We Have Raves at Home
Does the rise of club culture have your phone suggesting Venmo to you on a Saturday morning? Has Uber fought its way into your recent apps? And when did your neighbor from middle school start listening to hyperpop? Needless to say: Clubbing is back, baby! I’m all in. This resurgence is a wonderful resistance that cropped up as an organic, rolling stone reaction to being forced to stay indoors due to COVID-19, and the dire need to have fun when the recurring days of now are full of such devastating and life-altering news.
Obviously, there is privilege in being able to throw your hands up in a rented-out warehouse twenty minutes from Alafaya Drive and forget about what sociopolitical plights got you down. Inflation has it so that the average socially conscious young adult has to be mindful of when they can even Party Against the Machine.
But man, I <3 Raves. I <3 Going Out.
Coming up on a recession, I think everyone should be going out MORE. Pool your tips and draw straws for a Designated Driver to save money. Raise your metaphorical pitchforks and balance a row of shot glasses off of those metaphorical tines. The times are trying, and I am encouraging all far and wide to try for a good time. Be safe with the end-all be-all goal of having a fun freakin’ night. Cheers if it’s memorable and teaches you something about yourself— to hell with it if all you did was dance crazy and drink too much. I’m not suggesting romanticizing being broke, but it’s easier than romanticizing endless years of work and emotional turbulence, in my broke, twenty-something book.
All that said, let me tell you a story. One evening, when I was staring at my enticing, sloping, beckoning silhouette of a bathtub, I was considering a dichotomy. What dichotomy, you might ask?
Image Courtesy: Pinterest
Well, tonight, it was the simultaneous existence of my two persistent desires. The first being to have a carefree, inebriated night out, and the other including loading up the tub with as much hot water as my shitty apartment complex’s water system will allow me to and submerging myself under the whole bubbling thing while music plays somewhere above me, let’s say, to my right.
With my head firmly underwater, I pondered the idea of having a night that alters the course of your life, but at home. This would mean different things for everyone, of course. What builds up in our daily lives, so permeated by coffee and vices and reading and the unexpected? How does my taking a bath look starkly different from baths I took two years ago, the floundering Creative Writing baby I was? (“Baths” also known as cupping hot water in your hands ‘til it fills them up, then pouring it over oneself in a dorm shower. Lots of room for introspection during that arduous time.) Quicker than a beat drop, my pondering turned into: My Pondering!!! How exciting. I might just move the right puzzle pieces around in my head and produce ideas and plans I never previously considered.
I guess what I’m saying is: anything can happen at a rave, and so too, can anything happen in the bath. Let the mind wander, set the tea on the rim. If your thrifted mug with a secret panda on the inside breaks, well, you’ve learned something, too. (R.I.P. MY MUG: UNKNOWN-2025)
Let me get back to the crux of my point: is my taking a bath, being mindful, and picking up the Best American Poetry of 2023 Anthology the reason I am who I am today? Is the thought I put into life, ideas, and creativity the foundation for figuring it out, for having a good time? Do we have raves at home?
End note: Preferable music for submerging your head under water for brief, yet consistent, periods of time are dreampop, nineties indie rock, and something floaty, like Luna Li. Anything by Fleetwood Mac goes, too. Don’t even get me started on Minnie Riperton. We’ll be here all night and I gotta go… to the bath… or the club… who can say…
Strike out, Party Animals!
Orlando
Writer: Brianna Patane
Editor: Delaney Gunnell
Brianna Patane is a Staff Writer for Strike Magazine Orlando and a Senior at the University of Central Florida. You can find her trying to quit smoking on the balcony with a book in her hand. Reach her at bpatane12@gmail.com and @briannapatane on Instagram.
