For the past three years’ I’ve found myself behind the bar at the ever famous Decadent Cabaret in Eau Claire, WI. Serving drinks to performers and attendees dressed in wacky eclectic attire, ready to pay homage to legendary musicians throughout from various decades. Instead of my typical role I decided to attend as a customer and a photographer (so I suppose not a complete/typical customer, maybe someday.)
Irresolute and guilty feelings took over me since I wasn’t serving patrons. How could I let the others down, and only a few days away from the event. But quickly these switched to feelings of ecstasy that I was on the other side of the bar this year. Not only could I wander around, socialize and take in all the incredible music, but I was in my element taking photos.
Pumped to share these with you all, it’s been difficult to pick and choose ones to publish. But, more about these photos and the event will be posted in another article. Keep your eyes peeled!
After the 40th anniversary of this three day long mini festival it came to an end and my significant other and I headed home to our humble abode. Instantly reminiscing about the weekend, happiness engulfed me – I 100% made the right choice to attend and take photos. Choosing to photograph Decadent Cabaret was something I needed to do for myself. Concerts had always been my favorite subject, yet motivation was nowhere to be found throughout the past few years.
Once we parked the car and headed to our back door we noticed a large object on the porch, confusion and concern instantly hit us. There before us was a large square piñata with a hole punched in it. We immediately assumed our room mate had brought it home. Which I’m not sure how, because he went to Decadent with us, but hey we were drinking a bit, so you know. We just went in the house and shortly questioned why he would leave that on the back porch.
Inquiry came over both my room mate and myself as we gathered in the kitchen the next morning. Questioning each other about the piñata I instantly, with quite surprise, stated that we had assumed it was his. So there we have it, some random piñata was just left on our back porch. No clues accompanied it. I’m going to take a guess. Some random ‘wild’ birthday party was probably driving by. Scoping out houses, trying to pick the perfect one, a kid shouts to his friends in the back (totally past their curfew too). ‘Hey this looks like a good house to drop off the evidence, we wouldn’t want mom and dad finding out about how much we spent on candy. But wait, let’s just put it in the back of the house, that seems less suspicious,’ the mystery kids say. And of course they had to do all of this under darkness, to make it that much more suspicious.
This mystery gets better.
The roomie and I went over a range of possibilities as to how this bright obnoxious box of a piñata landed on our doorstep. We were both pretty curious about what was inside (because obviously). Taking another glance we noticed some papers sticking out of the damaged side. Once he left for work I started digging out the innards within our new brightly colored porch ornament.
A little worried of what I may find, like what if someone was hiding dangerous illegal weapons in there?! Were they framing us? What if something came out and bit me? Or would it just be a bunch of candy and some wrappers like a typical piñata? Welp, it was neither. Within this giant, probably 3-foot box was a small pile of white paper with writing on it.
The writing consisted of positive statements, some including:
“I love your everything. Just the way u are.”
“You are strong!”
“It’s okay to not be okay.”
“You go non gender specific person!”
“You are amazing, you are caring, you are loved”
Some had statements about recovery and some about the scale only being a number. Not sure who these statements are to, but a majority of them don’t seem to fit myself, my significant other or my room mates current life choices.
Though these statements were not directed to us (or at least we think so anyways), I found some of them rather encouraging, as cheesy as they were. The timing for these notes became quite perfect for me as the rest of this week has unfolded. Many up’s and down’s have happened quickly and some positive changes are taking place in my life. These words of encouragement came like little cheerleaders to let me know the choices I’m making are good. So, thank you random person that probably didn’t appreciate this gesture from whoever gave it to you. Thank you for passing along these notes that are hidden within our now bright, mystery back porch ornament. This after Decadent Cabaret mystery may never be solved, but it made for a great end as changes are upon the horizon.
