Chiaroscuro Sunset
This past Saturday was the last night for the club I've been going to for the past year or so.
Chiaroscuro was the first place that I've been a "regular" at in a long time. The first place in the DC area that I felt a great desire to actually be at on a weekly basis. Not just for the music, not just for the movies showing silently behind the stage and definitely not just for the hour long ride on the metro to get there from Rockville.
I went there... for the people.
From the first night I nofcna and starsoup7 invited me out to the club, it's been about the people. First them, then the small handful of people that I met there.
Before long, Chiaro was the centerpiece for my small but growing social sphere. Many of the people I know, I met there. Some, I don't really know at all but got very used to seeing. Regardless of whether I call them Friends or "that hot girl with the awesome tattoo" they've all helped me shed the shell I had wrapped myself in during my prior years of isolation.
For that, I thank everyone. If it weren't for the people around me, I would still be buried beneath years of morose musings and negative thoughts. But the music, the people, the place--it all helped me become Me again.
The place itself was interesting. The building had its own special energy that added to the night. But the real *thrumm* of it all came from the energy the regular Chiaro crew put into making each night something special. It takes an amazing group of people to put on a show week after week. And, really, is there any show harder to put on than making it look like something runs smoothly, no matter what is actually going on?
kelowna, h1661n5, ilvandram, mreraser, cacie, Ron, all the DJs and bartenders and support staff--you made it work. You gave it the spark of life that drew all the people. The combination of your energy with that of the people you drew in has created something that made a difference--something that will live on long after the night and the building and the people are gone.
Chiaroscuro the event is no more. But the spirit of the place has been set free and lives now and forever in those who were deeply touched by it.
Like me.
It will be brought into wherever we all next end up and there it will grow into something new and unexpected.
Chiaroscuro was the first place that I've been a "regular" at in a long time. The first place in the DC area that I felt a great desire to actually be at on a weekly basis. Not just for the music, not just for the movies showing silently behind the stage and definitely not just for the hour long ride on the metro to get there from Rockville.
I went there... for the people.
From the first night I nofcna and starsoup7 invited me out to the club, it's been about the people. First them, then the small handful of people that I met there.
Before long, Chiaro was the centerpiece for my small but growing social sphere. Many of the people I know, I met there. Some, I don't really know at all but got very used to seeing. Regardless of whether I call them Friends or "that hot girl with the awesome tattoo" they've all helped me shed the shell I had wrapped myself in during my prior years of isolation.
For that, I thank everyone. If it weren't for the people around me, I would still be buried beneath years of morose musings and negative thoughts. But the music, the people, the place--it all helped me become Me again.
The place itself was interesting. The building had its own special energy that added to the night. But the real *thrumm* of it all came from the energy the regular Chiaro crew put into making each night something special. It takes an amazing group of people to put on a show week after week. And, really, is there any show harder to put on than making it look like something runs smoothly, no matter what is actually going on?
kelowna, h1661n5, ilvandram, mreraser, cacie, Ron, all the DJs and bartenders and support staff--you made it work. You gave it the spark of life that drew all the people. The combination of your energy with that of the people you drew in has created something that made a difference--something that will live on long after the night and the building and the people are gone.
Chiaroscuro the event is no more. But the spirit of the place has been set free and lives now and forever in those who were deeply touched by it.
Like me.
It will be brought into wherever we all next end up and there it will grow into something new and unexpected.