untold stories of the house party
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It’s 7:30pm and you were supposed to leave 20 minutes ago. Shit. It was hot, the closest preview you’ve had to summer sun; slightly sunburnt after a day spent mostly outside. I think it was 8 butterflies counted that morning. one really bright yellow one that you’d never seen before. You declined sushi with friends but another friend calls shortly after to invite you to a house party. House Party™️: a house. music, grilling, singing, dancing, cake (?) + other controlled debauchery. It’s the first house party since ?? like ever? ((a long time)). So it’s 7:35pm now, you’ve just got off the phone lying that you’ve left already but you’re quickly buttoning your jeans and slipping on heels as you grab your coat and run out the door. The house party represents more than night of drinking but a night of spontaneity. The excitement of what it means to be curious, a space made to listen, share and laugh alongside others.
“OH WhHOoOO’S THIiIIIiSSSssss?” is your immediate greeting and you just know you’re in the right place. Introductions are always so matter a fact but this one is fun and immediately followed up with a hug. Led into the house you obvi get a tour + more introductions. Wowed at the turn out, looking around and everyone is standing conversing, laughing. It’s intimidating, at first. Humans being human??? not too common these days. You make your way around, faint music, distant conversation and laughter overheard from the porch as you search the foreign kitchen for a plate lol. My friend calls me over introduces me to some other friends. Everyone here is so different yet the same? Fundamentally at least, it makes for pockets of experiences depending on where you stand. This is a third space if I’d ever seen it. A house owned by artists. A welder, painter, and producer all with their own signature. A tour through the studios told me the painter was a minimalist with a contrastingly bold art style. The welder? a cowboy of sorts, raw materials everywhere squeezing through machinery and out the door with “locura” etched in cursive. Then to the fun room, the production studio with huge speakers a leather couch and glass windows that overlooked to the front of the victorian. After a break from Karaoke a few of us slipped into the studio to dance then one by one people trickled in. Outside of the sliding door? phones laid on the couch. In that moment it wasn’t anything but the music and the vibes of 4 of us. After a break to the bathroom you come to find the room full with about 10 people. Everyones mingling, dancing and having a genuine ball. Feeling intimidated is now silly in this moment. Glass breaks and its followed by an “OPA!” instead of a command, how very. The party isn’t JUST a party. It’s a room where people who have nothing in common suddenly do.
As the night goes on my friend and I separate and come back to each other now and then like a waltz. You listen to the stories of the artist from Japan who lived a nomadic lifestyle and settled on LA as a base after traveling around the PNW. Itching for stories they share a thought that makes you pause “you learn a lot about yourself when you spend that much time alone but you don’t remember what you learn, it just kinda lives inside you, you know?”. Talks of the creative process, the uncertainty with treading unfamiliar waters with people you’ve never met before. “I read this quote once ‘if an artist knew what he was going to paint before he started he wouldn’t have started’”. Sitting on that porch I realized just how little anyone knows about anything they’re doing. If they claim to, they’re lying. All we know is what we like, fueled by passions everyone sprinkling their own magic to the atmosphere. Who knew a space could be so conducive to magic like this. You learned that the couple you just said bye to had met a couple of weeks ago and now they’re madly in love. He from Marseille and she having sworn off love until now; from here. A coincidental run in when he flew in to refine tattooing skills in the US. Or what about the nutritionist who hosts informative seminars regarding woman’s hormonal health.“Do you know who Mandingo is?”. I'm riffing with a group of people outside. It’s wild to think you knew no one here about 4 hours ago. Four hours ago this house, these people, these conversations didn’t exist in your world. Now somehow they do. The Japanese artist, the Marseille tattoo apprentice, the nutritionist with the hormone seminars, the guy lighting his third cigarette asking about Barack Obama’s only fans. It’s strange how quickly strangers become part of the night.
Maybe that’s the magic of places like this. Nothing was planned, no one was curated, and yet somehow everything felt exactly where it was supposed to be. “oh perfect timing! we were just conducting a survey: would you subscribe to Barack Obama’s only fans if he had one?, between the 4 of us Who do you think would have a bigger…” it’s all so funny. You came out to say bye, it’s been 30 minutes and now a third cigarette is being lit by the guy who was, just a second ago shouting for a lighter.
Everyone dissipates inside and you’re having a moment with someone who was once stranger. You ponder the night, share more laughs and realize that the magic of a good time lies in its unpredicability. Like everyone in the party, not one person was the same and every conversation had something uniquely stamped over it. Life has a funny way of bringing the thing you asked for at the right time. Good things happen when you say yes to spaces you don’t know what will happen. modernity tries to eliminate uncertainty but to get to connection you have to get past uncertainty. Friends, differing opinions, and the connection you find rare now. here it felt alive, it felt special. It was all there. You exchange last words, closing arguments as you’re being ushered in for a Karaoke performance of nickleback, the night kinda like a character in the house, now something to reflect on. Say yes to the uncertainty. Who know’s you just might even actually give out your number this time.
- z
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