Friday, August 29, 2003
Moving on...
My CD collection is fairly small. Numbered amongst the titles are several mix and sample CDs that have been given to me by various friends. Today, while I was putt-putting around my messy apartment, trying to get a few things clean on my day off, I decided to pop in a mix CD that I hadn't listened to quite as often as some of the others. Oh, I liked the songs well enough, some of them old favorites, but besides the favorites there was no one song that really stood out for me musically. I thought that maybe I should give it another try, maybe there was something that I had missed. Perhaps the lyrics would call to me in a way the melodies hadn't.
The CD started out with an odd but fun instrumental. It wasn't a grand tune, but it was upbeat, pleasant in its strange little way. I remembered that it wasn't representative of the CD as a whole.
I was right. As I cleaned and straightened, with only a small portion of my concentration needed for the tasks at hand, I was able to devote more time to the lyrics than I had in the past. I was floored. The lyrics in the majority of the songs were heartbreaking.
Though he's doing very well now, I knew that the giver of the CD had been through some tough times a few years before, during a time when I didn't know him. I had heard those sad days reflected in other music he had shared with me and had deeply felt for him in the hearing of that music. But today, for some reason, nearly every word I listened to affected me powerfully. My cleaning became desultory as more and more of my focus turned to the tunes spinning on my stereo. I had to catch my breath several times. Finally, during a song which previously I had found melodically naive, I completely stopped what I was doing and sank to the the living room floor, the plaintive voice of the artist etching the past pain of my friend in sharp relief.
Several thoughts ran through my head as I took in the verses, the tears that had welled up in the corners of my eyes refusing to fall:
I wanted to go back in time, to my friend during his dark days, to hold him, soothe his troubled brow and wipe away his tears, to let him know that he would come out of the exprerience a better, stronger man. To let him know that I had seen the person he would become and that, though he was perhaps more wary than in the past, the future him would still be funny, still be engaging and still be caring and compassionate.
I wanted to find the person that had caused my friend such pain, take her by the hair and throw her down, scream at her for what she had done. At that moment it didn't matter that I didn't know the whole story, that it was possible plenty of blame could be spread around to both parties. All I knew was that she had inflicted tremendous pain on someone I cared about. I tend to be rather protective of family and friends, as are most people that I know, and though I know everyone goes through rocky times, I always want to wave a magic wand to make the hurt all better and to make those who are responsible for the hurt to pay for what they've done. Maybe that's why I've occasionally been told that I'm "too sensitive".
Somewhere, mixed in with these thoughts of "make it go away" and "my poor dear friend" and "I'll teach her", I wondered what sort of mix CD I would put together, had I done so at the lowest moments in my life. After the death of my older sister, songs such as Seasons in the Sun and Wildfire always had me breaking into tears. During the time following my last break-up, Don't Speak, Unbreak My Heart and It's All Coming Back to Me Now were in constant mental rotation.
And last year, after the dissolution of my family as I knew it? Actually, I can't remember any songs that captured the pain I was feeling. Mainly because I don't know if such songs exist. As far as I know, no one has yet written about the family that wasn't what it seemed, about the questioning of what was real and what was false in a father who based his entire life, and the entire lives of his family, on well-constructed, well-hidden lies, or about what happens when the only thing one was connected to in a world that was endlessly changing due to almost yearly uprooting, the only constant in one's whole existence, disintegrated before one's helpless eyes. I may be wrong, but people don't seem to write songs about that sort of thing.
In the end, as the CD played on and I mentally hugged my friend, I stood back up, did a little more cleaning, and got ready to go to Pamie's book signing. Because that's what you do in life. You acknowledge the pain, accept it and embrace it for a time, then let it go as best as you can. You don't forget the tough times, the dark days, but you do learn from them. Then you move on. You heal. So that you can continue living and loving and laughing and connecting with people, with the great big wide wonderful world again.
That's what makes life worth living. I so love to live life. So does my friend.
The CD started out with an odd but fun instrumental. It wasn't a grand tune, but it was upbeat, pleasant in its strange little way. I remembered that it wasn't representative of the CD as a whole.
I was right. As I cleaned and straightened, with only a small portion of my concentration needed for the tasks at hand, I was able to devote more time to the lyrics than I had in the past. I was floored. The lyrics in the majority of the songs were heartbreaking.
Though he's doing very well now, I knew that the giver of the CD had been through some tough times a few years before, during a time when I didn't know him. I had heard those sad days reflected in other music he had shared with me and had deeply felt for him in the hearing of that music. But today, for some reason, nearly every word I listened to affected me powerfully. My cleaning became desultory as more and more of my focus turned to the tunes spinning on my stereo. I had to catch my breath several times. Finally, during a song which previously I had found melodically naive, I completely stopped what I was doing and sank to the the living room floor, the plaintive voice of the artist etching the past pain of my friend in sharp relief.
Several thoughts ran through my head as I took in the verses, the tears that had welled up in the corners of my eyes refusing to fall:
I wanted to go back in time, to my friend during his dark days, to hold him, soothe his troubled brow and wipe away his tears, to let him know that he would come out of the exprerience a better, stronger man. To let him know that I had seen the person he would become and that, though he was perhaps more wary than in the past, the future him would still be funny, still be engaging and still be caring and compassionate.
I wanted to find the person that had caused my friend such pain, take her by the hair and throw her down, scream at her for what she had done. At that moment it didn't matter that I didn't know the whole story, that it was possible plenty of blame could be spread around to both parties. All I knew was that she had inflicted tremendous pain on someone I cared about. I tend to be rather protective of family and friends, as are most people that I know, and though I know everyone goes through rocky times, I always want to wave a magic wand to make the hurt all better and to make those who are responsible for the hurt to pay for what they've done. Maybe that's why I've occasionally been told that I'm "too sensitive".
Somewhere, mixed in with these thoughts of "make it go away" and "my poor dear friend" and "I'll teach her", I wondered what sort of mix CD I would put together, had I done so at the lowest moments in my life. After the death of my older sister, songs such as Seasons in the Sun and Wildfire always had me breaking into tears. During the time following my last break-up, Don't Speak, Unbreak My Heart and It's All Coming Back to Me Now were in constant mental rotation.
And last year, after the dissolution of my family as I knew it? Actually, I can't remember any songs that captured the pain I was feeling. Mainly because I don't know if such songs exist. As far as I know, no one has yet written about the family that wasn't what it seemed, about the questioning of what was real and what was false in a father who based his entire life, and the entire lives of his family, on well-constructed, well-hidden lies, or about what happens when the only thing one was connected to in a world that was endlessly changing due to almost yearly uprooting, the only constant in one's whole existence, disintegrated before one's helpless eyes. I may be wrong, but people don't seem to write songs about that sort of thing.
In the end, as the CD played on and I mentally hugged my friend, I stood back up, did a little more cleaning, and got ready to go to Pamie's book signing. Because that's what you do in life. You acknowledge the pain, accept it and embrace it for a time, then let it go as best as you can. You don't forget the tough times, the dark days, but you do learn from them. Then you move on. You heal. So that you can continue living and loving and laughing and connecting with people, with the great big wide wonderful world again.
That's what makes life worth living. I so love to live life. So does my friend.
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United States, California, Los Angeles, San Fernando Valley, English, Carol, Female, 36-40.
