This fall season on the blog has been fueled by fire and memories and some redemptive rage. It’s featured the long-lost ‘FireWater’ project, a first and last letter to the first man who ever kissed me, these flaming feathers of fabulousness, and a fiery start that set the tone for what was, and still is, to come. These posts alone would have drained anyone, but I’m old hat at writing about experiences as a way of exorcising them, and this is more cathartic than any sort of therapy. So we shall continue on our flame-addled way, but not without a momentary respite, a pause in the hectic proceedings.
…You got to soldier on, you know you can’t quit until it’s won…
Way back several years and several seasons ago, this song formed the impetus for a blog post on touring and traveling. It was all excitement and anticipatory delight – all bright lights and big city 80’s excess. It was, in many ways, an embodiment of my youth and childhood. A time of innocence and hope and happiness – the way everyone’s childhood should be.
…You broke the boy in me but you won’t break the man…
Many years have passed since the first iteration of the song and my subsequent memories of it – years that proved I was no longer a boy. The man in motion I’d longed to become had begun to slow down. I’m 47 years old. Some days I feel every one of those years; some days I still feel like I’m twelve. Most days I feel a little more certain, and still a little bit lost.
Listening to this acoustic version, by the original artist who sang it over those 80’s synths and manufactured beats, fills me with a strange sense of satisfaction, tinged with just the slightest bit of sadness at the way time has moved all of us along. With age does come a certain wisdom – mostly that wisdom is in the form of understanding how little I know, how much more there is to learn, how the search for perfection is a useless and futile quest. Inherent in such wisdom is a certain calm. The restlessness I once felt has subsided, the fire put out by experiencing quite a bit of life – sometimes too much – and the thirst for more has been quenched by the realization that there will always be more. No one can do it all. There is simply too much – too many places, too many people, too many options and opportunities.
In this age of immediate internet reach and instantaneous connection, the greatest rebellion is in slowing down and shutting it all off. Making the choice to disconnect and engage only when it truly matters, making experiences that count, making decisions that don’t consist mostly of going through the motions. These are the choices and edits that refine our new world, and how we choose to walk through it. For far too many years I was a man in motion, rushing to get through to the next event, the next experience, the next new thing. It was what I needed to do to make it through. Stopping was not an option. Stopping could very well have killed me, especially if it happened at the wrong time. Seeing the folly of that hectic pace has been one of the more difficult lessons, and one of the most rewarding.
And so we slow things down with this song, pausing to watch the leaves fall, pausing to reflect and enjoy, pausing to take a few deep breaths before we soldier on…
…Just once in his life a man has his time…
