Life Grows On
“And I Don’t Know Anything, Except that Green is So Green.”
When I went to see Florence + the Machine live in Brooklyn in October 2018, I wasn’t really prepared for the impact it would have on my personal growth.
I most looked forward to hearing “Dog Days Are Over,” because it would obviously make me cry. However, what I didn’t think would happen was that during “South London Forever,” Florence would say those few words that would change my perspective forever (dramatic, I know).
“And I don’t know anything, except that green is so green.”
No matter how many times I had listened to High As Hope from beginning to end prior to the concert, I don’t even remember those words truly registering.
But, that night, I heard them. It would seem as though I had been asleep the whole concert, perhaps my whole life before having heard Florence’s words. I heard them clearer than anything else. It distracted me a bit. They kept replaying in my head. Over and over. Why did I not realize that is what she said all along? Green is literally my favorite color.
The song is an anthem to youth and change. We face moments and decisions, not knowing what to do with them, thinking it’ll be life or death—life altering decisions that we can never come back from. Then we realize that here we are, years later, in a much different stage of life, making decisions that are much more important and at times more difficult than the ones we had been faced with before.
And somehow, it all works out in the end.
There is a sort of magic in uncertainty. Sometimes I get to a point where I just get so frustrated that I let go of any preconceived ideas, make the decision, and let life take its course. And to be honest, I feel like most times when I let go of those reins, the best things happen. Uncertainty can drive us to insanity, which is completely natural and valid, but sometimes unnecessary.
This is what Florence’s words mean to me. It brings me back to a time in my youth where I didn’t really have anything to worry about or dwell upon–I was kind of just moving with the time taking everything day by day. There is something so pure about that, a bliss that we lose as we get older and take on more responsibilities, personal relationships, and individual thoughts. Of course this is all a part of getting older, but getting older doesn’t have to mean that every day you are just waiting for your life to crumble at your feet.
Whenever I am unsure of myself or feel that I am spiraling in the wrong direction, I can be grounded by her words of encouragement, her words of it’s okay to not be okay, and it’s okay to not have everything worked out, because at the end of it all, there is nothing we can ever really know for sure. We may feel adamantly against something one day, but then over time our experiences and ideas may alter, changing the particular way we felt about that one thing. And that’s okay because we never would’ve known that we would go through those moments of growth without actually going through them.
Life and change is inevitable, which is why we shouldn’t get so caught up if plans are ruined or goals aren’t quite met. Sometimes, if we just let it happen the way the moon and the universe intends (if that’s what you believe), beautiful things can come of it.
We don’t know anything, except that we have our own intuition and the color green–and it is so green.