By Sarah Thatcher
Our family has now arrived home, and I begin to unpack our suitcases from our short European trip with the plan of experiencing an epic finale concert in Vienna. I sort through the glitter costumes, shorts in pale hues, which are reminiscent of the Lover Era, and socks that are sweaty from walking over countless cobblestone steps. I also start the work of unpacking the heaviness of grief. For those who were not in Vienna, the news of three Taylor Swift concerts being canceled may seem trivial and uninteresting. However, for the 150,000 fans who traveled to the city for the experience, working through the deep waves of emotions are profoundly important.
For our family of four, this trip was a year in the making and was a chance for each of us to enjoy “a few of our favourite things” in the words of Maria von Trapp. Our trip started in Munich with a short jaunt down to the Schwangau region in Bavaria to fulfill my decades long wish of seeing the towering castle of Neuschwanstein in its full and enormous glory. We stayed in a beautiful hotel in the quaint village filled with pretzel stands and biergartens and enjoyed incredible views of the mountaintop castle built by King Ludwig II in the late 1800’s.
From Munich, we took the train to Salzburg to walk the streets of one of the most beautiful Altstadts in the world (it was named a world heritage site by UNESCO, and it was the birthplace of Mozart) and many more castles. Our day in Salzburg started early with a tour on one of the many Sound of Music buses that travel throughout the region. My hubby’s dream has been to sing the soundtrack of the movie where it was originally filmed, and the tour did not disappoint. To the confusion of many Austrians, thousands of North Americans flock to Salzburg to sing about being “16 going on 17” and other favourites.
Our tour bus included four other groups of Swifties from around the world who were also headed to Vienna for the concerts. The tour operators noted that they had seen an increase in summer tours in August this year and realized that it was due to the Swifteconomy, alive and well all over Austria.
After our quick stop in Salzburg, we took a packed fast train for three hours to Vienna to meet up with our favourite international student, who had lived with us 10 years ago in Canada. It was wonderful to have her take us on a tour around the city, and we were able to enjoy a beautiful Austrian meal with her family in the sixth district of Vienna. It was at the end of the meal, when our kids started to talk about their excitement for the concert (which we were to attend on Thursday) that we began to hear that something was amiss with the approaching concerts. Our hosts were looking at each other and speaking in hushed tones and indicated that some arrests had been made that day in Austria, but there was still much that was unknown.
We left their apartment and were starting to walk back to our hotel, when our daughter’s phone began to ping with messages from around the world. Friends who were on their way traveling to Vienna or simply seeing the news at home began to reach out to us. It was then that we read the only communication that had come from Taylor Swift and her team, which announced that all three concerts had been canceled due to a terrorist threat. I was speechless and asked her to not look at any more messages until we arrived at the hotel. I was unable to comprehend the horrible news that was being shared across the globe.
Upon arriving at the hotel, I read my messages, and our Austrian friend confirmed that all three concerts had been canceled and investigations were still underway. The shock and disappointment in that moment were masked with absolute disbelief. This was to be our kids’ first time seeing Taylor Swift live, and it was intended to be a graduation trip for both kids, as well as a send off to our oldest, who is headed to college in a different province. Traveling thousands of kilometers and spending thousands of dollars to see a concert has never been something that we have attempted before. Our daughter tried to get a code for a Taylor Swift concert in almost every country in the Western hemisphere, and this was the only time she was successful with a pre-sale code. Even as a Canadian, we could not get a code to the 7 concerts that Taylor has planned in our home country. This was to be the kids’ dream trip to experience a world-renowned concert, and the fact that it was ripped from them is still raw for all of us.
Prior to heading to the concert, I was chatting with a friend and sharing how I was so glad to be able to take my kids to Vienna to experience the power of community and love that Taylor Swift has inspired in her fans worldwide. The fact that fans of all ages travel across the globe, bring gifts of friendship bracelets to share with people they have just met, and dress up for a collective experience was one of the things I was most thrilled about. I believe that one of the most powerful things that Taylor has created is a sense of belonging for this generation who missed out on shared experiences as a result of the lockdowns and disappointments of the Covid-19 pandemic. Worldwide, kids and teens were not allowed to move through the motions of graduations, celebrations, or birthdays - the things that traditionally marked the end of something and the beginning of the next, giving them closure and a sense of fulfillment. Swifties around the globe had been united by this feeling of belonging that a concert, an era or a song could bring them. Hearing a familiar tune would flood their minds with memories of where they were or who they were when they first experienced it.
On Thursday, the full knowledge that we were not going to experience the concert as we had planned, started to really set in. Another Canadian Swiftie and former teaching friend of ours from the Middle East had decided at the last minute to travel from Bali to Vienna, and we were so glad to add another reunion to our trip and walk through the depths of emotions with her. She referred to it as another experience of #traumabonding, which had been part of our daily life when we were teaching and living in the Middle East together.
We decided to take the metro to Corneliusgasse (Cornelius Street) where just days before, Swifties had left friendship bracelets on a tree and posted on social media that fans should head there to exchange these tokens and meet new friends. As we began walking through the downtown streets, the crowds of kids - some as young as 4 years old - were dressed up in Swiftie wear with arms full of bracelets to share with others. The pain of the grief hit me deeply, as I watched kids, teens, parents and grandparents walk in disbelief to this street to take part in some semblance of normal and try to make up for this massive loss.
Before we even rounded the corner of Corneliusgasse, the sound of Swifties singing in a collective voice rose over the buildings and could be heard blocks away. One fan with a tiny speaker was choosing favourite songs, and thousands of fans would begin to chime in - true Swifties know every lyric to every song, and they sang at the top of their lungs to relieve some of the shock and sadness that washed over them at different moments. We stood on the street for hours, and at different times, Swifties would ask to share bracelets, pulling out a bag or a pouch with handmade or store bought talismans to trade with their new friends. This experience on the street acted as a sort of balm for the pain that Swifties were feeling and, for the entire weekend, the street was flanked by police officers, with bracelets on their wrists and radios in-hand. They were doing their best to keep all of these fans safe who had nowhere to go and nothing else to do.
Not knowing what we would do with ourselves during our scheduled concert time, I asked our hotel if they would consider lending us an empty conference room to try and bring some normalcy to the situation and still be able to experience Taylor Swift as a group. The hotel was amazing, and my daughter and I made posters to put up in the elevator announcing to other shocked fans that they could join us for a TV version of the concert. We started at 7pm (which is when the concert would have started), and 100 Swifties from our hotel and others started to stream in, fully dressed in their planned costumes, arms adorned with bracelets to share. It was the least that I could do to try and bring some joy to my family and others, as I feared that I might simply crawl into the soft hotel bed and not get out for days.
Listening to the voices of littles and teens singing along to The Eras Tour, which was filmed at Sofi Stadium, flooded me with tears over and over throughout the concert. My daughter’s friends, who had heard the news during their flight over to Vienna from Toronto, stopped in for the televised concert too. Hopefully this experience brought them some joy in this scary and confusing time.
The news and the arrests of the teenage masterminds of this attack was deeply distressing. Looking around the streets of Vienna at the innocent faces of so many little people, it is unbelievable to think of the plans that had been devised to murder as many of these fans as possible by unthinkable means. The fact that I was about to walk my family into such a massacre without any knowledge of it, is a weight that my ‘Mom heart’ is finding very hard to bear.
This vacation was planned as a huge celebration for our family and a way to spend time bonding. It also served as a final trip together prior to launching our now adult child into the world. The fear that now catches in my throat when I think about my kids leaving, is something new for me, and it leaves me breathless each time. Taylor’s words in her song “Never Grow Up” seem even more real now, as I, too, have the desire that my kids “never grow up” and “stay this simple.” Her heartfelt ballad of staying young and innocent is a profound message for her fans worldwide who have now felt a fear that they had not known before...simply for being her fans.
Just days before our departure, I was texting a friend who had a chance to see Taylor in Munich. He remarked that it was a “life-changing experience” for him, and he was so excited that we were going to have that same experience soon. I am angry that our life-changing experience was very different from his, and it will shape our futures in very different ways. I worry that my kids will begin to see the world in a new way: one that is not filled with compassion, empathy or love, but filled with fear, sadness and disappointment.
The night before our flight was leaving, we headed to Corneliusgasse once more, after having wandered aimlessly through the streets of Vienna. Thousands of fans gathered together again, and as we raised our phones and voices to sing along with the united sounds of Swifties from across the globe, I looked up and saw the sky painted for us in the pale hues of blue, pink and purple. They were hinting that love will prevail in this era too.
As I work through mountains of clean laundry, I am grateful to be back safely in my home thinking of Swifties worldwide, with Taylor’s lyrics ringing in my ear, “You can do it with a broken heart.”
Comments