It’s 11pm in a random warehouse in San Diego and it’s the weekend of what should have been Crssd 2021. This journey has become a tradition for us now, and I don’t think it will ever stop, especially after this one. No meet up at the city steps this time, though. No chicken tenders, no randomly ending up at the palms. No marveling at the beauty of the Ocean Side. No drunk loud fools. No dancing in the rain. No new merch. No festivals yet. Not yet.
It’s coming back, though. You can feel it. I can feel it. This weekend showed me that from the only place I needed to see it. From the dancefloor. We traveled so far. And waited so long for this one. So much happened to us in the year since we had been back. So many trials. So many failures. So many moments I wish I could’ve done better. The universe forced me to earn this trip back to my hometown and I could feel it at every step.
The world has changed, though, and the dancefloor is no different. Not as many people, not as loud, not as late in the night that eventually becomes the morning. We manage, though. We find each other in the fog, and in that fog we choose to dance.
I didn’t know what I was supposed to find this time, only that I was searching. I am not the person I was supposed to be, but are any of us? This world has changed our tune beyond recognition at times, and still all we are left to do is move on. So that’s what we will do. We will move on.
I had not lost myself to the dancefloor since the last crssd, when my head was full of acid and my eyes were transfixed on Dax J. It was a techno moment I will never have again, and still this one I was having a year later felt just as good, if not better. In the same green house x techno jacket I bought that day, I let myself go and became consumed by the sound that made me who I am. It never felt so good before just then. It will never feel better again.
It was like the first time, but so much more. I knew what it meant to have it taken away. I knew what it meant to risk everything to get back to it again. I still feel it now. But as I danced there in front of the speaker, lost again, just like before, something happened that I didn’t expect and yet, immediately became the message from the universe I was looking for.
As I danced and celebrated my return to the dancefloor I turned around with my back to the dj and it was at that moment I saw what really matters in this world. My friends. All there. All lost in the music themselves. All different, and unique, and special, and just as important as anyone else. All just as happy to be there. All just as damaged by the year as any of us. All having been through their own journey back to this moment. This means everything to all of us.
And just like that we all celebrated and danced together for just a little while more. We enjoyed it just a little more than ever before. More room to dance. Not as much talking on the dancefloor. Surrounded by those we loved. It was a moment I waited my entire life to have. It’s a moment I will spend my entire life trying to get back to.
Then, just as before, the music stopped and so did we. We stayed and helped clean up, and we talked, and laughed, and we made this funny dubstep song, and smoked our cigarettes and enjoyed the beautiful overcast above the San Diego skyline. Moments I just can’t believe are real, but only to those brave enough to go get them.
After that we got into our car, and ended up at a hotel, then wandering the San Diego Marina at 4am. From there we watched the sunrise from our car as we drove up the green countryside that is just too amazing to believe is real. We made it home and fell asleep just as the day was starting for the rest. Our night was upon us.
I’m not going to share every moment of this weekend just yet, because some of them I don’t even believe happened. I need to remember them a few times before I accept they really happened. But right now, as I sit in my room in the middle of the New Mexico desert, thinking about the last one and planning for the next, I can only say this.
The universe doesn’t just bring us into each other’s lives by coincidence. It doesn’t work like that. Life isn’t that simple. We found each other to help each other endure, and to live, and to dance in the darkness together. Now, more than ever, House x techno means love. It means family. It means life. It means going out there and getting that moment you always dreamed of, and when it’s over, remembering this one fact. It only matters if you have people to share it with. People to bring it home to.
Happy Crssd.
The first words of
Pinky Mendoza
March 10, 2021
Ourdancefloor.net 