holding everything together. I’m the smell of smoke. I’m the one handing you your first cup of coffee in the morning, and I’m the one giving you six quarters in change for that dollar fifty you paid for it. I’m the smell of food cooking. I’m painting a butterfly in bright colors on the face of a four year old girl. I’m reading a book on a blanket under a tree, in the afternoon. I’m the shade. I’m the paint on the drop cloth. I’m the harmony between the banjo and the fiddle and the upright bass, in the middle of a song in the evening.

That’s me. That’s part of me.

And it all came back to me, on the street outside the little shop, beside the campus. It all came flooding back, all at once. I guess I’d forgotten. Sometimes I do.

Sometimes I forget who I am. But in that moment, I knew.

I hope it’s an excellent Thursday.