Let us set the holiday scene.
It’s a house that sparkles, somewhere along a historical cobblestone street, maybe in Troy or downtown Albany, the kind of house that has existed for centuries, which has seen more Christmas Eves and New Year’s Days than any of us ever would. Candelight flickers, while company laughs, ebbs and flows, pushes and parts, and more sparkle is held in a crystal glass of champagne, capturing and shattering shards of light as deadly as a necklace of nightshade.
Back then the problems were champagne of sort and level. That didn’t make them feel less valid, or hurt with diminished flair. If anything their pain felt more pointed, more acute, because it was the first brush with any hint of hurt. The single salty tear stings more than the entire ocean.
Youth and beauty and ignorant confidence glint off every surface. The loud laughter, the tailored suits, the plate rimmed in gold and balanced precariously in my hand; they leave me entranced and insecure. And so I hold my head higher, make my laughs louder, suck my stomach in just a little more and examine the effect as I pass a mirror. More sparkle, more champagne, more holiday twinkle…
On some of these nights I catch a glimpse of myself in a reflection ~ not plainly in a mirror like that, only in some curved piece of silver, some Christmas ornament, some darkened window ~ and I see what the others might see: the visage of someone who might have it all together, who might be the envy of everyone at the ball. It is only, and always, a passing fancy.
YOU BOOKED THE NIGHT TRAIN FOR A REASON
SO YOU COULD SIT THERE IN THIS HURT
BUSTLING CROWDS OR SILENT SLEEPERS
YOU’RE NOT SURE WHICH IS WORSE
This song is calling to me from a place I forgot existed. It’s a place of chilling beauty, of exile and solitude ~ the kind of solitude that is with you no matter how many people are around you, no matter how many want to hold your hand. I never let many do so, not even Andy at times. Maybe it was cruel of me. Maybe it was survival. Maybe I understood that Andy wasn’t a hand-holder either. It was very much all I knew how to do. It was the extent of how much I could allow myself to care, how much I was willing to risk. You don’t survive hurt without learning a little bit of how to prevent it. And even then, when you know it’s not fair, an instinct like a life-preserver floats stubbornly above the water, refusing to let you take that risk, refusing to let you drown again.
Champagne problems. Such a luxury to have such concerns form the heart of your difficulties. I see that now. I wonder at the way perspective changes over the years, at the way the world wears you down and opens you up. It throws worse and worse at you until you reach a point where wisdom reveals your own evolution.
BECAUSE I DROPPED YOUR HAND WHILE DANCING
LEFT YOU OUT THERE STANDING
CRESTFALLEN ON THE LANDING
CHAMPAGNE PROBLEMS
YOUR MOM’S RING IN YOUR POCKET
MY PICTURE IN YOUR WALLET
YOUR HEART WAS GLASS, I DROPPED IT
CHAMPAGNE PROBLEMS
This song is not about something I specifically relate to, and there’s a certain release and relief from that. Songs can be read on all sorts of levels, and the best ones mean so many things to so many different people that a single reading is no more valuable than any other. The egalitarian and universal power of good music is ever a wonder ~ the sounds of angels, the whispers of sages.
YOU TOLD YOUR FAMILY FOR A REASON
YOU COULDN’T KEEP IT IN
YOUR SISTER SPLASHED OUT ON THE BOTTLE
NOW NO ONE’S CELEBRATING
Categorizing something or someone as having “champagne problems” – not unlike the “first world problems” phrase – is both derisive and dismissive, designed to be an attack and an eradication. It fails at both tonight, the blows glancing off my velvet shoulders, the reach sadly short, and ever unassailing. Perhaps their agitation and annoyance is pure envy, a somewhat sad jealousy that their problems weren’t quite as silly and trivial. They wanted to provoke and anger and all I gave them was pity. The deadly blow is mine. It lands stealthily. It lands quietly. They won’t feel it, if they ever feel it, until much later. And then they will hate me like so many others. But when we meet again, at the next night of sparkle, they will smile and make motions to hug me.
DOM PERIGNON, YOU BROUGHT IT
NO CROWD OF FRIENDS APPLAUDED
YOUR HOMETOWN SKEPTICS CALLED IT
CHAMPAGNE PROBLEMS
YOU HAD A SPEECH, YOU’RE SPEECHLESS
LOVE SLIPPED BEYOND YOUR REACHES
AND I COULDN’T GIVE A REASON
CHAMPAGNE PROBLEMS
Champagne problems. The luxury of rejecting a proposal. The luxury of saying no. The luxury of being asked. The luxury of poetic pining…
“Once, when I was young and true.
Someone left me sad –
Broke my brittle heart in two;
And that is very bad.
Love is for unlucky folk,
Love is but a curse.
Once there was a heart I broke;
And that, I think, is worse.” –
The luxury of such bullshit.
Do we muster pity for the one who knew enough to end it, the one who was strong enough to let it go before it went to hell? I’ve not often been in that position. Too weak to do so in the past, I could never honor that before now. Wisdom comes later than needed in so many circumstances.
I once knew a woman who broke off an engagement, quite close to the original wedding date, because she had fallen in love with another guy. She had never done anything in her life quite that drastic or dramatic. In fact, she had always been one of our more sensible and pragmatic friends. Scientific to a fault, organized and methodical and regimented in almost every aspect of her life – except, in the end, when it came to her heart. We thought she had lost her mind when she did it. What the hell did we know? Twenty years and several kids later she’s still with the guy she knew was the right one. I wonder about her first fiance, sometimes.
YOUR MIDAS TOUCH ON THE CHEVY DOOR
NOVEMBER FLUSH AND YOUR FLANNEL CURE
‘HIS DORM WAS ONCE A MADHOUSE’
I MADE A JOKE ‘WELL, IT’S MADE FOR ME’ HOW
EVERGREEN, OUR GROUP OF FRIENDS
DON’T THINK WE’LL SAY THAT WORD AGAIN
AND SOON THEY’LL HAVE THE NERVE TO DECK THE HALLS
THAT WE ONCE WALKED THROUGH
Most of us aren’t intentionally bad people ~ we do things as best as we can when life trips us up, when emotions drive us into dangerous territory. Love can be a fickle and capricious thing. I stopped trying to trap it or figure it out years ago. My friends and I are a little older now. We deal with things a little differently than we did in our 20’s, but love knows no age, it knows no reason.
ONE FOR THE MONEY, TWO FOR THE SHOW
I NEVER WAS READY, SO I WATCH YOU GO
SOMETIMES YOU JUST DON’T KNOW THE ANSWER
TILL SOMEONE’S ON THEIR KNEES AND ASKS YOU
‘SHE WOULD’VE MADE SUCH A LOVELY BRIDE
WHAT A SHAME SHE’S STUCK IN HER HEAD’ THEY SAID
BUT YOU’LL FIND THE REAL THING INSTEAD
SHE’LL PATCH UP YOUR TAPESTRY THAT I SHRED
And yet some champagne problems are sometimes much deeper than they seem. Darker and more serious, they hint of flaws that run deep, chasms that go black before you’ve even approached bottom. A fear that paralyzes, that prevents the heart from making a move. Is it better to be safe? Is there safety in refusing? Or is it safer to follow your heart and not wonder about it years later? I occasionally think about my friend who broke off her first engagement. She seems happy, surrounded by a family, sure and safe and content~ what more could anyone want? She followed her heart and it led her to happiness. Maybe that’s the surest way to make your journey through life. I don’t know what became of her first fiance, which path he took, where he went, what he’s doing now. Surely there is something sweeter in store for the ones we leave behind.
There are at least two parts to a broken heart. And a thousand sides and stories.
AND HOLD YOUR HAND WHILE DANCING
NEVER LEAVE YOU STANDING
CRESTFALLEN ON THE LANDING
WITH CHAMPAGNE PROBLEMS
YOUR MOM’S RING IN YOUR POCKET
HER PICTURE IN YOUR WALLET
AND YOU WON’T REMEMBER ALL MY
CHAMPAGNE PROBLEMS
Holiday lights sparkle in different aspects now. Fuzzier in some ways, brighter in others, and this year there are no parties to distract or pull focus from the way the mind wants to wander. It’s easier to live through the pain of other people, the stories of other lives, the mistakes that aren’t our own. We want to flirt with champagne problems to avoid the real ones from which we cannot escape.
Maybe that’s why I love this song. It tells a story that’s not mine. It tells a story of champagne problems that could be real or imagined, silly or serious, frivolous or ferocious – however one wants to read them. In a way, it’s a form of reverse mindfulness – occupying the head and pushing one’s own concerns out of the space. A neat twist on meditation without the deep breathing and lotus-folded legs.
The sadness of someone else’s pain playing its story out on the piano…
