This week, I’m headed to Ohio to see one of my favorite artists perform live.

It’s been a long time since I first added Noah Kahan to the list in my Notes app of artists I’d someday like to see in concert, and forty-eight hours from now, I’ll be able to check off his name. I couldn’t attend his show in Philly back in October, and the decision to purchase tickets for his Columbus show was a spontaneous one back in November, but looking back now, I could not be more confident that I made the right choice.  I’ve loved Noah Kahan’s music since I first discovered his album “Busyhead” in high school (I even have it on vinyl back at home), but the artist’s recent transition into more of a folk/storytelling genre with the release of his latest album “Stick Season” came at just the right time in fall semester, and as I look back on the emotional roller coaster on which I felt trapped at the time, it hasn’t escaped my notice that this album was incredibly formative for me.

Suffice to say that my first semester was a difficult transition. To read more about the details, I’ll refer you to my post “On the Interim”, which I wrote over winter break as a reflection on the first four months of my time here at PSU. The moral of the story however, still remains the same: for the first few months of living in State College, I wanted nothing but to leave State College. I remember the day “Stick Season” came out, I had no idea that Noah Kahan was releasing a new album. I’d heard the singles he had already released, “Stick Season” and “Northern Attitude”, but since I don’t follow social media very closely, I’d missed the news that he would be releasing the twelve other tracks that day. I can recall the exact chair I was sitting in within the lobby of the Hammond Building as I saw the text come through my phone: “TODAY IS A GREAT DAY”. I opened the link to Spotify that I’d been sent, and my heart dropped in my chest. Noah’s music has always had the power to reach emotional parts of me that I didn’t know were hiding inside, and while my heart quickly filled in anticipation and excitement over his new songs, I had also spent the majority of the months preceding that moment trying to cope with the mess of emotions that were swirling inside me, and I was incredibly apprehensive about how I would respond to his new album. I decided it was likely not in my best interest to listen to the album in public, so I went about the rest of my day hardly paying attention in class before I made it back to my dorm to listen to the album alone.

When I got back to my room, I sat on my bed and put in my airpods with the volume up. The album’s first two tracks were the singles Kahan had already released, so I hummed along with “Stick Season”, already having experienced the realization that I was in my own “season of the sticks” in State College. But as the rest of the album began to play, everything else in my room melted away and I was overcome with emotion. I remember moving to the floor, lying on my back while staring at the ceiling, and feeling the music in every vein of my body. Every song resonated, and each transition among feelings of nostalgia, grief, anticipation, longing, love, desolation, loss, angst, compassion, foreboding, humor, and confusion was a reassurance that I was not the only one who had ever felt these things. Each song spoke to me in its own way:

“All my Love” was a positive reminder that it’s okay to transition from being “in love” with someone to just “loving” that person platonically. In Noah’s words, “There ain’t a drop of bad blood; you’ve got all my love”.

“She Calls Me Back” was an echo of the relief I felt when my people reached out to check in on me.

“Come Over” was three minutes and seventeen seconds of self-indulgence in grieving a past relationship.

“New Perspective” felt like inhaling fresh air; it was an eye-opening wakeup call that I was in a new place with new people, and that my worldview was expanding beyond my own hometown (where the line “the intersection got a Target and they’re calling it ‘downtown'” is scarily accurate, but just with Walmart instead).

“Everywhere, Everything” was an oddly comforting reminder that we’ll all eventually be “food for the worms to eat”, and that I wasn’t getting anywhere by wasting time here on Earth trying to ignore the hard feelings instead of feeling them and living.

“Orange Juice” conveyed the uncomfortable notion that as difficult as it may be to experience, friends grow apart, and that it’s okay for that to happen. It was a reminder that even though I wanted to be geographically close to my friends again, “I didn’t think to ask [them] where they’d gone”, emotionally, and that I needed to accept that it was okay that we were all finding new paths and new people.

“Strawberry Wine” was just hard to listen to, even though it wasn’t quite for the same reason as Kahan wrote it. I miss my Mommom.

“Growing Sideways” made me laugh; “pouring my trauma out on some sad-eyed, middle-aged man’s overpriced new leather couch” was just too real.

“Halloween” was the only song I couldn’t immediately relate to; but its haunting guitar and violin accompaniment almost tangibly surrounded me and forced me to breathe deeply, for which I was grateful.

“Homesick” hit harder than any song I’d ever listened to. I had no idea where “home” was supposed to be now that I had moved out, but I sure as hell knew I wanted more for myself than Pennsylvania, and I was terrified of spending “the rest of my life with what could’ve been”.

“Still” made me feel like I needed to escape; “You miss something that you can’t place, but you can’t deny it… You can’t stay here, it’s hard to face and it feels too ugly”…

“The View Between Villages” left me sobbing. It still gives me goosebumps every time I listen to it. It builds in intensity the same way that I had been feeling my own emotions building over the past few months, and it ends suddenly with calm and reassurance. The line, “It’s just me and curve of the valley, and there is meaning on Earth; I am happy” was taped to my wall from that day until the end of my semester because it reminded me that I was going to be okay, that feeling small can be a good thing, that nature is always there, and that sometimes, you have to “split the road down the middle” to figure out how your past will connect with the horizon in front of you.

I’ve often thought about that afternoon lying on the floor of my dorm, and part of me sees it as a turning point in my first semester. It was the moment I opened myself to feeling emotions that I had only let emerge fleetingly when it was convenient for me to do so until that point. It left me exhausted, emotionally drained, but somehow more at peace than I had felt since arriving at Penn State. “Stick Season” was a conviction that things would be okay, even though it would take time. I left my dorm that afternoon feeling as if someone had removed a filter from my vision; the sun was brighter, my chin was held higher. My problems weren’t gone, by any means, but their chokehold over my emotional and mental state had been released.

And now, just over a month into second semester, I feel very okay. And in less than a day, I’ll be in a car on the way to Columbus, Ohio to see these songs performed live.

Coming full-circle is a visceral experience.