An Evening Believing Yo La Tengo

In this selfie, taken one year ago today, I can see the fatigue and nausea in my face. It is, in some ways, the last picture of Matt and I when it was just the two of us. Just a few days later that week a wise co-worker would prompt me that, more likely than not, there was a Boo Bop well underway to join our Sweeney fam. News that I would confirm at 5:00 in the morning “to rule out that possibility” before a gym class - a test that pinged back positive like a polaroid in hyperlapse just waiting to change my world. News that I would keep to myself during a spinning class where the flashing lights, loud music, early hour and heat seemed to affect me with an intensity I had never known. News that I would share with Matt before he was fully awake and that he would groggily respond “Really? Well, that could be good.” Since we both are too guarded to accept good news outright. News that would increasingly disrupt and intensify all our greatest joys and fears as it became more real.But before all that, we went to a long anticipated outdoor concert. I would complain leading up to it that I felt oddly unwell. Matt would then spend every opportunity during the event to get me cups of water and assure me that the marijuana and cigarette smoke smelled no more intense than it does normally. Eventually enjoying the music became enough of distraction - especially as Ira Kaplan’s electric guitar solos went from noisy to completely unhinged. So memorable was the deconstruction of some of their songs that Matt would later joke those powerful solos were what actually impregnated me and we would then consider the possibility of giving Cormac the middle name of Ira. Our lives have since seemed to oscillate between the spectrum of Georgia’s steady, understated vocals to the noisy feeling of spinning towards becoming a bit unhinged. Irony or otherwise that spending “An Evening with Yo La Tengo (trans: I Have It”),” as they called the event would mark the beginning of a chapter that we could never quite have a handle on.

When I look at this photo, I feel nostalgic for the moment it was taken. How impressive life can be when it is at the brink of something. I also feel fiercely nostalgic for all the moments that snowballed after it. And somehow feel nostalgic yet for the moment I am in right now - one that includes this noisy, disruptive soul who interloped into our lives when we most wanted him to but least expected it.