{Note: The Madonna Timeline is an ongoing feature, where I put the iPod on shuffle and write a little anecdote on whatever was going on in my life when that Madonna song was released and/or came to prominence in my mind.}
A quintessential fall album, coming out during one of the most indelible falls of my youth, ‘Bedtime Stories‘ was the soundtrack of a pivotal period in my life. This little soft-focus disco ditty was one of the few upbeat moments in a relatively moody atmospheric album, although ‘Don’t Stop’ felt like one of those unremarkable filler tracks designed to puff out a Madonna album so more solid material like ‘Secret‘ or ‘Survival‘ could shine. Hearing it now brings me back to that time period, to that tricky fall when I shared my very first kiss with a man.
Get up on the dance floor, everything is groovin’ Get up on the dance floor, got to see you movin’ Let the music shake you, let the rhythm take you Feel it in your body, sing la dee da dee
While much of that fall involved experiences with other people, the majority of my time was spent alone – walking the streets of Boston, riding the commuter rail between Boston and Brandeis, writing papers and creating projects in my dorm room within Usen Castle. A sense of loneliness pervaded the chilly air, even as I refused to allow myself to feel lonely; the notion of giving in to that, of being lonely, was an abyss that terrified me more than I can or could explain. It scared me to the point that I backed away from it as soon as I felt it drawing near. Like death.
Such darkness came with the descent of fall, with its early evenings and frosty mornings – the shock of it after the ease of summer, the way it took one’s breath away – the advent of autumn was still a surprise at that time in my life. The ‘Bedtime Stories’ album set an evocative tone with lush orchestral tracks like ‘Love Tried to Welcome Me’, ‘Forbidden Love‘ and ‘Take A Bow‘, while the hazy atmosphere of ‘Inside of Me’ and ‘Sanctuary’ spoke to the private cocoon I’d wrapped around myself, isolating my daily existence from classmates and people in general. The contradiction of not wanting to be lonely and not wanting to be around people was apparent – I just didn’t find a way to put it into words. In some ways, I was happier bopping about alone in my room to a song like this and imagining being around friends and lovers than actually putting such imagined scenes into action.
Come on join the party, let the bass line pump you Bring your body over, baby let me bump you I know I can groove you, you know I can move you Feel it in your body, sing la dee da dee
It was a haunted time, one that I’ve already written about so much it feels more like a book I once read than a life I once led. It’s not a time or place I’d like to dwell, and so we return to the modern day, and the present moment, and a song with the sentiment of ‘Don’t Stop’ carries more resonance on this day, as Madonna kicks off her new Celebration World Tour, proving that she is more concerned with walking her walk than talking her talk.
Daily meditation has formed a safe and consistent bastion of stability in my world over this past summer, a time period when I needed it most. In addition to the formal meditation practice, I’ve also been taking things quietly, using what focus I can find to get through the work days, and spending the remaining hours of the afternoons and evenings writing these blog posts, listening to music, and doing some light reading.
This song came over the radio the other day, and I paused in the post I was writing to listen.
Originally I thought that the fall would reinvigorate me, allowing us to move beyond what was a terrible summer, but I haven’t quite felt that. Not yet. It might simply be that I’m not ready, or it may be that this is the slower pace and quieter footfalls of all that is to come. Learning to accept that is part of this fall, and there is already something peaceful and calming about it.
I’m lying on the moon My dear, I’ll be there soon It’s a quiet starry place Time’s we’re swallowed up in space We’re here a million miles away
There’s things I wish I knew There’s no thing I’d keep from you It’s a dark and shiny place But with you my dear, I’m safe And we’re a million miles away
We all see the same moon. Maybe it’s in shadow for some, maybe it’s brighter for others, maybe it’s barely discernible behind clouds, and maybe it’s the only thing to be seen in the sky – but it’s the same moon, the same body in the universe that everyone on earth gets to glimpse in some way. In that respect, the moon has always been a comfort to me, a reminder that we’re not quite alone.
We’re lying on the moon It’s a perfect afternoon Your shadow follows me all day Making sure that I’m okay And we’re a million miles away
Before the official first day of fall way back in the year 1994, I was priming the seasonal pumps with my ‘Darkness’ project, in which I did a rather perfunctory examination of, well, ‘Darkness’ in an effort to strike some fun fear and silly scares in the hearts of my friends. Little did I know that real life would soon prove dark enough, and that all my writings and mix-tapes on such a theme would feel all the more silly afterward.
This song opened up the theme on the ‘Darkness’ mix I made for all of my friends. (Yes, a mix-tape, on a 90-minute cassette from the 80’s.) The grand finale to the month-long mailing extravaganza of my ‘projects’ at the time was usually the tape (which included chilling musical motifs from the likes of ‘The Silence of the Lambs’). This particular package came with a bloody knife wrapped in a bloody wash-cloth, to really get the point across. (The post office used to be a lot less stringent in what you get away with mailing.)
Love – nobody know just how it was born Love – first came to me with the radio on Jumped up in my body with an attitude Kissed me on the mouth and said “Your leader take me to”
‘Twas like thunder all thru the night
And a promise to see jesus in the morning light
Love say “Take my hand, it’ll be alright
C’mon save your soul tonight”
The package, and the entire project itself, brought mixes reactions. One of my friends reported it, while Suzie and the Cornell Crew opened the package, shrugged, washed off the knife and added it to their questionable collection of kitchen utensils. Back then, I considered it a success based on those disparate reactions alone. Clearly, I was still finding my footing as far as creative expression went.
The stories that accompanied the ‘Darkness’ project were designed to disturb and scare, and thankfully I no longer have any of them because I’m sure they read as more ridiculous than terrifying. (The only one I partially recall is a fantasy on torturing my annoying roommate at the time – a broken light bulb was going to be inserted into his, well, you get the idea.) I wanted to illuminate all the ways that Darkness can make us do things we wouldn’t normally do, things of which we would never be proud, things that turn us into lesser-versions of ourselves. I accessed the darker corners of my psyche and let it all play out on the page, taking my friends along for the ride whether they liked it or not.
Love’s kiss was running all thru my veins
The bed started shakin’, I don’t know who to blame
Me or this flower right in front of my eyes
Is this my sweet savior or the devil in disguise
‘Twas like thunder (oh) all thru the night (all through)
Promise to see jesus in the morning light
Love say “Take my hand, it’ll be alright
C’mon save your soul tonight”
It was my attempt to keep myself in their minds while we were miles apart – my biggest fear back then may have been being forgotten. It worked almost too well, and I came up against the prickly lines that vacillated among notoriety, derision, and disgust. Alienating friends was the art form I was unintentionally perfecting, and the solitary stance in which I found myself may have fed into my behavior that fall. Sometimes I think darkness begets darkness, and once you start rolling down that hill it’s very difficult to stop, much less right yourself. The best you can do is slow down a bit, and hope that any impact at the end won’t kill you outright.
Like rain falling on a window pane
Tears came to my eyes when I asked her name
Made me holler when it finally came
Said “Only the children born of me will remain”
‘Twas like thunder all thru the night
And a promise to see Jesus in the morning light (mornin’ light)
Love say “Take my hand, it’ll be alright
C’mon save your soul tonight”
This song by Prince and the New Power Generation, from the brilliant ‘Diamonds and Pearls‘ album (which remains my favorite Prince album, as much as purists may scoff) brings me back to those thunderous days, when fall felt like the most fitting season for the tales of fright I was intentionally crafting and intentionally living. Fall was rife for drama in that way, and I courted it unabashedly, conjuring the tension and emotions required to make an impression and a memory. I would burn everything down before they could forget me.
Now that feels all so silly and futile, and the only ones who remember anything of my ‘Darkness’ project are myself and the small smattering of friends who got that bloody knife in the mail. Oddly, and wonderfully, those are the only ones who still matter.
Thunder…
Like thunder (thunder) all thru the night (thunder yeah) Promise to see Jesus in the morning light (it will be all right) Love say “Take my hand, it’ll be alright (it’s gonna be alright) C’mon save your soul tonight”
Thirty years ago I was experiencing my first semester at Brandeis University. That puts time, and age, in a very stark perspective. (Originally I typed ‘Twenty years ago’ then did the disturbing math and here we are.) A lot was learned that first semester, so much so that I thought I knew it all by the time the holidays rolled around that winter. Looking back, it’s amazing at how much I didn’t know, and how I still somehow had the balls to walk around like I had my shit together. Going back in time, it’s a wonder such hubris and insecurity could so functionally co-exist… and rewinding to the fall of 1993, I’m astonished at what I still feel when I allow myself to return to that time…
He said I must be dreaming But I thought I heard the sound The sound that lovers make As they drop down from the window Quiet as cats, across the courtyard Moving from shadow to shadow Past the guards to the forest So quiet in her still reflection Drawing them down, drawing them down to the lake To the centre of her attention
In that fall semester, I steal away to Boston whenever I have a chance, finding more comfort in the chilly solitude of the city than the student-filled campus. At the Tower Records store that once stood at one end of Newbury Street, and is now occupied by a TJ Maxx, I browse the bins of CDs, because it’s still only the early 90’s, and I’m still only a few steps removed from boyhood. On this particular night, I’m feeling particularly daring, and so I gamble on an unheard purchase – the ‘Laid’ album by James – based on the accolades in the advertising blurbs, as well as the gents on the cover, decked out in dresses and eating bananas. It spoke to me.
The album would become one of the most profound musical connections at one of the more profound formative sections of my life – that tender time of the very last teen years, still a child in some ways, not yet a young adult in others, and nowhere near figuring out where I might belong and who I might be, but absolutely hell-bent on finding out by any means necessary. Music discovered at such crossroads invariably becomes imbued with significance and import, even if it’s only to our own ears.
Steal the moon tonight Before the morning Steal the moon tonight I just love a good mystery And on the West Bank a boat is being pulled Across the sands they move so softly Slip into water Oars dip, don’t break the moon’s reflection And drift like a cloud To the centre Beneath her cool attention
On the recent evening of the Super Blue Moon – the last of its kind for well over a decade or so – this song was revealed to me via the latest album by James. It turns out this was a B-side to the epic ‘Laid’ album – and I can hear in its melody and delivery the same tone and majesty that first drew me into their fan base two decades ago. It seems a fitting song to introduce the fall season of 2023 at ALANILAGAN.com, and it brings me all the way back to 1993; those tender early days at Brandeis are rife for exploration, though I’m not sure I’m up for that kind of triggering right now.
This fall also marks the 25th anniversary of when I got my first office job – at John Hancock – and I recently stumbled upon the blank book I had everyone sign when I left that gig. The revelations there are as hilarious to me as they will likely be mundane to you, but since this is still my blog I may post them anyway. (Don’t let that frighten you off from boredom – some of the things people wrote are enjoyably embarrassing for those who love to see me in such ego-busting peril. You know who you are, and I know who you are.)
What I don’t know is what this season will bring – and after the events of this summer, I really don’t want to think about it. Getting through it, day by day, will be enough for us to manage. Let’s do it together.
Still water Still water Steal the moon tonight Before the morning Steal the moon tonight I want to drown in your moon dream I’ve seen you rising from shore to shore I want to drown in your moon dream I’ve seen you rising Steal the moon tonight Shine Shine Shine
The wind rustles through the weeping willow, and the sound is more redolent of fall than summer or spring. On the bank of a pond, water birds stand sentinel, their shadows only outlined silhouettes. Remnants of a hurricane echoing along the Northeast coast have drifted inland, and the boughs of trees sway and shift in the temperate night wind.
Something spooky is in the air. Is is really there? Or is it just this time of the year, when change is in the atmosphere? Witches might be flying above the cloud-cover, or that might just be the echoes of the hurricane – who can truly tell? And if you believe the former, wouldn’t the effects of the latter simply back it up? One misguided belief leads to another. The truth, in its infuriating way, refuses to be anything but elusive. Why it should be so hard to pin down is one of life’s more unsatisfying mysteries.
When faced with such a mystery, I find it best to set it to music, and this particular selection straddles the strange undulating border between summer and fall, when chilly nights bleed into striking days, and questions survive only in a world of blue.
Watching the swaying of the willow branches, I’m brought back to those mysteries of life. In most instances they can be traced back to mysteries of love – all the stories somehow come back to love. For some us lucky enough to find escape in the stories we read as children, the wind in the willows sounded a portal to a different world. I still believe in such magic, even if the method to attain entrance is markedly different, and more a better of perspective and mindfulness than actual doors or wardrobes or ships of seedpods to other realms. When the vessel is merely a matter of mind over material, it opens up worlds not limited to the imagination. That expands things to an extent that makes many uncomfortable.
The willow tree is no longer just a willow tree.
It’s a big furry monster that will either warm you with a big embracing hug, or devour you with tendrils studded with thorns, pulling you into a mouth that is only darkness and impossible pain.
“The observations and encounters of a solitary, taciturn man are vaguer and at the same times more intense than those of a sociable man; his thoughts are deeper, odder and never without a touch of sadness. Images and perceptions that could be dismissed with a glance, a laugh, an exchange of opinions, occupy him unduly, become more intense in the silence, become significant, become an experience, an adventure, an emotion. Solitude produces originality, bold and astonishing beauty, poetry. But solitude also produces perverseness, the disproportionate, the absurd and the forbidden.” ~Thomas Mann, ‘Death in Venice’
This will be a strange, feverish post. I begin it without knowing where it’s going – never a safe beginning, often a riskier middle, and always an ending of doom. So many doomed endings, so many little deaths – all the deaths of a day. This blog post will suffer its own series of deaths – when it is read, when it is unread, when it is forgotten, when it becomes buried beneath other posts, when the antiquated machinations of this WordPress madness cease functioning, when this blog itself goes offline. So many ways it falls apart, deteriorating and diminishing and dissolving, like some unfinished, half-hearted sentence…
The arrival of today’s mail escaped our notice, so I ended up going out to the mailbox after it was dark, listening to the frogs and insects in the very last days of summer sing their slightly sad songs. This day dies to make way for the night, and the night will be gone as well to make room for a new day. Every day a little death indeed.
“Only incorrigible bohemians find it boring or laughable when a man of talent outgrows the libertine chrysalis stage and begins to perceive and express the dignity of the intellect, adopting the courtly ways of a solitude replete with bitter suffering and inner battles though eventually gaining a position of power and honor among men.” ~Thomas Mann, ‘Death in Venice’
Summer’s demise is happening as I write this. It was there in the chill of tonight’s air, and the official switch of seasons will take place on September 23. Another summer will arrive, and it will be the same, as much as it won’t. Its heart and essence will scream ‘summer’ but it will still not be the same, even as it takes the same name, even as it goes through the same motions. Summer is summer is not summer is summer…
I knew this post would collapse into itself, and imperfectly yet impeccably designed it to do so, like those empty buildings so intricately laced with dynamite at all the right locations that upon explosion almost too neatly fall in on themselves. A million little deaths then – of doorways, of windows, of halls, of secrets whispered, of sighs unheard, of winter footprints stained into carpets, of bathroom tiles once peered into while random men found relief at urinals – all the deaths of an average day in an average building.
Then there is space, littered with dust and debris that will be carted away, ground that will be leveled again – space that will form home for something else, something new. Space and time, both extending and continuing, bound to what came before, bound to what will come after, connecting and separating in infuriating, impossible contradiction. An infinite conundrum that something like Buddhism would only dare hint at resolving, and then it would somehow shift the perspective into something that approached mindfulness, contorting basic laws of science and nature into mere perception, and offering little in how to practically navigate actual survival. Obviously I know little to nothing about Buddhism, or mindfulness… and the last four years of meditation might not mean all that much either. More little deaths – of dreams, of understanding, of plans – and more music by Mahler. I won’t drink to that.
Three more days until summer falls…
“It is probably better that the world knows only the result, not the conditions under which it was achieved; because knowledge of the artist’s sources of inspiration might bewilder them, drive them away and in that way nullify the effect of the excellent work.” ~Thomas Mann, ‘Death in Venice’
For those of us around and cognizant at the turn of the millennium, there was only one war that mattered: Backstreet Boys versus ‘NSync. It was a battle for who could claim the supreme boyband title, and these two groups fought it out on the musical and video battleground, volleying for the top spot. At the end of that initial run of pop glory, I think most would agree that ‘NSync had the edge, following the super status of songs and videos like ‘Bye Bye Bye’ and ‘It’s Gonna Be Me’.
The Carpenters don’t have a song sad enough for when the rainy day also happens to be a Monday, and such is the conundrum in which we find ourselves this final week of summer. Is there a more gloomy and dreary scene than a dim, rainy Monday morning? It unfailingly saps a bit of the soul when it happens, yet rather than fight and wail and rail against it, I’m attempting to lean into the gloom and doom, to let the soul feel its sadness and disappointment, to pause and hopefully to heal.
This classic song by the Carpenters is almost too trite to post, but sometimes you don’t need to get too deep to resonate with such rawness. The Carpenters always managed to straddle that line between earnest and cloying – and today I’m erring on the side of earnest.
Talkin’ to myself and feelin’ old Sometimes I’d like to quit Nothin’ ever seems to fit Hangin’ around Nothin’ to do but frown Rainy days and Mondays always get me down…
Funny, but it seems I always wind up here with you Nice to know somebody loves me Funny, but it seems that it’s the only thing to do Run and find the one who loves me (the one who loves me)
Growing up in the 1980’s, this was the sort of pop music inspiration that informed my formative years, so it’s a wonder my taste isn’t even more gratingly awful than it is. This ear worm would take up residence in my head some days, making itself into a mantra that would later haunt my absences. Subconsciously I was preparing a strategy to never be forgotten – this song seemed to indicate that was important.
My hair never went this high, and my clothes never got this extreme, but the 80’s opened the door to my own sense of style and fashion, for better and often worse. Bold colors, abstract designs, excess and over-the-top madness were the first things that my younger self saw on the television and in the magazines. All the girls in my class wore Liz Claiborne perfume, while my Mom had a bottle of Lou Lou that absolutely transfixed me. She rarely, if ever, wore it – someone gave it to her as a gift and it was decidedly too bold to be her style. I adored it. A few years ago I found a bottle of it, and usually break it out once around the holidays at the whatever over-the-top social gathering that happens to occupy the season.
As I listen to this song now, it feels just as bouncy and happy and hopeful as it did back then, and also slightly empty and vapid. The melody is strong, but the lyrics and their cliches of love fall a little flat. Still, maybe that’s what we need again. Cheesy, cliched hope and fun – even if it’s all a bit hollow.
Coming back to the music scene in splendid, scintillating fashion after a dozen years, Jim Verraros releases a magnificent return to sexy form with ‘Take My Bow’ today. He was recently crowned a Dazzler of the Day here, and upon listening to the new track it is apparent that Verraros still dazzles. ‘Take My Bow’ picks up where his last album ‘Do Not Disturb’ left off, then charts new territory by obliterating the boundaries of modern dance-pop. With its skittering beats and deliciously-sinister bass-line, ‘Take My Bow’ is the sultry slice of exuberant inspiration that Verraros has been providing since 2005; in many unheralded ways he paved the road for the likes of Sam Smith and Troye Sivan. ‘Take My Bow’ ranks right up there with the most striking releases of unabashedly queer music this year.
Based on the single, and some of the promotional artwork for this venture (see below), Verraros still knows how to put on a show. (Check out ‘Take My Bow’ on Spotify here.)
While on the subject of harvesting, this song by Neil Young tells a happy tale of love beneath a harvest moon. It didn’t speak to me in my youth, but like all great music, it creeps back and resonates differently the older one gets. When I think of Andy, and how supportive and helpful he has been this past summer, this song seems to embody the life we have slowly built together over the last couple of decades, even amid the madness of all those full moons that have passed over us in that time.
When we were strangers I watched you from afar When we were lovers I loved you with all my heart
Maybe we don’t celebrate those happy moments as much as we should, and we certainly don’t celebrate the moments when we are simply contented. The older I get, and the more of life’s sorrows that we experience, those moments of simple contentment, of standing still and being ok, the more I realize their value. I hope that makes life more enriching going forward, that there is something to be gleaned and earned from all the sadness and loss.
But now it’s gettin’ late And the moon is climbin’ high I want to celebrate See it shinin’ in your eye
We don’t lean into the joy when we have it. We don’t stop to smell the roses when they’re sweet. At the crest of middle age, I want to do more of that for the downhill portion of this ride of life.
Because I’m still in love with you I want to see you dance again Because I’m still in love with you On this harvest moon
For an even more intense and stripped down experience, listen to Cassandra Wilson’s exquisite rendering of the song, deconstructed to a primal, tender treatise on love. When I was living alone in Boston, I listened to this version of the song, not understanding, not even approaching an understanding of what it might mean.
We are a little closer today.
Because I’m still in love with you I want to see you dance again Because I’m still in love with you On this harvest moon
A song for the first day of September, entitled almost entirely too basically as ‘September Song’, and written and performed by the great Agnes Obel, this will mark our entrance to the month in which we transition from summer to fall. A sigh of sadness would usually accompany such a statement, but this year is different for me. This year, fall feels welcome, and the slumber of winter feels like it may function as an old friend. More than anything, I want things to slow down, and I want to feel the days as they arrive, not rush through them in order to get to the next thing.
The next thing is not always lovely.
The next thing lurks like a monster from childhood.
Whether or not it’s only in your mind, the next thing is awful in how awful it can be imagined.
So let us have this September Song, and let it be a balm on all our worry and wonder.
Let it welcome us into a new month, and a new season, while embracing the last days of summer, celebrating and honoring everything that has happened beneath the sun and the rain.
This post draws one in with a song and a cheeky photographic turn from the distant past. The song is ‘Will I Ever Dream?’ from the mid-1990’s, and the pics are from the mid-2000’s. Taken together, they honor tonight’s full Super Blue Moon. This bit of astrological mayhem might also explain the crazy-ass post from this morning, because had I known it was a full moon, and a period of Mercury in retrograde motion, I might have taken things better in stride. Or maybe I would have had the same reaction. Lately I’ve been extremely sensitive to things that normally wouldn’t bother me in the least. It dawned on me late last night, as I was dissolving into a pool of frustrated tears for not guessing the daily Wordle right away, that I was still in the thralls of grieving. My father hasn’t even been dead a full month, and all the little annoyances of life have taken on blame, a substitution and punching bag for whatever anger and hurt that’s still churning away. This song reads and sounds differently now than it did when I first heard it in a more blissful time.
Please all I ask is that you don’t pass me by here that you don’t leave me here drowning in tears all by myself I’m out here in the cold, this love has taken its toll I’m standing so alone it’s over now I know
There is no right or wrong way to grieve. All the books and guidance may offer certain paths that worked for other people, and some of them may prove especially helpful at certain times, but there are other moments that have no solution, no way of getting out of the muck. Going easier on myself, and others around me, is a lesson I’m slowly learning. At first I didn’t see what was happening.
Having maintained my daily meditation, I wondered at my increasing agitation and frustration with things in general. When I had trouble signing onto the computer for work one day my meltdown was fast and furious – I ended up walking away and charging an hour of vacation time to calm down and re-group, then slowly going back and figuring out the problem without the angry passion.
When going out in public to pick up groceries or lunch, I find myself annoyed by almost everyone around me, whether it’s their laughter or their ignorance or their outfits, and it all feels like a personal affront. When driving, I’ve noticed a discernible rise in my own road rage, something that typically never afflicts me – these days everyone is either going too slow, or too fast, or texting. When watching the news that Andy has playing on the television, I feel an irrational flash and flicker of helpless fury, sometimes shouting back at the TV in furious outrage.
At night here in the dark, I just can’t get to sleep its seems It’s just these memories of you are always haunting me will I will I will I ever dream will I ever dream again?
Those spells of anger are usually followed by spells of staring or losing myself in whatever I’m supposed to be doing. A blank, unfocused gaze off in the distance, a meandering walk that has no destination, or an uncharted and unplanned moment in which I stand by the door or window simply staring outside. I’ll suddenly find myself sitting on the couch, for some indiscernible length of time, tears suddenly welling in my eyes, not sure why or where they’re coming from, trying to make some semblance of sense out of what is happening. That’s when the little things get blamed as my brain struggles to wrap itself around these messy feelings.
And it dawns on me again: this is grief. It’s not about the grand fits of weeping and wailing that once constituted grief in my eyes, it’s all the rest of it, because suddenly loss imbues all the rest of it. The struggle to make sense of it, to figure it out immediately only compounds the problem, if in fact it is a problem. Perhaps it’s just the way life will be from now on. Perhaps we all have to turn this corner, and there is no way back.
Why can’t I face these facts why why can’t you see that I I spoke honestly I didn’t want you gone it’s just that I only wanted to be free I didn’t want to be tied to anyone I know that I was wrong
After my last therapy session, I felt good about where I was, mentally and emotionally. I’d explained how I’d been going through the grieving process for at least five years, hitting every recommended stage at one point or another, making every moment these past few months matter, and doing as well as expected for the loss of one of the only people I have known for my entire life. I felt good coming home from that appointment. Slowly, in the days that followed, I felt not-so-good. This wasn’t something that could be addressed and confronted and solved in a day or a month or a year. This wasn’t something that could be perfectly handled and compartmentalized away. There wasn’t anything neat or tidy or definitive about this, and my heart ached for the vast open-ended emptiness that sprawled so terrifyingly before me.
And so I blame the Super Blue Moon. I blame the nonsensical notion of Mercury in apparent retrograde motion. I blame the unintentional slights, the innocent attacks, and the hapless clumsiness of people only trying to help. Mostly, though, I blame myself.
I’ve been telling myself and others the opposite in the hope of forcing it into existence. I’ve been saying things are ok, that I’m ok, in an effort to move on and make it less uncomfortable. That doesn’t seem to be helping, or happening, and I’m putting this down here because it’s ok to say it, and it’s ok to not be ok right now.
Somewhere back in time, I walk across wooden floorboards as a younger man, alone but fortified with the knowledge that my tribe was all still there, even if distant and far. I travel by myself, traversing miles and states and countries, because there is always a home to which I could return, a place and a set of people to whom I belong. My happiness is a result of a lack of fear and the belief that I am whole, if slightly imperfect.
Today I’m no longer whole, and happiness is something that feels elusive and illusory.
I never thought how hard living without you could be I guess I never knew how much of you was inside me…
It hasn’t felt right to indulge in something that once brought such happiness. Not yet.
That’s ok. There’s no need to rush, and everyone returns to living when and how they are ready.
But there are those of you still out there trying to enjoy every last day of the summer, and for you I offer this 80’s song from some late summer long ago, back when our only worries were getting home before the June bugs swarmed and the street lights came on, back when our parents were there waiting, unconcerned and innocent, the way we all once were, the way that is no longer in existence.
Catch my breath, Close my eyes Don’t believe a word. Things she said, overheard Something wrong inside Hits you in a minute, Ooooo Then you know you’re in it, aah.
It’s been a while since I’ve felt like listening to pop music, and I’m still not quite into it, not like I used to be. All these summer songs carry their memories, and I’ll keep them for another year. This summer will be seen out in relative silence. For those who want a melody to see them through, take a moment to listen to this 80’s gem. May it bring back happier times, carefree moments, childhood freedom and summer days that stretched endlessly into fields bordered by goldenrod and waving grasses, where only the edges hinted at a fall to come, at an end to the sunny innocence.
I’ve been in love before I’ve been in love before The hardest part is When you’re in it I’ve been in love before I’ve been in love before
As for me, I’ll listen just this once, as it brings me back to summer nights of catching fireflies in the little space they congregated at beneath the open window of my parents’ bedroom. A soapy perfume of Mom’s end-of-the-day bath would drift down into the dim night, mingling with the lingering freshness of the grass that Dad had cut earlier in the day.
My brother and I would make homes of empty mayonnaise jars, poking holes in the covers and sprinkling a few leaves for the bugs to feast upon, then try to capture the slow-moving fireflies, emitting their bioluminescence all-too-briefly for us to have much success. I knew I didn’t really want them trapped in our glass walls anyway. It was enough just being near their glowing magic, and in the enchanted backyard of our summer childhood.
Just one touch, just one look A dangerous dance One small word can make me feel Like running away You can’t say you’re in it, no, Until you reach the limit
Summers were safe then, but I suppose every child thinks summers are safe, at least the lucky ones. Maybe we were just fortunate to be shielded from how unsafe some summers could be. For all the lonely terrors that would come later in life, I think if you’ve had a few safe summers when you didn’t have to worry about absolutely anything, you can make it through the more troubling times.
Because you had those moments, you had those memories, you had the emotional access and experience of feeling safe and loved and full. When you get to feel empty and alone, as we all sooner or later do, the emptiness is there because you were once filled with all that good stuff. As upsetting as that emptiness may be, and as lonely and lost as you may feel, it’s also an echo and a reminder of how full we once were.
