Are You Ready For It?

Reflections from the final show of Taylor Swift’s 2023 North American Eras Tour

Last weekend, I was with my two sisters, mom, and the SHEEZ on our second annual girls adventure, lovingly referred to by our father this go-around as a “junket” (meaning: frivolous trip). We had planned it months in advance. It would take place in early August, a chance to reconnect as friends, sisters, and mother. If you haven’t read our prior posts when referencing the SHEEZ, she was our mom’s best friend in Yuma, Arizona, our place of birth. They lived next door to each other before life sent them both packing. We love that they still find one another.

Not long after solidifying these dates, I received a message from Moo (my bestie) stating that she *may* have the chance at tickets to a Taylor Swift concert. And not just any show (not one performance of hers is just “any” show but you understand the sentiment). Perhaps the final one of her last stop on her North American Eras Tour in 2023 at Sofi Stadium in Los Angeles. This date just happened to be scheduled two days after the conclusion of the junket. I squealed with delight at the possibility, but maintained composure as she awaited the news.

It hit.

We were in.

I could hardly believe it but also felt internal crisis as to the “selfishness” of this trip, having just returned from the above mentioned. I am a mom of three children, after all. I have a job. There are responsibilities at play. But, the hubs told me, “No, you’re going,” and my work wife was very understanding. So I shared the news with the girls on the junket trip and we launched into a lengthy discussion about Taylor and her popularity and career. As we discussed her accolades and controversies and watched a few of her music videos, Kara responded, “Have I been living under a rock?” I could feel her starting to convert…

For background knowledge, I have never considered myself a “Swiftie” — a devout fan. I have followed her music, and softly followed the public events of her life since she burst onto the country music scene with her self written smash hit, “Tim McGraw.” I have a great deal of respect for her intellect, her talent, and her grit. But I haven’t been to a show, I’ve never bought a piece of merchandise (I have bought albums), and I certainly haven’t been a consistent fan.

However, her influence has permeated the lives of so many of us that may consider ourselves mild admirers from afar. There are memories of cruising in my mom’s GMC suburban while blasting “Tear Drops on My Guitar” as I day dreamed of a love life and also wondered what that even was. Courage is found through her Reputation 2018 album in which she told the world she’s not giving up on herself or shirking away quietly from the bad press. “The Man” accompanies frustrations felt in the workplace and “Anti-hero” speaks directly to the heart when we feel the world does not understand us. We sing “Better Man” to those who have hurt us while contemplating how we want to raise our children. Her responsive convictions in “You Need to Calm Down” remind us we are not to be silenced. We stand up and “Shake it off” and turn “22” and “Welcome (ourselves) To New York” any time we need to connect with our bodies again.

Her love songs, so many love songs, encapsulate the emotional mystery of the quintessential fairy tale gone awry. Our first crush was “Love Story” — the head-in-the-clouds narrative that pre-teen girls giddy themselves over. “All Too Well” is the ballad that will reach into your once-thought-to-be-healed heart and drench it all over with first love flashback tears. Brutally honest are the lyrics to “End Game” where she explains how deeply we need to be wanted. She calls out our slightly obsessed tendencies in “Lover” when we really have it bad. “The One” describes the pangs of a love that didn’t stand the test of time. “Midnight Rain” revisits that time we snubbed the good guy to explore alternative pursuits (for most of us: defective relationships).

One could go on and on but we will close this segment with the following: any critic that finds her “irritating because all she sings about is love songs” may want to delve in a touch and find out why her music resonantes with his girlfriend, spouse, mother, daughter, human. Maybe actually listen to her perspective? It may benefit your own relationships? Just a fleeting thought… You’ll find all the emotions you have felt and those you didn’t know you had in her lyrics.

Whether by design or happenstance, Taylor’s work has intertwined our own experiences. And she just keeps pumping it out. Evolving. She is fun and sweet and silly but also dark and pensive and revengeful. She can sell out 6 straight shows at the same location, and hold the record for highest grossing musical tour ever and win 12 Grammies and stand up against crude behavior and attacks on her character, holding the offenders accountable. She blends words with melodies and remains seemingly enchanted with love and life, albeit, with the artistic torture that typically accompanies these sorts of talents. She displays the full range of human potential.

So, there I went. I booked a direct flight from Jacksonville to Los Angeles to take off two days before my eldest started the third grade. Irresponsible? Eh. I will be back that night. One last summer hoorah before my life is re-dedicated to all things children. But I had to go and make those friendship bracelets… Take the moment and taste it.

…Am I Ready For It?

The day of the concert arrived. My sister-in-law Meredith (avid Swiftie) made it to town at 6:30 AM with cold brew coffee for all. We sat around the bestie’s the kitchen table, discussing the phenomenon that is Taylor Swift. What draws us to her, why she is so massive, all of it. The others got to work on the day-to-day. I brainstormed how I would occupy myself in Los Angeles until pre-show time. I’ll go work out, I decided. Booked an Orange Theory class in Playa Vista. Kept The Streak alive.

I was so distracted, I parked the borrowed SUV in a compact spot, then on the same side as the street sweeper, narrowly avoiding a ticket (and only because Meredith saw the meter police coming!). Come home. Shower. Megan, a dear one, and our fourth for the show, arrived. The friendship bracelet beads appeared, a ritual amongst Swifties, in which one buys a bead kit and makes their own jewelry with words from her lyrics. We began the tedious process of stringing the beads together. I selected “Chosen Family” with shades of pastels and got lost in the concept of it. How we craft who we spend our time with. How this molds over time into new priorities and the necessary goodbyes, the space created that we must walk into to fully breathe. It feels monumental and strange. But then I read the mint-colored “Fearless” bracelet that I slipped onto my right arm and told myself it would be okay.

Suddenly, it was time to get dressed. Out came the sparkly barbie dress, the sequined 1989 jacket, the red lipstick, the pink denim jacket.

We went to dinner in Inglewood, basked in pasta and spicy Caesar salads whilst discussing reincarnation, June bugs, and Taylor’s love life.

It was then time to go to SoFi stadium.

We arrived, and the cultural phenomenon that is Taylor Swift began. Everyone, everywhere, so very happy. So ready to have a guaranteed amazing time. We bought drinks from a sweet man that was collecting bracelets for his daughter and found our seats as the opening band, Haim, closed out their set. Behind the floor stage, we saw Taylor’s dancers filing in. Then, the famous janitor’s cart, with Taylor presumably inside, was wheeled up. We gasped. Was this real?

A clock appeared, and began the two minute countdown. The crowd erupted in glittered euphoria. Dancers with endless tufts of pastel peacock fabric pranced on stage and suddenly, from the folds of their hidden cave, Taylor. We were enmeshed in a mini version of “Miss Americana” followed by the full song “Cruel Summer” and from there, we embarked on the ride of our lives. Song after song, dance after dance, costume after costume, her lyrics moved through us. She covered the Lover, Fearless, Evermore, Reputation, Speak Now, Red, and Folklore eras. I gazed through the audience in awe as they lost their voices for the chance to break the world record of applause after her piano-accompanied performance of “Champagne Problems,” Taylor standing on stage in bewilderment while they persistently hollered.

As she prepared to transition to 1989, strolling to the end of the runway that is her stage, she told the crowd she wanted to talk for a moment. She shared the news that she is releasing “Taylor’s Version” of the 1989 album in October. October 27th, to be exact— the date of the initial release of the 1989 album. The most sociologically shocking moment of the tour then happened. The crowd that is hers erupted in a deafening collection of screams. A typical observer may have thought she suddenly announced she was engaged, or dropping a brand new surprise album. But no. A re-record of a previous album that has been out since 2014 (but with new songs from “the vault” which is super exciting!)

Her fans care as fervently about her owning her own music as she does. She has created a community that screams that hard for the concept. This is what she has built and inspired for the modern day human. The power of living fully in one’s emotions and simultaneously ruling an empire. This is her legend. This is her life’s work.

She is intelligent, and beautiful, funny, and gifted.

She’s “calculated,” a mastermind, a marketing guru.

Self-directed, confident, and single.

A boss, and a generous spirit.

She may be forevermore alone, drifting from one complex relationship to another, trying on a soft landing before realizing, yet again, she was meant to perpetually fly into the unknown.

She is one of one. An anomaly of poetry and capitalism.

A previously self-declared “non-Swiftie,” I found myself swiftly enchanted by the enigma that she is. Writing about it is a form of self-torture (I open myself up to critique from those reading who are lucky to have been at the show), as no words can adequately convey the art of her musical performances. It was an incomparable euphoria, like spending the night in a star-filled mansion with all of the best friends that know our innermost vulnerabilities. Singing our hearts out to the healing tunes of the seasons of our lives.

In the words of Meredith, this experience was like going to your favorite football team’s Super Bowl game and KNOWING they were going to win.

Because Taylor wins every single time. But we still need to go because we want to be a part of that moment. We need her to see that she is not alone, however isolating it may be as the monster on the hill.

We walked out of that stadium with legs that could not feel.

We could have, and would have, stood there another 3.5 hours.

Groundless. Floating in the sensation that is the Eras Tour.

Somewhere in the atmosphere that buffers her from the everyday.

Reaching into the void to touch that historical wrinkle in time.

I flew home, visualizing the Pacific and Atlantic ocean both from the air in under five hours. Wheeled my carry on through the door, pet the dog, hugged my husband and kissed my boys goodnight. Walked into my daughter’s room, where her face was gently pressed up against the rails of her crib. Knelt down and kissed her lips. I slipped the “love story” bracelet off my arm and draped it onto the wrist of the Lego Baby Yoda creature that our eldest son built. The one that holds night vigil over her.

The next morning, I picked her up and walked her to the friendship bracelet, explaining that it was brought to her from the experience of a lifetime. She smiled and asked for it. I slipped “Love Story” onto her tan, tiny little toddler arm and we left her room together, boldly into the next era of our lives.