When we were young I thought I needed the bombast.
Maybe I did.
Maybe I needed the driving guitars, the wall of sound, the driving noise, and the rush and wail of the original version of this song. Back then it carried the power to pull me away from the ledge, and perhaps that’s precisely the drastic and bombastic shove which saved me, something to jolt and shock and force myself into any other state than the one in which I simply wanted to cease existing. That sort of mindset requires a bigger bang than the orchestral song you are about to hear here. Necessary for its time and purpose in life, and long fallen by the wayside in favor of something more sustainable and reasonable.
These days, I am finding more meaning and resonance in a quieter mode of living. When you’ve had a proper thrashing when you’re young, and lived a few crazy years of fun and wildness, you can have your mid-life crisis, embrace it, and hopefully come out on the other side a bit better for all of it.
“Such men believe in luck, they watch for signs, and they conduct private rituals that structure their despair and mark their waiting. They are relatively easy to recognize but hard to know, especially during the years when a man is most dangerous to himself, which begins at about age thirty-five, when he starts to tally his losses as well as his wins, and ends at about fifty, when, if he has not destroyed himself, he has learned that the force of time is better caught softly, and in small pieces. Between those points, however, he’d better watch out, better guard against the dangerous journey that beckons to him –the siege, the quest, the grandiosity, the dream.” ~ Colin Harrison
Every time I feel that I might be moving beyond this pocket of danger, and that others in my orbit are safe too, something happens that reminds me we are not quite fifty, not quite to the shore yet. Even the most seemingly-innocuous storm could be the one to take us out – to sea, to loss, to regret, to worse… And I wonder if there will ever be a safe day, a day or time when we can simply relax, let down our guards, and be. I wonder and I hope… and I listen to this song called ‘Tomorrow‘.
Today in the garden the very last Japanese iris bloomed – through the afternoon storm, and unexpectedly, as I had thought their blooms were already done. This one must have hidden itself in the fading remnants of its predecessors, tricking me into thinking the display was over when really there was one day more of beauty. That’s the magic of a tomorrow – you never know what might show up and bloom for you.
