The Edge of the West Coast

We stood at the edge of the West Coast, and while night had fallen over all of the rest of America, we were the last ones to see the sun. 

I had gotten together with four friends from my growing up years, the first time we'd all been in the same place since all of us graduated from high school together. Now eighteen years have passed since that day, and we had a chance to look at our lives collectively, knowing that we have lived as many years over again as we had lived when we were first setting foot out into the world.

The dwindling of summer. 

What I know is this...you share a deep connection with those who are the same generation as you, and you share a deeper connection still if those people grew up in the same place you did. 

All the blessings, and disappointments, and struggles, the knowing that the there is still so much work to do.  All the things that don't work out in life the way you thought they would. And all the things that did.  Our weathered hearts are wiser now.  We stood where the Columbia River flows into the Pacific Ocean and watched the sun descend. Between the five of us, we have now lived in or seen all of America. 

"I was...at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future."


And I know that friendships are not to be taken for granted, and I know that anytime you've been in a friendship for longer than a four hour Greyhound bus ride, eventually everyone has something to say I'm sorry for.  And everyone should say, if they can, "I forgive you".

And our time on this earth is so short.


"What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's goodbye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies."

To left of where we were standing - Youngs Bay turns into the Lewis and Clark River. 

When my friends and I stood at this viewpoint, I thought about how much I had learned from each one of them. With some of them, our friendship goes back almost 25 years. I stood under this blue and yellow sky and realized that each one has taught me better how to love. I realized that all the soreness in my heart I was feeling the moment I took these pictures was the stretching and growing of it so it could become larger, more capable of believing anything is possible. 

To the right of where we stood - a bridge that is part of Highway 101- the route the connects all the states of the West Coast....

"...in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the broken-down river pier watching the long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land than rolls in one unbelievable bulge over to the West Coast, and all that road going, and all the people dreaming in the immensity of it...and tonight the stars'll be out...the evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all the rivers...and folds the final shore in, and nobody, nobody knows what's going to happen to anybody besides...growing old..." 

All quotes above from On The Road by Jack Kerouac

View from Astoria Column - Astoria, Oregon
(c) 2013 writing and photography by Chloe Koffas - all rights reserved

The Goonies House - Astoria, Oregon

The Goonies is a movie well known to Gen X. Many Xers saw it in theaters as kids or teenagers when it came out in the mid-80s, and it soon became a cult classic. This summer I got together with four friends from my growing-up years and we all went to see the house from the movie together. All five of us got together to catch up in Portland and to take a road trip out to Astoria on the Oregon Coast. One of my friends lives in Astoria, so she gave us a tour of the town. Seeing the Goonies house was at the top of the list of places we wanted to see. 

We parked the car on the street and headed up the private gravel drive that leads up to the house that is up on a hill. 



Visitors come by the thousands every year to see and photograph the house - here's the view of the water down below the hill from the gravel drive...

Filming started in 1984 and was starred in by well known Gen X actors who were teenagers or pre-teens at the time. I remember there being a lot of talk about Goonies on my elementary school playground when it was in theaters. I finally saw it on TV a few years afterwards.

The mayor of Astoria declared June 7th as the official Goonies Day for the city to commemorate the the day the film was released in 1985.


Shadows of my friend and me as I lift up my camera to take a picture....

The skylight to the attic was open - the attic where the kids in the movie find the treasure map leading to the hidden Oregon Coast pirate treasure. The story line is full of all the Spielberg traits that made for great movies in the 80s. Before the trip, I watched the movie for the first time in two decades. It was interesting to see it as an adult - maybe a  little edgy at times for a kids' movie, but even the edgiest characters seemed to ultimately have good hearts. 

The sun was low in the sky on a late summer day - we were there on maybe one of the most beautiful, if not the most beautiful day of the year in Astoria. 

You can't go onto the property since someone lives there, but I zoomed in little bit with my camera to capture a closer image of the Goondocks sign....

The "Goondocks" was the fictional name of the neighborhood where the Goonies lived in the movie.  Astoria is a port city and just below the house are docks on the Columbia River, which connects with the Pacific Ocean. 

Another view of what you see looking out from the front of the Goonies house - the bridge that connects Oregon and Washington. 

Hyacinths, sunflowers and all kinds of other flowers were taking in the rays of the sun that day from the front yard.

My friends were standing with their backs to the sun which unexpectedly made for a great picture - the sign has shadow images of the characters in the film, and the shadow images of my friends are cast below the sign. All the shadow images in the picture are people who were important to my childhood. 

Gen Xers who played characters in the film were: Martha Plimpton, Sean Astin, Josh Brolin, Jonathan Ke Quan, Jeff Cohen, Kerri Green, and Corey Feldman. 

In the film, this was the house of the two characters who were brothers - Mikey (played by Sean Austin) and Brand (played by Josh Brolin).

Above is a snapshot of my friends walking up the drive to the house. Seeing this house on my own would have already been great. Seeing this  house -  an iconic piece of Generation X history - with four other Gen Xers that I grew up with, made the experience a hundred times better. 

Summer comes to and end. Soon enough, all this wild grass will be green again, the bright sky will be overcast, and the Goondocks will quietly hold memories of all the feet who walked up to this house...Gen X actors who have long since grown up, and Gen Xers who have come to see a place from the imaginations of their youth. 



For panoramic photos of "The Goondocks" and the Oregon Coast landscape where a lot of the movie was filmed, make sure to click this link:

The Edge of the West Coast & A View of the Goondocks from Far Up Above



Artist's signature on the Goonies sign: Tony Barnes

(c) 2013 Writing and photos by Chlo Koffas- all rights reserved 

The Cobain Chronicles - Part Four: Kurt's Park

I recently drove from Portland to Seattle to go to the Kurt Cobain memorial. It was originally named Viretta Park, though it is also known as Kurt's Park. This city park is right next to the last house he ever lived in. It was twenty years ago that I stood in front of Kurt at one of his last concerts. I'd been meaning to come visit this memorial for several years...  

People come here from all over the world to leave flowers, mementos, and write messages on this bench - Kurt's bench - where he was seen sitting at different times before the end of his life. Messages are written to him in chalk, nail polish, spray paint or anything else.  

When I walked up to the park, I was surprised to find myself so anxious - it was like I was going to meet someone face to face that I had not seen in decades. My heart pounded as I walked up to Kurt's bench.

This is no Graceland. No shag carpet here, just the sprawling grass. No chandelier, though on clear nights you can see some stars. No admission fee, only space for you to walk through and remember.

As an amazing act of love, someone took the time to knit this piece that was attached to the bench when I got there. It looks like a remake of the red and black sweater Kurt was known to wear. 

I had found these dried yellow flowers in a store and they made me think of Kurt, so I took them with me to Seattle. I wrapped them in paper and a blue ribbon to leave on his bench. I did not see the word "Forgiven" carved into the bench initially. I saw it the same night I came home and transferred these photos to my computer. The whole journey of taking a look at Kurt's life and going to his memorial was profound and set me on a path of personal forgiveness.

I sat on the ground next to the bench for a while. I felt waves of sorrow wash over me for all that went wrong.

There's something really beautiful about dried flowers...they don't have to worry about dying because they've have already crossed over to the other side. Their beauty is delicately invincible.

The wooden slats in the bench get pulled out and replaced every so often and also painted over from time to time with brown paint by the park maintenance people. That's why you can look at different pictures of this bench taken over time and it looks entirely different. Under the brown paint you see here, there is a whole other layer of messages to Kurt from pilgrims who came in the weeks before.

People by the thousands fly here each year from faraway countries and drive here from faraway places to come and leave mementos and messages. The pictures below show messages from people from Czech Republic, and from Iowa.

Pennies and a guitar pick were stuck onto the bench maybe with glue or wax, but then they were painted over....

The day I was there, I saw glasses, gloves, a bracelet, a tea bag, maybe some sort of mint in a silver package...maybe these were all left by the same person, or maybe by multiple people - all pieces that had symbolic importance to someone.

The strangest thing kept happening - multiple times I would put the flowers in the middle of the bench, and then I would see them on the ground behind the bench. Any time I was walking around and not looking directly at then bench, this would happen - even when I was the only one at the park. Every time I saw the flowers on the ground they looked like someone had carefully placed them there - facing up. I got really spooked for a couple minutes until I realized that the soft breezes blowing through the park were probably just blowing it off the bench. Or at least I think it was the soft breezes. I wondered if the universe was making the point that I wasn't supposed to place the flowers in that exact spot because that's right where Kurt would sit....  The last time I picked them up from the ground, I placed them on the side of the bench and not in the middle.

There are two benches - one that is closer to his house, which is the main bench for leaving messages and mementos, and there is a second bench that is further away from his house with less graffiti on it...

Rest in peace, Kurt. 

The view from just behind Kurt's bench: Lake Washington, the skyline of Bellevue in the distance beyond the water, and blue mountains on the horizon that are part of the Cascade Range.

I hate when leaves start turning the color of Autumn when Summer is just barely beginning. It makes feel anxious and regretful at the same time.

I pictured coming here for a long time, the way you imagine seeing an old friend for the first time in ages. I always imagined I would come during cold, gray weather, not during early summer when everything is exploding in light and color.

Purple hollyhocks lean into a path at the top of the park.

The small window on the top floor of Kurt's old house was opened up to let in the afternoon breezes while I was walking around. This house looks out over the park and is now lived in by someone else - they have it surrounded by walls for privacy.

Beyond Kurt's last house - the vapor trail of an ascending plane. When our time comes, I wonder if we leave behind something like a vapor trail, however intangible it might be, in the moments when we ascend from this earth.

This white flower kept catching my eye - like it was trying to get my attention. When I got close enough to take a picture of it, I could then see that right next to it was an enormous, astoundingly beautiful Evergreen with an opening in it like a doorway - you could go in and walk around inside it as it surrounded you with its boughs.

It was like some idyllic childhood storybook scene - some place where the main character would go to seek refuge or solitude.

When I walked inside this ancient looking tree, there were the hugest clovers I have ever seen at my feet - I've never seen clover this big anywhere.  

At times I've wondered why Kurt was chosen as the 'frontman' for my generation - considering all the people that could otherwise have taken that title. Beyond his extraordinary talent and how he changed the history of music, it seems it is because so many people felt a connection to him and to his pain through his music. In living out the quintessential Gen X existence, he experienced and understood our pain. 

So if the frontman of our generation has left us what have we left? To recognize the mutual suffering in one another and to help each other move beyond that suffering. To look for light when it seems there is only darkness. To be conscious of what has happened to other Gen Xers individually and collectively and to not forget.

"The sun is gone but I have a light."

Kurt Cobain

1967 - 1994

Photographs of Kurt's Park and Kurt's last home - Seattle, Washington.

(c) 2013 photography and writing by Chloe Koffas - all rights reserved

 

The Cobain Chronicles - Part Three: Of Bridges and Brick Doorways

Sometime around 2005, I was rushing through downtown Portland to get back to get work after my lunch break and I caught a glimpse of a teenage boy, maybe fifteen years old, who was huddled up on a step and leaning against a doorway of an old brick building. I assumed he was probably avoiding school and I smiled because I figured he was having a more fun day than me. Thoughts of my overly full inbox weighed on my mind and I rushed past him, but I turned around when my conscience told me to reach out to him. As I got closer, he looked like he was most likely homeless. He was staring down at raindrops dotting the cold sidewalk when I said, "Hey brother, are you hungry?" I could see from his eyes he was scared and had profound pain. It was clear that he wasn't just ditching school, he was running from something. I reached in my bag and got out some food to give to him - he was very polite and more than grateful.  Strangely, it was almost exactly like that moment I'd had with Kurt Cobain about twelve years before at the Nirvana concert where he and I had made some sort of striking unspoken connection.  The dirty fingernails of a kid reaching into my hand to take some food had caused my heart to remember and to ache fiercely. The blue of his eyes were like the blue of Kurt's eyes when he sadly looked at me that night in 1993. The boy and I spoke a few more words, and when I walked away, that was the moment I knew - I knew that I had some sort of unknown, unfinished business with Kurt. I knew that at the very least, I needed to go to Kurt's Memorial Park in Seattle. I put it off for a very long time - for eight more years.  Beyond that, I knew there were some things I needed to sort out in my mind and my heart regarding Kurt. As an extension of that, I knew there were things in my heart involving some other people in my life that I needed to sort out.

. . .

Just before Kurt died in 1994, my life had become a huge mess. Things that I had kept below the surface for many years as far as what I had been through all seemed to explode at once. I had substantial depression and all kinds of other problems. I was steeped in some sort of pull between nihilism and trying to reclaim the faith in God I wasn't sure I had anymore. So I started going to church again after not going for a really long time to try and reconnect with the truth that had once been more a part of me. I had gotten to a church event early one evening when a lady - a stranger who was a Boomer in her early 40s  -  approached me. I must have been giving off the "I'm confused and need help" vibe because she looked at me briefly, profiled me, and handed me a tract - a little booklet with Scripture and info in it about how to become a Christian.  It was clearly targeted toward people my age - it had words in it about Kurt Cobain - how he had wasted his life and that he was in hell and that other young people should try not to end up like him. I was so furious I could barely breathe. Clearly she had pigeonholed me as some sort of 'lost youth' that needed direction she thought she could give. I was probably wearing all black (as I still often do) I was probably walking around with a distant or angst-ridden look on my face. She made a long list of judgments about me in a few short seconds, yet she was not willing to make a genuine connection with me. She was quick to hand me printed information about my salvation, but she did not seem willing to enter into a real conversation with me to know who I really was. She looked at me briefly with a touch of pity mixed with condescension. AND I HATE IT WHEN PEOPLE DO THAT.  I am not sure how I can ever forget that day. What could she really know of my generation and what could she know of all we had suffered? 

Not too long after that, I found myself in a similar situation with someone in my family from the GI Generation. He used to corner me and bully me throughout my childhood and adolescence when no one else was around - sometimes about fundamentalist religious issues. We were at a restaurant one day and everyone in my family had already left except for him and me. He got right up in my face, and with a disdainful smirk he told me that Kurt was definitely in hell and that my generation was crooked and depraved and that the more I took part in all that my generation was about, the more likely I was to also end up in hell. I was so angry I wanted to start throwing punches. But he was a person that made it impossible, and unsafe to fight back - he only made it possible for you to be silent and angry, and resentful.  That moment has stayed with me - I'm not sure how I can ever forget it. What could he really know of my generation and what could he really know of all we had suffered?  

I've worked hard to try and forgive both of those people, and when the resentment flares back up in me again, I work to forgive them again. I work to forgive them because I want to free myself from the anger, and because they didn't know the extent to which they were hurting me. Ironically, they both ultimately helped me - they taught me a valuable lesson of what kind of Christian to NOT be - what kind of a person not to be. Kurt Cobain had been very affected by Christianity when he saw it in people who were truly kind, but he couldn't stand "fundies" or fundamentalism. I have made more steps toward forgiving them when I realize that they must have a whole back story of their own - a story of all the monsters in their lives who had bullied and manipulated and damaged them, a story of all the disappointments and heartbreaks and betrayals that inevitably come with this life.  And what could I really know of their generations and all they had suffered?  

When it comes to generational rifts, what I want is what I have always wanted since I was a "rebellious" teenager: to have real dialogue with others about who my generation is and who their generations are.  I feel like if I can just begin to understand what makes people who they are and why they do the things they do, then I can begin to forgive. I feel like if people at least begin to make an effort to understand me, then we might have potential for true reconciliation. Otherwise, we may just keep saying the same things and getting nowhere - like we're shouting out against stone walls.

I am only barely beginning to understand forgiveness in this life even though I have worked so hard at it for so long.  A quote that gets me thinking is by the philosopher Blaise Pascal: "To understand is to forgive." That's a tall order when you are a generation that feels like it's been given the short end of the stick with little to no apologies, and a lot of unwarranted criticism. That's an enormous task when you have to thanklessly shoulder the mistakes and indulgences of those who came before you. It's especially hard when you've heard the stories of older generations a million times, and are then chastised because you aren't as "good" or "honest" as they supposedly are (or were).  It's exhausting to be overshadowed. It makes you not want to forgive - it makes you want to give up.

Kurt Cobain had some things to say about all the damage he saw coming from his parents' generation and how it affected the Xers. He watched society disintegrate all around him in his youth. First he saw it happening in his friends' lives, and with barely enough time to brace himself, it happened in his own.

I'm not saying I know how one person can entirely forgive another when the wrong has been extraordinary. I'm not saying I understand how forgiveness fully works when powerful people take advantage of the powerless and threaten them into silence. In extreme cases, maybe there is no way to understand. In those cases, sometimes people miraculously find ways to forgive even without understanding. I'm not saying I know how one generation can forgive another when all the wrongs added up over time have been incalculable. When the damage of the selfish choices of one generation are so astronomical that the next generation has to spend their whole lives cleaning up the mess, when the fallout is that bad, I think maybe it changes the very fabric of the universe, and it may only be God Himself who can fully heal that level of damage. And my finite mind cannot know how that works - I'm only saying that I think I get how to begin to forgive -- I think I may get how to begin to understand. Maybe only the heart can fully understand these things. 

I'd had this experience with Kurt Cobain during one of his last concerts in 1993 where we locked eyes for a while, like two old friends finding each other in a an airport - I saw a familiar, enormous pain and exhaustion in his eyes and I felt so much empathy for him. The people of my own generation who I feel wronged me in some really astounding ways have, strangely, had a lot things in common with Kurt. I've noticed this as I've read about his life and watched documentaries.  I feel that my heart is telling me that part of the work I am supposed to do in my life is to take the empathy I felt for Kurt and use it toward others who have hurt me.  This helps me to begin to understand, to begin to forgive.

You can listen to interviews or read articles about Kurt and get the impression that he was a kind, altruistic person and you can read things that make him sound pretty scary. People are complex. On one hand, he publicly stood against various forms of bigotry and violence and used his music as a vehicle for that message. At the same time, he has a story of doing things that many would find pretty shocking. The only first- hand experience I have is what I saw for myself in the moment that he and I made a connection, and in that moment I saw something genuine. In that moment, I saw what seemed like a good person. Just like that booklet I was handed in the 1990s, there are now websites out there that I won't link to that have long lists of Kurt's 'sins'. I should not and cannot judge him or his life, I can only look at my own list of sins and shortcomings - and it's not a short list either.

. . .

I was a Protestant Christian for a long time, who often had evangelical leanings. I still love to visit evangelical churches, but rarely. But I have been an Orthodox Christian now for a decade, though I wonder at times if I won't be someday. Part of the reason I became Orthodox is because of the two stories above - of the two specific people I mentioned that I've had to forgive as they bombarded me with "religion" that was devoid of love, yet that can pop up anywhere. And fortunately, I have seen people in every branch of Christianity that live out their religion very full of love. There are a lot of Protestants, Catholics and others who believe that there are paths to God outside of Christianity. And that was part of my initial draw to Orthodoxy and what draws people to Christian denominations that don't think 'unsaved' people are going to hell - the belief that we can't say exactly who is going to heaven or hell, and just try to focus on our own weaknesses and wrongdoings. In other words, some of us focus on allowing God to work in us instead of focusing so much on the salvation of others. By some people's standards, Kurt Cobain met the criteria of someone who would be sent to hell. At one point in his younger years, he was a devout Christian, at another point he renounced his faith....

Renouncing your faith is a pretty serious thing theologically speaking. I would like to believe that what he renounced was empty "religiousness" - outward externals that don't have much to do with God. I'd like to believe that he renounced the judgment and apathy that can come with empty religiousness that can be seen sometimes in unloving people around us, and not God Himself.  My heart and my religion both allow me to believe that in spite of externals it is possible that Kurt may have continued to have a connection with God that no one knows hardly anything about. Christianity taken back to its early roots teaches that we can never put someone in a box - that we can never judge the sum of someone's life or choices because the human soul is infinite.

There were one or two Nirvana videos that came on in my teenage years that would cause me to turn off the TV halfway through the video and exclaim to an empty room, "Is nothing sacred?!"  Taken at face value, some of Kurt's artistic expressions have deeply offended me over the years. If you look at some of those expressions through a different lens however, it may be he was trying to wake people up - to do the most shocking things he could think of to make us look at the darkness in our own hearts when we become tempted to judge away in the name of religion.  I really don't know where he was coming from with some of his lyrics and images in his videos.  Any hint of a mockery of Christ or the crucifixion is THE most offensive thing you could ever do in my presence or in the presence any devout Christian, so it makes the whole struggle to understand his message difficult at times. 

I still don't listen to Nirvana much. If their music comes on the radio, I usually change the station since it can often get me into a nihilistic mood, though sometimes I don't. I don't feel a deep connection with the music other than for how it represents a very important aspect of my generation. And, looking back on it all twenty years later, I see the significance of how all of it affected me.

 

All in a moment, you can sometimes see how all of space and time is connected - like how the pain of Kurt's eyes at the concert in 1993 I went to was almost identical to  the pain of the boy's eyes huddling in the brick doorway more than a decade later. All in a moment, you can get a small glimpse with our finite minds of how infinite the human soul really is.  All in a moment, we can get a sense of the universe stretching out and unfolding lessons for us encrypted in the leaves, and in the sky, and in the waters:  that we can at least begin to understand, and this is how we begin to forgive. When I begin to forgive, I am on my way to more fully forgiving because I believe God can bridge the gap.  He can help me to be less ignorant of the pain of others. He can help me be more full of a nonjudgmental love. I find forgiveness difficult.  I have a tendency to hold grudges when I've been hurt deeply.  But I'm working on that.

If I can just take one step in the right direction, if I can just begin to understand that I am beginning the process - I am on my way, and grace can carry me and take care of the rest.  If even that one first step of beginning to understand people from other generations seems too overwhelming, start with your own generation. We have an intrinsic understanding of each other, because most of us have experienced the exact same highs and lows.  Having empathy for those you are most familiar with will give you the inertia to understand the back story of other generations - of what has made people become who they are....

Photos above of Lake Washington in early Summer - just down the street from Kurt Cobain's old house - Seattle, Washington 

(c) 2013 - photography and writing by Chloe Koffas - all rights reserved

The Cobain Chronicles - Part Two: The Concert

It was the early fall of 1993. Nirvana was on tour and I was living in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  All of us were in shock to find out that they were coming to our city that coming October because major bands generally didn't come to our city at that time. Even better, the tickets were less than $20.

The show was at the convention center - a pretty small venue compared to the big city arenas Nirvana could have filled up that night if they had chosen to. This was a show with no assigned seats, just a general admission open floor - so if you were brave enough, you could just shove your way forward through the current of the crowd and watch from the very front row for as long as you could hold yourself there. I ended up seeing a lot of the show from different parts of the front row - sometimes I would be up there for a whole song before I'd get shoved further back, sometimes not. Because they had chosen to come to our usually ignored city and because they had charged so little for the ticket, I felt I needed to show them some sort of gratitude and respect and that was what ended up causing a certain event to happen that night....

It was a Tuesday. October 19, 1993.

The show began, and with it was all the excitement of hearing songs live that you had heard many times on the radio. The room was pulsing with explosive energy. Little did we know that night what a profound collective experience was taking place - that this was Nirvana's last tour, and this was one of the last shows they would ever perform.

Some of us were surprised when Krist Noveselic decided to play his accordion live. I don't think most people in the crowd even knew he played the accordion - a lot of people were just there for some really hard rock and the hope of seeing some guitars get smashed up - not for quirky moments like that. Some rude guy from the audience took off his shoe and threw it really hard at Krist.  It was a rough crowd that night. I made my way right up to Krist from the front row and looked at him for a moment with an "I'm sorry - we're not all mean people here" look on my face. He looked surprised at me and kind of annoyed in general, and I don't blame him.

Nirvana played a lot of the songs they were well known for that night. Many of the songs we heard that night later became known as part of their epic Unplugged performance....

That October night in 1993 was a pretty rambunctious and crazy night. I could feel an amazing energy, but I could feel also a certain darkness there, which was, for the most part, connected to the mosh pits. The epic mosh pits....

Back in the early 90s, as many Gen Xers know, a mosh pit at its best was full of bouncing happy people excited and just having a generally fun time. At their worst, they felt like a vortex ready to swallow people whole. Usually a mosh pit was somewhere in between those two extremes. In those days, many mosh pits were a fair game place for you to shove or in some cases, hit or stomp on other people. It was a place where you could just let out all your rage which is convenient if you were walking around in life angry like most Gen Xers were. You could usually tell what sort of mosh pit it was by the energy emanating from it as you stood on the outside of the circle. When it came to what I call the vortex type of mosh pits, there is something particularly sad about the way people would enter into that space - you know when you go in, that you could get a bone broken, that you could get trampled and end up in the hospital, and that there were always those stories in the back of your mind of those who had been killed in mosh pits.  To enter a mosh pit - a dark and angry vortex mosh pit - means that you have nothing to lose.  I've been injured multiple times in mosh pits - I had scars that took years to fade, and bones in my foot that still hurt sometimes from the combat boot stomps of bigger, angrier Gen Xers. Over time, people and bands started taking a stand against moshing, considering the many injuries and deaths that had occurred over the years. The whole idea of going into a mosh pit can all seem ridiculous unless you are angry - so angry that it overcomes your fear.  In some ways, entering a mosh pit was a rite of passage to prove how tough you were. For some reason, I always used to feel that I needed to prove that.  A lot of it was crazy, but that was the era, and the live music of Nirvana was just connected to moshing.

So the concert continued...songs went on and people went by, mostly of faces I did not recognize, some of them people I knew. Nirvana played for what seemed like a pretty long time. I was walking around in the back of the crowd and had just said hello to an old friend.


And then it happened.

It was maybe halfway or more so through the show. A fast song ended and a slower song started playing (though now I can't remember which one) and the strangest thing took place. I was shocked to see that no one was standing in front of the middle of the stage. I could see before me by the opening in the audience that I had the opportunity to walk right up to Kurt. There was just this enormous hole in the crowd - and I was able to just walk right up to the front of the stage - to the very center where Kurt was. I can only guess that a mosh pit had dissolved in that spot as the music had gone from a fast song to a slow one. Surprisingly, people hadn't yet noticed that they could fill in that empty space.

But I noticed. And I knew that the universe was bending to me in that moment and that it would be crazy for me to not accept what was being offered to me. So I took the opportunity.

I was not some hardcore fan. Others I knew from school were obsessed with Nirvana, but not me. I just knew that the music was significant, and that the moment was significant. I was not some starstruck adolescent girl worshiping at Cobain's feet. I just felt really grateful that they had brought their music to our city, that had decided to play at a pretty small venue when they could have been playing at some big city stadium and I wanted to show some respect for that....

So I began to walk slowly, as if entering a sacred place, through the empty space toward Kurt who was front and center on stage, sitting down, strumming his guitar and singing. As I got closer he seemed so different than he had appeared from further away - he was thinner and more fragile than from a distance - like all of his bulk was just coming from his clothes. The stage lights lit up the fuzz on his sweater like some sort of halo. From a distance he seemed like he was this amazing, larger than life figure. To be up close I could see how he was hunched over like an old man. He seemed tired. Horribly tired. I stood there as he kept strumming his guitar, he was taking a pause from singing and his eyes were scanning the audience from one side to the other until his eyes stopped right in the middle of that vacant space and saw me standing there in front of him. And that is when our eyes locked.  And that moment will stay forever with me because I did not expect to see what I saw in his eyes. He seemed to have this profound and enormous pain - so much that it jolted me to my core - way more than I would've expected from someone who seemed to be living this 'amazing' rock-and-roll lifestyle. People who have had a lot of pain in life can often times instantly and intuitively recognize that in each other. It was even bordering on uncomfortably long for both of us to keep staring but neither of us could look away for a long time - it was truly as if both of us could sense that we were supposed to be having this moment together at this exact place and time. This was not some romantic gesture. This was not a gaze of attraction. It was a platonic moment. It was a human moment. I'd be lying to say it wasn't a rush to be in the presence of someone so famous, but honestly that was very, very secondary - what was important is that it was as if we were recognizing a similar mutual suffering in one another. We kept looking straight at each other until he had to look down at his guitar for a chord change or maybe because it was becoming more than awkward for us to just keep staring at each other for such a crazy long amount of time.

I stood there for a little longer, amazed at what had just taken place and even shocked that the universe allowed me to experience this moment in time. While fans sometimes bring a poster board with a message on it to a concert for the band to read from afar, that was never my style. While some radio contest could have maybe won me five minutes backstage with Kurt where we could've exchanged a few words, I might have gotten nervous and said some cliched things he'd already heard from fans a thousand times before.   In order to have made a genuine connection that night, it needed to be the way it was - exactly the way it was - a nonverbal connection. A friend of mine recently shared her memory of that night and said she remembered Kurt seeming distant, and looking down a lot like he didn't want to be there. Strangely though, in that moment he seemed so attentive and was willing to connect with me. I was fortunate. 

I turned around to walk back and find my friends and this bullyish group of guys had been watching me the whole time.  As I walked further away from the stage, the largest bully hit me in the shoulder and yelled, "HEY!!! You and Kurt old FRIENDS or something?" And I lifted my fist to hit him back but my conscience told me not to. So I hid my fist behind my back like it could come out and strike like a snake any time and I walked up to him with all the fury of hell on my face. I got right up in his face as he glared down at me and I yelled "NO! I was just showing some RESPECT." And he was so shocked at my response that his jaw fell and he stumbled backward.  And I walked away, feeling like I might be the toughest, coolest girl on the planet even if just for a few moments.

When the concert was over late that Tuesday night, every bone in my body ached, and my ears were ringing so incredibly loud. There were scraps of trash strewn out everywhere and people's belongings were left behind all over the floor - sweaty flannel shirts, crushed up paper cups, cigarette butts, scraps of paper and all kinds of other things. Somewhere on the floor was the metal cross necklace that someone had ripped off my neck in a mosh pit but I could not find it. The show had come to an end, but the energy was still in the room. I remember getting one last glance at the amps that all the sound had come from, I remember watching all the people pouring out of the building to go back to the parking lot - some people I knew - mostly strangers, all Gen Xers. I remember thinking to myself how I needed to pause and truly take in that moment.  I knew that the night had been more than significant, though I could not have known that night what a piece of history was taking place, I could only sense it.

And I knew I needed to not forget.



(c) 2013 by Chloe Koffas - all rights reserved