Author Archives: Alan Ilagan

In this the year that I turn fifty years old, I find myself indulging in bits of nostalgia here and there, something I don’t do all that often mostly because of how messy it can be. I look back at some pictures where my smile is big and my outfits ridiculous, anything to disguise and distract from the bandages on my wrists, and I ache for what we do to ourselves just trying to get through it. For some reason, these recent days have returned my mind to my senior year of high school, an eerie echo of another transitional period of life. Winter music put my youth to slumber then; it breaks my middle age now. 

We are the roses in the garden,
Beauty with thorns among our leaves.

To pick a rose you ask your hands to bleed.
What is the reason for having roses
When your blood is shed carelessly?

It must be for something more than vanity.

‘Our Time in Eden’ is one of those formative music albums of my youth, thanks to epic cuts like ‘These Are Days’ and ‘Candy Everybody Wants’ – and this one – ‘Eden’ – which is one of the saddest songs I’ve ever heard, in the best possible way. Back in those final days of high school, I felt the quickened rush of time – the clock as another demon – and I struggled to hang onto whatever I could even as I felt it all slipping away. Most of my classmates and friends wanted to grow up as quickly as possible – despite how old my soul felt, or perhaps because of it, I understood that we should not have been in such a rush, that those days, that Eden, would never come again. I didn’t want to let it go. 

Believe me, the truth is we’re not honest,
Not the people that we dream.

We’re not as close as we could be.
Willing to grow but rains are shallow.
Barren and wind-scattered seed on stone and dry land,

We will be.
Waiting for the light arisen
To flood inside the prison.

And in that time kind words alone will teach us,
No bitterness will reach us.

Whenever I hear this song, it makes me pause and remember. There’s a pit in my stomach – not the usual angst-ridden pit, but a stirring of great and overwhelming emotion. It brings back that tender time when the world was first imprinting itself on my soul, when music meant so much, when beauty could break the heart and the first flush of romantic love hinted at all the exquisite torment to come. Had I known everything that would unfold, I wonder if I’d have bothered with the bandages at all, or simply embraced the pain, knowing how integral it would be to finding the happiness. 

Reason will be guided another way.
All in time,
But the clock is another demon that devours our time in eden,
In our paradise.
Will our eyes see well beneath us,
Flowers all divine?
Is there still time?
If we wake and discover
In life a precious love,
Will that waking become more heavenly?

The last few weeks of winter are always the toughest. They require music that is both somber and bordering on hope, something that soothes the soul and quells the restless heart. One of the best albums for this is Annie Lennox’s magnificent ‘Diva’, which became the soundtrack to the last winter of my high school years.

How many times do I have to try to tell you
That I’m sorry for the things I’ve done,
But when I start to try to tell you
That’s when you have to tell me
Hey… this kind of trouble’s only just begun

During that winter, I was just starting to feel the pangs of leaving our youth behind, and with the very real sense of such impending loss suddenly some of our lifelong grudges softened a bit. One of our teachers pointed out the phenomenon, explaining that it happened to most seniors, before trailing off wistfully. She seemed as moved as I was at that moment, when understanding and realization aligned with a rare recognizance of growth at the exact instant it happened. 

I told myself too many times
Why don’t you ever learn to keep your big mouth shut
That’s why it hurts so bad to hear the words
That keep on falling from your mouth
Falling from your mouth
Falling from your mouth
Tell me
Why…

I may be mad
I may be blind
I may be viciously unkind
But I can still read what you’re thinking

And I’ve heard is said too many times
That you’d be better off
Besides…
Why can’t you see this boat is sinking
(This boat is sinking this boat is sinking)

The end of winter is an icy space. A frigid place. It trends toward the thaw of spring, but at its heart it remains frozen. Those first days of melting, when the heat of the sun is enough to finally cut through the snow, there are cracks and fissures, especially when the nights freeze everything again. The push and pull of this time wears on the strongest of us. 

Let’s go down to the water’s edge
And we can cast away those doubts
Some things are better left unsaid
But they still turn me inside out
Turning inside out, turning inside out
Tell me
Why…
Tell me
Why…

When those last of that winter’s days began to dovetail with the very beginning of the last of my high school days, this was the music that saw me through the tender time. We were just starting to write the stories that would become our own history books of life – the first chapters of whatever was about to unfurl. I put mine down literally, a practice I’ve maintained through this very moment. 

This is the book I never read
These are the words I never said
This is the path I’ll never tread
These are the dreams I’ll dream instead
This is the joy that’s seldom spread
These are the tears…
The tears we shed
This is the fear
This is the dread

These are the contents of my head
And these are the years that we have spent
And this is what they represent
And this is how I feel
Do you know how I feel?
‘Cause I don’t think you know how I feel
I don’t think you know what I feel

I don’t think you know what I feel
You don’t know what I feel