This summer’s soundtrack belonged indisputably to Taylor Swift’s ‘folklore’ album, which was gorgeously low-key, saturated with a searing melancholy, and accented by a melodic beauty missing from a lot of pop music these days. For these last few days of summer, and just before we begin the seasonal recap, give this cut a listen – it’s called ‘This Is Me Trying’, and it makes the perfect accompaniment to one of the last swims of the season, fittingly cloaked by the night, perfumed by the angels, and draped in ambivalence.
I’VE BEEN HAVING A HARD TIME ADJUSTING
I HAD THE SHINIEST WHEELS NOW THEY’RE RUSTING
I DIDN’T KNOW IF YOU’D CARE IF I CAME BACK
I HAVE A LOT OF REGRETS ABOUT THAT
PULLED THE CAR OFF THE ROAD TO THE LOOKOUT
COULD’VE FOLLOWED MY FEARS ALL THE WAY DOWN
AND MAYBE I DON’T QUITE KNOW WHAT TO SAY
BUT I’M HERE IN YOUR DOORWAY
I JUST WANTED YOU TO KNOW THAT THIS IS ME TRYING
It’s the way the water pulls you down, at that time of the year when the water is warmer than the air, when the only way out is through, when the wilderness of night floats above the break of day, and you swim down deeper into the warmth, into the place from which we came. That crux of summer and fall, that space between happy and sad, and all you want to do is let go and release and succumb to the darkness. It might be easier that way. It might be better to sink all the way down…
THEY TOLD ME ALL OF MY CAGES WERE MENTAL
SO I GOT WASTED LIKE ALL MY POTENTIAL
AND MY WORDS SHOOT TO KILL WHEN I’M MAD
I HAVE A LOT OF REGRETS ABOUT THAT
I WAS SO AHEAD OF THE CURVE, THE CURVE BECAME A SPHERE
FELL BEHIND ALL MY CLASSMATES AND I ENDED UP HERE
POURING OUT MY HEART TO A STRANGER
BUT I DIDN’T POUR THE WHISKEY
I JUST WANTED YOU TO KNOW THAT THIS IS ME TRYING
Will we ever make sense of this summer, or better yet this year? I don’t know… I don’t know. What were the lessons we were supposed to learn? Even the teachers don’t seem to know. Where has all the wisdom been hidden? At the bottom of the ocean ~ deep and dark and impenetrable ~ or the bottom of the pool ~ empty and full at the same time, like the heart and the head? In this warm water of life, like the fluid in which we all began before being expelled or pulled into cold, vicious air, I float down, falling gently, waiting for something or someone to break my fall. Only no one is there.
AT LEAST I’M TRYING…
AND IT’S HARD TO BE AT A PARTY
WHEN I FEEL LIKE AN OPEN WOUND
IT’S HARD TO BE ANYWHERE THESE DAYS
WHEN ALL I WANT IS YOU
YOU’RE A FLASHBACK IN A FILM REEL
ON THE ONE SCREEN IN MY TOWN
AND I JUST WANTED YOU TO KNOW THAT THIS IS ME TRYING
We laughed and we ran, we played and we danced, we stumbled and we fell – that’s what summers are for, and we took our cues from the stars and the moon. We weren’t perfect, and we made mistakes, but we never gave up. The older we get, the less we understand, and the less it seems to matter. There comes a time when understanding is a luxury, when survival is more the raw stuff of breathing and sleeping and moving solemnly through the silence, through the hurt.
And so I move through the water and the summer, and if I come out at the other end maybe we’ll find each other there.
While we wait ever-so-patiently for the new pool liner to come in, here’s a glimpse of the distant past ~ a pool shot taken way back in 2000, in the summer when I met Andy. That summer was largely a rainy one, but there were glimpses of sun, and a fair share of pool-ready days. Coupled with the central ari conditioning system at my parents’ house, it was a no-brainer to escape to the heat of Boston and spend the season in Amsterdam. (New York – upstate. Don’t think it was the better-known Amsterdam in glamorous Europe. The only pot we had came from the dog next door.)
It was the dawn of the new millennium but the music charts harkened to the hey-day of the 1980’s with Madonna’s ‘Music’ just coming up and Janet Jackson’s ‘Doesn’t Really Matter’ surfacing at #1. There were boy bands in the form of the Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync, and at 25 ripe years of age I still hadn’t quite decided to age out of stanning for them. In so many ways, it feels like such a simpler time. We hadn’t yet been attacked on 9/11, and our country certainly hadn’t lost 150,000 people to a pandemic and poor leadership.
Nutty, nutty, nutty indeed…
Such a simpler time. Even Britney was still that innocent, and Janet’s nipple piercing was but a wanna-be twinkle in Justin Timberlake’s eyes. Summer was the way summer should be – light and effervescent, with just enough rain to cast a subtle melancholy glow over certain days, but not enough to dampen the spirits for longer than a few hours. It rebounded in sunshine and sunflowers, elongating through the underestimated month of September, even daring to seep into the first couple of weeks of October.
More than a pool or even the ease of summer, today I long for the simplicity that comes with being twenty-five years old in the year 2000. That won’t ever happen again, not for anyone. The world has changed. And summer will forever be different.
For all of her career, Taylor Swift has put me on a pendulum of love and hate. It would regularly and consistently swing back and forth between the two emotions ~ for every ‘Out of the Woods’ there was some shot of her dancing in the audience of some awards show. I had whiplash from the extremes she inspired.
The past few years, and her last couple of albums, have made me more solidly on the love side, as she courted more dance-pop maneuvers and took some brave political stances against the Republican awfulness happening right now.
Then, in a surprise move paved by Beyonce, Swift released an entire album of new material without more than a day’s warning. Whimsically entitled ‘folklore’ I didn’t expect much in this collection of songs created during the COVID isolation we have all been going through. Quite frankly, I was ready to be rather annoyed by some tortured isolationist bullshit by another super-rich celebrity who was finding it difficult to quarantine in their three mansions by the sea.
I was wrong.
This album is quite possibly the best Taylor Swift album I’ve heard. Hell, it’s the only Swift album I’ve heard in its entirety because it is just that good. It doesn’t have any instantly-boffo bops like ‘Shake It Off’, and it may be lacking the aural-candy of her recent pop hooks, but what she delivers in place of those popularity grabs is a cohesive soundscape of story songs. It emits a chilled-out vibe that has it uncharacteristically categorized as an alternative album ~ surely the first in her career ~ and may just be the antidote for a summer of discontent and horror.
(Lead single ‘Cardigan’ isn’t even the best of the bunch – try ‘Exile’ or ‘August’ or ‘This Is Me Trying’.) The collection of ‘folklore’ deserves to be heard in its entirety, on a somber summer day, or a sultry summer night, and this kind of artistry and power transcends genre, image, and reinvented musical glory.
Crafting compelling musical art occasionally feels like it should come easier during the peaks and valleys of our twenties than the less volatile and extreme moments of our forties, but Rufus Wainwright defies that notion with the gorgeously dramatic ‘Unfollow The Rules’ – an album that could only be created by someone who’s seen those peaks and valleys, survived them (sometimes quite barely), and lived to push and defy and challenge.
“I’m no Hercules, and this is Herculean,” he laments on the title track, “And tomorrow I’ll just be feeling the pain.” He continues, “Don’t give me what I want, just give me what I’m needing,” and amid one of the most exquisitely beautiful arrangements it’s a heartbreaking and sobering look at the cost of living, measured in careful consideration, a notion not accessible to most of us in our twenties, and a telling treasure map of all the places he’s already been.
Not that any definitive peace or resolution results from that awareness or resignation – see opening track ‘Trouble in Paradise’ – a lovely, languid jam that sounds as good as its tension-celebrating ambivalence conveys a shaky balance. Mr. Wainwright has always been a bit of a trickster in his work, shape-shifting and winking at every unexpected turn and key change. ‘Unfollow the Rules’ finds him endearingly in trickster mode, reminiscent of his very best work, now imbued with some hard-won wisdom, or at least the chuckle of acknowledging the occasional lack-thereof.
‘Romantical Manâ’ neatly addresses critics and all the accompanying heaps of detritus piled high on those daring to be “romantical” in such a cynical universe. ‘Peaceful Afternoon’ wryly describes thirteen years of a relationship – a feat for any two people to survive – and might be one of the greatest songs about marriage ever written. Magnificently capturing both the ennui and ever-changeable excitement that exist simultaneously in any long-term relationship, this ‘Afternoon’ is a lovely piece of music, taking flight and soaring with its strings and backing vocals, while positing whether the mundane can be beautiful, and why ever not?
Biting-humor and wicked-wit sharply-intact, ‘This One’s For the Ladies (THAT LUNGE!)’ finds Wainwright working through the search for peace and paradise as a harp weaves its luscious scales like golden threads into a wondrous land “where people listen to your plan” and “where no one stares at your face.” The Sondheim-celebrated ladies who lunch have always struck me as more than just socialites who have nothing but time and money on their hands; they seem more like unhappy, or at least slightly discontent, objects of beauty looking for purpose as much as for an escape. The meandering and queasy music personifies the ways we make such an escape.
Just when you think he may have it all figured out, or at least found a way to make some peace with all of it, he begins the glorious dirge of ‘Early Morning Madness’ which locates an early morning sadness where “I’m a perfect mess.” The only solution is to go back to bed until the dinner bell rouses him again. The battle with one’s own demons, addiction or otherwise, has never been more beautifully rendered than in this morning-after musing. The entire album leads up to this operatic highlight – a marvelous trough that holds its own dim beauty, and the solace of leaning into those moments of madness. Plunging exuberantly into the skittering strings and high drama of ‘Devils and Angels (Hatred)’, the song-cycle trio that ends the album embodies the richly-varied work that Wainwright has added to his impressive oeuvre in recent years.
Closing track ‘Alone Time’ reminds the world that sometimes Rufus and a piano is all we ever really needed to get away from it all, a very pleasant reminder in these perilous times. It’s also a call for some solitude at a time when we are all both connected and disconnected in so many ways – as much a need for an artist as for a husband as for a father and for a son. In crafting such a timely album, Wainwright has managed to make it timeless, the magic stroke of a genius artist in top form.
A wink to Madonna is hook enough for me to follow like a love-struck dog, and so I was hot on the trail of the latest video from Bright Light Bright Light, which is the fabulously retro ‘I Used to be Cool’ – and it arrives just in time to become a top contender for song of the summer. Thus far that search has been a rather drab and dour affair, dovetailing with the disaster that is 2020 as a whole. Uninspiring, depressing, and downright dangerous, the start of summer has never been this wretched. And so we turn to this piece of perfect pop escapism, in the nick of time to turn things around. While our pool remains unopened and in perpetual repair, a pool-themed video is precisely what we need to live out our fantasies, summer-style… just let the music set you free…
Bright Light Bright Light has already been named a Hunk of the Day here, and this only emboldens that selection, while setting up an almost-certain bid for a repeat Hunk performance. In the meantime, put this playful puppy on repeat and get your summer jam on, even, and especially, if you don’t have a pool right now.
Certain music makes my heart swell. If you’ve seen the movie ‘Up’ you may be similarly affected by its musical motif. If you haven’t, it’s a Disney/Pixar film that has what some have cited as the most devastating opening of any Disney film, and I’ll admit that if you don’t get a little choked up by the start, I question whether you possess the human emotions necessary to appreciate anything here. As for me, the music is tinged with vaguely-summer memories. Happiness and hope, shot through with a little sorrow; we all wilt a little in too much heat.
I remember watching this in the theater the first time with Andy. It was the summer of 2009 – a year before we were going to be married. Seeing the opening couple go through their life without kids resonated, as did the fullness of the life they ended up sharing. As we near our 20th anniversary of being together, I’m once again moved by the music and the sentiment this recalls.
For the last century, the universe has been whispering to humanity to slow down, to dwell in stillness and take in pockets of quietude. Lately, it’s begun to scream and rage since no one seems to be listening. If you’re looking for something deep to help you process everything that’s gone on over the past few months, or if you’re simply looking for something to help you get through the damn day, I found the perfect album for meditative rumination.
A thirteen-song musical cycle that is as delicately-nuanced and shaded as its cover art ~ a corner room looking over what might be either the rise or fall of the sun on a body of water – ‘Welcome Home’ is written and performed by one of my brother’s friends, Karel Barnoski, whom I remember with much amusement from our childhood days of playing hide and seek. Hearing him in this realm makes me marvel at the wondrous possibilities that life lays out for each of us, and what we decide to make of them.
Opening with the jaunty ‘Interplay’ the mood is initially playful, which is fitting for the memories I have of Karel as a kid. By track two, however, things take a thoughtful turn: ‘Bath’ offers a balm to everything going on in the world right now ~ a contemplative, sparse soundscape that seems to encapsulate so much of the quiet and stillness that reveals Barnoski’s mastery of the space in-between the notes.
Title track and album centerpiece ‘Welcome Home’ is tailor-made for 2020. Home is many things to many people ~ not always a place, not always a happy frame of mind ~ but it’s what grounds us, it’s what centers us. We may not have grown up in a perfect household, but even the most nomadic among us carries around an essence of home ~ a place, whether physical or spiritual ~ that speaks to us in its own way. Finding that space, and keeping it sacred, is a big part of our journey in this world. The music here allows that place to exist.
‘2019’ is one of the first pieces I’d ever heard Barnoski play on one of his FaceBook live events. It arrived just as we were all hunkering down in our stay-at-home existence. Maybe that’s why it feels a little more powerful ~ the way a song melds to a moment that, as it’s happening, you somehow realize will be historical and resonant, that you are making a memory that will burn itself indelibly into who you are about to become. Here, it offers calm and beauty, refuge and consideration, a way of sorting out whatever ails your own little world. I’ve kept this one on repeat when writing, and it clears the mind and heart like a mini-meditation.
‘The Knife’ brings an underlying tension to the proceedings, darker shadings and a stormy turbulence that is only partially resolved in its dramatic continuation, ‘The Knife (Jam)’ – seven-plus minutes of musical excitement that is a journey unto itself. About halfway through the storm gives way to calm, and a sort of ambivalent resignation, then swirls back around for one final flourish before letting everything settle down again.
The dim mood conjured by ‘Isolation’ perfectly embodies so much of 2020 and reminds me that music and art still matter, that they still provide a haven and comfort for all people. A work of beauty is an invitation for everyone to appreciate, one of the last and perhaps only truly egalitarian systems we have as a civilization. Barnoski touches upon the events of the past few months in his titles, such as ‘Quarantine’ and ‘Stir Crazy’ and if a pandemic keeping us all home results in such glorious work, then it appears the universe is seeing us through these changes and ushering in a new normal framed with beauty, framed with an appreciation for something quieter, something that sounds like a piano being played for the sake of all of us ~ to keep us calm, to keep us together as much as we are apart, to keep us from going crazy.
Every once in a while a collection of music will come along that so deftly and magnificently captures a moment that it’s unclear whether it was the hands of the artist or the hands of the universe guiding us into such states of rapture and beauty. ‘Welcome Home’ stakes its claim of timelessness thanks to the artistry of Barnoski and the way he blankets a difficult world in swaddling clothes of musical consolation. He plays the hurt into the heart, allowing it to have its time and moment there, then plays it gently away, and we are better for having heard and felt it.
Final track ‘All Together Now’ brings back the theme from ‘Welcome Home’ ~ a happy and hopeful return to a time that may not come again, and that may or not have ever been. That’s the remarkable gift this song cycle ends up being ~ it gets us as close to the human experience as music ever can, carving out the space for us to confront demons, reconcile turmoil, and create a new reality. ‘Welcome Home’ is a session of sonic therapy we could all use right now.
This is just for the second night of summer. Turns out I had the foresight to put this on our first summer mix, and it came on over the stereo as I wilted from the midday heat, without a pool or a new summer fragrance. Is there a sadder state in which to find oneself? Don’t answer, universe, I already know there’s nothing to complain about. Certainly not on the second night of summer.
Well it’s the second day of summer
You already got me sweating about it
Oh it’s the second night of summer
And I’m disintegrating without you
Throwing me that shade like I’m not cool enough
Throwing me that shade like I’m not
Like I’m not cool enough
Throwing me that shade like I’m not
Like I’m not
Like I’m not cool enough
Not cool enough
Some songs are no longer relatable to me lyrically. When we’re talking about a woman who’s getting on a plane with a carry-on and without me, well, what’s the big deal? And if anyone is throwing me shade, I’m throwing it right back, and the shade I throw is the stuff of endless night. Some songs I simply like because of the way they sound, the way I did as a kid before I know what ‘virgin’ or ‘preach‘ meant. Isn’t that the point of a pop song anyway? This one is taking me away in a haze of heat, riding waves of hot air like I’m not cool enough…
Sun up and sun down
Sun up and sun down
As for this second night of summer, the heat is on. Beating a hasty retreat to the interior of air-conditioned coolness, I sink gratefully to the floor, where a soft rug awaits my lotus-positioned body, folding in on itself like some intricate piece of origami. Closing my eyes, I take in the start of summer, on its second day – the forgotten day, because everyone only talks about the first day, and what does the second even matter?
Well it’s the second day of summer
You already got me sweating about it
Oh it’s the second night of summer
And I’m disintegrating without you
Throwing me that shade like I’m not cool enough
Throwing me that shade like I’m not
Like I’m not cool enough
Throwing me that shade like I’m not
Like I’m not
Like I’m not cool enough
Not cool enough
THE SUN HAS LEFT AND FORGOTTEN ME
IT’S DARK, I CANNOT SEE
WHY DOES THIS RAIN POUR DOWN?
I’M GONNA DROWN IN A SEA
OF DEEP CONFUSION
‘Hang On Little Tomato’ is a song by Pink Martini that perfectly personifies this almost-summer moment in a year that has just gone completely bonkers. It’s swerved riotously into cray-cray territory in ways we probably won’t fully comprehend and realize until we’re all dead and buried and the history stored in the cloud reads back like a doomsday novel. Not quite the beginning of summer most of us had hoped for, and certainly not the celebratory year I had in mind for 2020, but then I hear this song, and I take a few deep breaths, and I realize we will be ok if we just hang on…
This happy song reminds me of the baby shower I threw for Suzie and Pat before the birth of Oona. It was in November, but the weekend it took place was a glorious throwback to a late summer moment – all sun and warmth and beams of happiness. Suzie’s spirit has always been infectiously upbeat, even when pregnant, and this song and album added to the joy and quirky atmosphere of a baby shower thrown by a not-quite-baby-friendly yours truly. It turned out lovely enough – the guests make a party, and Suzie’s pals (along with her Mom’s pals) were a hoot unto themselves. It’s not easy to throw-back to summer in November, but we managed it, thanks partly to this song.
SOMEBODY TOLD ME, I DON’T KNOW WHO
WHENEVER YOU ARE SAD AND BLUE
AND YOU’RE FEELIN’ ALL ALONE AND LEFT BEHIND
JUST TAKE A LOOK INSIDE YOU YOU’LL FIND
YOU GOTTA HOLD ON
HOLD ON THROUGH THE NIGHT
HANG ON
THINGS WILL BE ALL RIGHT
EVEN WHEN IT’S DARK AND NOT A BIT OF SPARKLING
SING-SONG SUNSHINE FROM ABOVE
SPREADING RAYS OF SUNNY LOVE
This year, Suzie delivered a tomato growing container, fences and all, from her Mom, and we planted a few tomato plants – the first vegetables we’ve planted in probably ten years. Seemed a good time to do so – end of the world and all – and we already have some fruit forming on the lower branches of the upward-reaching vines. Tomatoes can be tricky to grow well – susceptible to certain diseases and growing dangers – but I was raised by a father whose main claim to cultivating fame was a vegetable garden robust with tomatoes that lined the garage sill in all stages, shapes and sizes of ripeness. We had an excess of the red fruit, matched only by the number of zucchini from his other garden. I learned the power of manure and proper soil preparation. Witnessing firsthand the back-breaking work turning over a decent patch of soil required, the way my father worked well into the dwindling light of the evening to make the dirt a welcoming home. He would then nestle the tomato plants deeply into the ground at an angle, piling the soil up most of the stem because he knew the roots would grow from the whole stem, stabilizing the plant. They soon righted themselves, rooted in stability, and then quickly began their fruit production. We began picking tomatoes soon thereafter and didn’t let up until the fall. There were many BLT sandwiches, or just simple fresh slices with some salt and pepper. They seemed to taste better coming out of one’s own garden.
JUST HANG ON
HANG ON TO THE VINE
STAY ON
SOON YOU’LL BE DIVINE
IF YOU START TO CRY, LOOK UP TO THE SKY
SOMETHING’S COMING UP AHEAD
TO TURN YOUR TEARS TO DEW INSTEAD
Andy grew tomatoes in the garden at his first house too – bushels of cherry tomatoes, along with some peppers. He had a little trouble with the beefsteak variety – one of which I made the mistake of planting this year (we shall see) and when we planted some at our current house, it was always hit and miss.
One fall we neglected to get to all the fruit before the killing frost, and the next year a multitude of sports popped up. We let them grow, eagerly anticipating the sweet tartness of whatever hybrid we had, only to be disappointed with the bitter flavor of some second-hand wannabes. Since then, we’ve avoided the laborious vegetable garden in favor of pretty perennials that returned year after year, growing in size with an easier routine of maintenance. But we missed the fresh bright fruit of a homegrown tomato, so this year we said yes to a container from Aunt Elaine, and currently are coddling a trio of plants just beginning to offer their first crop of fruit.
AND SO I HOLD ON TO HIS ADVICE
WHEN CHANGE IS HARD AND NOT SO NICE
IF YOU LISTEN TO YOUR HEART THE WHOLE NIGHT THROUGH
YOUR SUNNY SOMEDAY WILL COME ONE DAY SOON TO YOU
Every day, I visit the little tomatoes we have, watching them with a protective gaze and sending up a crop of little prayers that they make it – that some spell of mildew doesn’t take them out, that they don’t fall prey to the proliferation of chipmunks in the neighborhood, that something else doesn’t cut short their treacherous road to ripening. After the year we’ve already had, I don’t have much faith… but I’m still hanging on.
At this time of the year, there are stars in the sky from dawn to dusk, as the Chinese dogwood carries its bracts above its bright green foliage. They put me in the mind of this song, which I am only just beginning to understand and hear as if for the first time. The lyrics are haunting. I will not print them here. Not yet. They should be heard as they were sung, the way the artist intended.
Who can say what art even means anymore, what purpose it serves, what good and evil it works in the world. I always wonder about such things in times such as these. When the universe turns brutal, and leaves us with lessons we may or may not be ready to learn, it knocks the wind out of me for a while. I question everything and feel uninspired. Unable to activate the usual frivolous drive that impels me to decorate the atmosphere around me with silly, pretty things, it’s like the rudder was removed and I’m spinning in aimless circles. I can’t even properly formulate a simile or metaphor – it all sounds like a mess.
I don’t know if I believe in ghosts. I do believe in memories that haunt like ghosts, that feel so strong and tangible that they manifest as ghosts, but are still no more than memory and mourning and love. How else to describe the haunting that happens every year around this time, when the world tilts toward outward happiness and on the surface all is sunny disposition? It was in May that a childhood friend died of a self-inflicted gunshot, and he comes to mind, without fail, each and every spring season that bleeds so beautifully into summer.
WOULD YOU KNOW MY NAME
IF I SAW YOU IN HEAVEN?
WOULD IT BE THE SAME
IF I SAW YOU IN HEAVEN?
I MUST BE STRONG
AND CARRY ON
‘CAUSE I KNOW I DON’T BELONG
HERE IN HEAVEN
It’s like they say in ‘Stand By Me’, and I’m loosely paraphrasing: you never really have the friendships you have when you’re a kid. If you’re lucky and the world helps conspire in your favor, you may hang onto a friend like that. Suzie is one such friend; our families were so intertwined there was no way out from each other’s orbit. My friends Ann and Missy are also from a time long before we were adults. We grew up together. And from the stale hallways of McNulty school, Jeff was a friend I had in grade school and then drifted further and further away until we barely knew one another in high school. By the time he decided to turn a gun on himself and end the pain, he already felt like a lost friend.
WOULD YOU HOLD MY HAND
IF I SAW YOU IN HEAVEN?
WOULD YOU HELP ME STAND
IF I SAW YOU IN HEAVEN?
I’LL FIND MY WAY
THROUGH NIGHT AND DAY
‘CAUSE I KNOW I JUST CAN’T STAY
HERE IN HEAVEN
In addition to this ballad I previously posted, there was another song that personified that dark almost-summer of 1992 – ‘Tears in Heaven’ by Eric Clapton. Written for his young son, who had fallen to his death from a skyscraper, it personified loss like no other song before or since. It played inescapably on the radio, and every time it came on, which was often, I turned the station or shut it off. Sometimes I would simply walk out of the room. Unable to process what happened, and unable to process that kind of grief, I shut down. It was survival. It was protection. It was what I had to do to get through another day. Another night. And I had to do it alone.
TIME CAN BRING YOU DOWN
TIME CAN BEND YOUR KNEES
TIME CAN BREAK YOUR HEART
HAVE YOU BEGGING PLEASE, BEGGING PLEASE
BEYOND THE DOOR
THERE’S PEACE I’M SURE
AND I KNOW THERE’LL BE NO MORE
TEARS IN HEAVEN
The school year ended, and I spent most of the time in and around the house. In so many ways, it felt like my childhood had finally, and definitively, ended – and I mourned that as much as I mourned Jeff’s death. In a sense, they were one and the same. I didn’t get to have one without the other, so I suppose I’ll never know for sure. That summer, they went hand in hand.
This song kept surfacing, no matter how much I tried to escape it. The world doesn’t always let you get away with running from your sorrow. That doesn’t mean I listened. For all these years, I refused to listen. It brought me right back to that time, and there was enough madness and sadness in the world that I didn’t feel it was necessary to resurrect what had happened so long ago. Once again, I was wrong, so when the song came on a few days ago, I paused and listened to it. I went back and played it again. I dove into that ocean of sorrow, all the way down to where I had buried so many feelings and conflicted thoughts. I dove into my anger and rage, into the unfathomable waste and regret of what he had done, into the depths of seeing what it had done to his parents, to his family, to his friends.
WOULD YOU KNOW MY NAME
IF I SAW YOU IN HEAVEN?
WOULD YOU BE THE SAME
IF I SAW YOU IN HEAVEN?
I MUST BE STRONG
AND CARRY ON
‘CAUSE I KNOW I DON’T BELONG
HERE IN HEAVEN
There was so much sadness still there, so much raw hurt, such tragedy. And still, there was the same incomprehensible lack of understanding in how it came to happen, what steps and decisions and thoughts led him into that dark corner. How frightened he must have felt. How hopeless it must have seemed. How lonely it must have been. How could this star athlete, the most popular guy from McNulty Elementary School, have found himself in such a tragic space? And how could all the recent memories of my own choices and ghosts ~ the pills and plastic bags and rubber bands, the plastic hoses leading from the exhaust pipes of cars, the failures and attempts and failures again ~ make any other sense than in the gnawing thought that it should have been me, it should have been me, it should have been me.
It took years for that to go away, and sometimes it does still haunt my heart. Maybe it should have been me. Maybe that’s how it should have played out. Maybe that originally made the most sense in the universe. Who had the most promise? Who would do the best things for the betterment of the world? It’s hard to think that I have come ahead in that tricky game of what-if. But the one thing I have learned is that we each had a choice, and we each made those choices in the best manner we knew. For whatever fluke or change of destiny, I’m still here, and even if Jeff chose not to be, I can choose to remember him, to try to make it mean something. In that small way, he’s still here too.
These are elements of the ephemeral that should not be bound to physical formats. They are so much more than that.
I’m old-school.
Some days I want to take the school part out of the hyphenate and it wouldn’t entirely turn untrue.
Looking over the guestroom, I see a place filled with relics from the 90’s. Rickety shelving units that bow and bend beneath the weight and water damage of potted plants, an extensive CD-storage piece that has monopolized one wall for every single day we’ve been at this house. A weight-lifting rack that has seen more use as a storage shelf than actual work-outs (yes, it’s dusty, but I’m about to dust it off, I swear). And with more time than ever to spend at home, I’m finally making motions to bring this room into a new decade. With a new mid-century credenza en route, it was time to do some ruthless editing, beginning with several hundred CDs which I set about transferring to digital format. I fear and embrace change in equally-powerful parts, but for today I shall focus on the latter.
I am learning to let go. For so long I held onto these CDs, the same way I hold onto books, in the futile hope that part of my past would stay safe, would stay untouched and unharmed, and maybe somehow heal if it was just left alone. Turns out that in all this time the best thing to do might have been to let it all go and start over again.
Today I make motions to have it both ways. I will download the songs I love, and trash the rest. I don’t think I’ve purchased a physical CD in years, so this collection hasn’t grown any, it’s simply stayed the same. Stagnant. Still. Unevolved. It is time.
On this morning, I set M People’s ‘Bizarre Fruit’ on a delightful spin back to the 90’s, and I’m brought back to the sales floor of Structure, and tea dance at Chaps in Boston, and I’m smiling at the memories and emotions it brings back. The music remains, the plastic shell of its trappings can go, and the space for, well, space, has begun to appear. It is the space for growth. One shelf has been emptied, and another follows suit. I can see the wall, I can sense an expansion, I can literally feel an openness that hasn’t been there for years. Instantly, the room’s mood lifts. When the new credenza arrives I shall repot the plants that perch atop the deteriorating particle board shelving module. They will have a real piece of furniture on which to grow, and new pots to go with the mid-century feel of clean lines and minimalist structure. When the world outside feels like a jumbled overgrown monstrosity, the best thing to do is clear up the inside.
And if there’s music by M People to dance along to, so much the better.
Though they are the bane of our lawn’s existence these days, the little violets seen here are a happy memory-inducing plant from my childhood. Back then, I’d explore the woodland behind our backyard and these flowers shone in wide swaths and groups, mostly in their white and purple form. There’s something more peaceful and lovely about the simple violet hue you see here. I would hunt these out among the more plentiful white ones. Maybe I valued them more for their scarcity. At my current home, the pure violet ones outnumber the multi-colored version.
Nowadays they are wreaking havoc with the uniform green carpet of our lawn, and so we must eradicate them. I’m not bothered by it – they will never be entirely gone. There are too many, their realm is too vast, and there are always more to be found if ever we make a complete eviction. For now, I’m enjoying their little blooms as they pop up, reconciled to their bothersome invasive tendencies, content with being granted the memory they evoke.
(If I pick all the flowers, there will be no seed to spread, so bouquets like this provide beauty and purpose, the best of all possible worlds.)
YOU BOUGHT ME VIOLETS FOR MY FURS
AND THERE WAS BLUE IN THE WINTRY SKY
YOU PINNED THE VIOLETS TO MY FURS
AND GAVE A LIFT TO THE CROWDS PASSING BY
YOU SMILED AT ME SO SWEETLY
SINCE THEN ONE THOUGHT OCCURS
THAT WE FELL IN LOVE COMPLETELY
THE DAY YOU BOUGHT ME VIOLETS FOR MY FURS
If lyrics aren’t your preferred way of listening tonight, give the John Coltrane Quartet’s version a spin. It’s the perfect accompaniment to a breezy spring evening that doesn’t yet feel like spring.
Rufus Wainwright has been one of the shining stars during this strange and difficult time, with his daily #Quarantunes and #RobeRecitals series. He also just released a new song from his upcoming album, “Unfollow the Rules” and it is a glorious work of art that resonates powerfully with someone like me. Reveling in alone time has been one of the grandest quests of my adult life, and quite often during my childhood as well, now that I think about it. In these turbulent times, it rings a little differently, which is the way relevant art often works.
I NEED A LITTLE ALONE TIME
A LITTLE DREAM TIME
BUT DON’T WORRY I WILL BE BACK BABY
I NEED A LITTLE BE-GONE TIME
A LITTLE ON MY OWN TIME
BUT DON’T WORRY I WILL BE BACK BABY
TO GET YOU ON THE MISTS OF AVALON
TO SAVE YOU FROM THE CLIFFS OF LOVERS LEAPING OFF
AND ON AND OFF AND ON AND OFF AND ON
Wainwright works in many realms; most of us know him as singer and songwriter, but he’s also a talented artist. His work inspired the gorgeously illustrated video that is both whimsical and evocative. He’s delayed the release of his album at this point because he wanted the album artwork to be part of the listening experience. That is the work of a true artist. The quest for a vision. The hope and prayer for a proper execution. A worthy attempt at finishing the hat.
The push and pull of the artistic life is something Wainwright has mastered, or at the very least has given a great show of having mastered. I wonder how close we can get to the real gears and grids of an artist’s mind. How close would the artist want an audience to get?
I NEED A LITTLE ALONE TIME
A LITTLE DREAM TIME
DON’T WORRY I WILL BE BACK BABY
I NEED A LITTLE BE-GONE TIME
A LITTLE ON MY OWN TIME
BUT DON’T WORRY I WILL BE BACK BABY
TO GET YOU ON THE WINGS OF A PERFECT SONG
TO SAVE YOU
FROM THESE STINGS OF HAVING TO TURN OFF
AND ON AND OFF AND ON AND OFF AND ON
There is an art to alone time too. How to get it, how to craft it, how to carve it into the sculpture of your day. Requesting it can be tricky. It’s so easy to offend people these days. And we all want our loved ones to be sensitive, don’t we? But not too sensitive. Not sensitive enough to be hurt by our inoffensive little jokes and actions. Not enough to be hurt by our wanting to be alone sometimes.
There is an art to detachment and distance. It’s more nuanced and complicated than a simple balance. The human heart is not governed by science and calculation, it won’t be swayed by reason or knowledge. It is an impossible thing to calibrate. There are days when being apart is more an act of love than being together. I can’t explain why it should be that way. I wish I could. My life would have gone much easier.
I NEED A LITTLE ALONE TIME
A LITTLE DREAM TIME
BUT DON’T WORRY I WILL BE BACK BABY
I NEED A LITTLE BEGONE TIME
A LITTLE ON MY OWN TIME
BUT DON’T WORRY I WILL BE BACK BABY
It is late spring, and there hasn’t been any significant heat to make this bedroom bay-window difficult. In another month summer will have arrived, and it will be decidedly less fun to stay here in the afternoon sun. For now, it is the perfect place to be.
I sit in a silly Pier One papasan, back when they used to sell me merchandise, and idly flip through the pages of a book. Over the previous winter, I’d gotten into the habit of reading in the bedroom after a work shift when I found myself lost for something to do. It eased the nights of solitude, and while solitude proved bothersome a few short months before, now it was something I almost embraced. I was learning to be ok on my own. Better than ok, I was verging on happiness.
WE WERE AS ONE BABE
FOR A MOMENT IN TIME
AND IT SEEMED EVERLASTING
THAT YOU WOULD ALWAYS BE MINE
NOW YOU WANNA BE FREE
SO I’M LETTING YOU FLY
‘CAUSE I KNOW IN MY HEART BABE
OUR LOVE WILL NEVER DIE, NO
It was basically my first summer alone in Boston. I’d usually have headed back to my parents’ home to take advantage of the central air conditioning and refreshing pool. For most of this summer I’d stay in Boston. I spent the days working at Structure, which was almost a full-time gig, given that they scheduled me for 35 hours a week. I could pretty much choose my shifts though, and it was a social outlet which was good since I didn’t yet have many friends in Boston – certainly not in the summer when most of my friends went home. Not quite 21 years old, I still didn’t go out much, and that was fine. It forced me to make the most of nightly solitude in other ways.
Mariah Carey was continuing her mid-90’s domination of the pop scene, and back when MTV was still playing videos her sweet ode to innocent love was playing all the time. Its summer camp lake scene was something I didn’t recognize from my own youth, but romance was something equally unrecognizable for me. The idea of it held much appeal and allure, but the reality proved elusive, probably because my idea of it was far from reality. Still, it was nice to fantasize about a gentleman with whom I might share a spring or summer, or at the very least a shower.
YOU’LL ALWAYS BE A PART OF ME
I’M PART OF YOU INDEFINITELY
BOY DON’T YOU KNOW YOU CAN’T ESCAPE ME?
OOH DARLING ‘CAUSE YOU’LL ALWAYS BE MY BABY
AND WE’LL LINGER ON
TIME CAN’T ERASE A FEELING THIS STRONG
NO WAY YOU’RE NEVER GONNA SHAKE ME
OOH DARLING ‘CAUSE YOU’LL ALWAYS BE MY BABY
When my work-day was done, I’d find my way back to the condo and station myself in the bedroom window, reading and pausing for a brief siesta before getting running gear and stepping into the dinner-time air. Neighbors sat on their front steps eating off their summer plates and clinking glasses of wine. I’d wave and rush by in a jog. It felt good to be outside. The long winter of commuting to Brandeis still felt chilly in my memory. It was nice just to be free from that, and to pass the flowering trees and their perfume. Everyone was outside, it seemed. And they were all going to dinner or socializing, while I rushed by, ever on the outskirts, ever hurrying away from such interactions.
[It feels far away, not only because it was almost a quarter of a century ago, but because in just a few short weeks I’ve already grown dangerously accustomed to being without human contact. The notion of pausing and speaking with people I know, just on the street, feels suddenly, and yet forever, foreign.]
I AIN’T GONNA CRY NO
AND I WON’T BEG YOU TO STAY
IF YOU’RE DETERMINED TO LEAVE BOY
I WILL NOT STAND IN YOUR WAY
BUT INEVITABLY
YOU’LL BE BACK AGAIN
‘CAUSE YOU KNOW IN YOUR HEART BABE
OUR LOVE WILL NEVER END, NO
As much as I shy away from people, part of me seeks them out. I cross Columbus and head to Tremont, where all the restaurants and cafes are. The South End is just beginning to turn into an unaffordable place, but it’s not quite there yet. Vestiges of the large gay population remain, centered around Geoffrey’s and Francesca’s, but I keep myself on the outskirts, literally running past the people even as I crave to be near them.
If part of me wanted to meet someone special, I didn’t think the whole running thing through. How exactly did I intend to meet anyone while jogging? If someone gave me the once-over, did I really expect to stop in my sweaty state and strike up a conversation, out of breath and flustered? No, I didn’t think it through, but that made no difference. The point is the run. It occupies my time and keeps me in shape.
YOU’LL ALWAYS BE A PART OF ME
I’M PART OF YOU INDEFINITELY
BOY DON’T YOU KNOW YOU CAN’T ESCAPE ME
OOH DARLING ‘CAUSE YOU’LL ALWAYS BE MY BABY
AND WE’LL LINGER ON
TIME CAN’T ERASE A FEELING THIS STRONG
NO WAY YOU’RE NEVER GONNA SHAKE ME
OOH DARLING ‘CAUSE YOU’LL ALWAYS BE MY BABY
I run up and down Tremont, passing the places where the people gather, peeking in on their evening expositions, watching their laughter and the way they bring food and cocktails to their lips. As fast as I rushed by, I could still see. The sun slowly goes down and still the light remains. Sweat runs down my face and it is time to head back. There was nothing special waiting for me at the condo, but there is just so far one guy can run in an evening.
Back in the bedroom, there is no longer the direct sunlight of afternoon streaming in. It’s a little sadder, though I’m not sad. On the television, Mariah is back on, singing this happy song, as I step into the shower. Dousing myself in the Dewberry line from the Body Shop, I make an unintentional memory. There is nothing special happening in my life, I’m simply existing – working and running and reading and sleeping and eating bagels from Finagle. I’d dated men and women by that point, I had my moments of not being alone. This was something different: I had to know that I’d be ok on my own if I needed to be. I fell asleep with a book on my chest, the bathroom light still annoyingly bright.
I KNOW THAT YOU’LL BE BACK BOY
WHEN YOUR DAYS AND YOUR NIGHTS GET A LITTLE BIT COLDER
I KNOW THAT YOU’LL BE RIGHT BACK BABY
OH BABY BELIEVE ME IT’S ONLY A MATTER OF TIME, TIME…
In the morning the light from outside is back, pouring in the front windows of the condo now. There is orange juice in the fridge, and a brown paper bag of bagels on the counter. If I’m feeling especially decadent, and planned ahead, I would indulge in a container of cream cheese. On the fanciest days I will go so far as to toast the bagel. For the most part, I eat them plain, tearing their doughy forms into bite size pieces and popping them into my mouth as I stand near the windows looking out onto Braddock Park. I am a typical single guy in Boston, just more accustomed and comfortable in being on my own. I’m also only twenty years old. The friends I make at work can go out to bars, which limits my participation. Secretly, I thrill at being off the hook for attending those gatherings just because of my young age. And so I run.
YOU’LL ALWAYS BE A PART OF ME
I’M PART OF YOU INDEFINITELY
BOY DON’T YOU KNOW YOU CAN’T ESCAPE ME
OOH DARLING ‘CAUSE YOU’LL ALWAYS BE MY BABY
AND WE’LL LINGER ON
TIME CAN’T ERASE A FEELING THIS STRONG
NO WAY YOU’RE NEVER GONNA SHAKE ME
OOH DARLING ‘CAUSE YOU’LL ALWAYS BE MY BABY
Looking back, I recognize in my actions a number of the things I’ve been practicing lately, specifically within the realm of being more mindful and present. I couldn’t realize it then, because it often felt like I was always way too much in my head, but in retrospect I was also remarkably in the moment. I worried for my future, but not to an extent that it stalled or crippled me. I remember being in that moment, inhabiting that specific time, those particular spring days that bled into summer. And some part of me knew that was important, because I still remember it, and the Dewberry fragrance brings it all back, as does this song.
The world has changed quite a bit since then. Boston has changed quite a bit. I’ve changed quite a bit. But that part of me that could simply enjoy an almost-summer night, running and chasing the sun down, still exists – time really can’t erase a feeling this strong – and the promise of Boston holds a place in my heart – in the past, and in the future.
YOU AND I WILL ALWAYS BE
NO WAY YOU’RE NEVER GONNA SHAKE ME
NO WAY YOU’RE NEVER GONNA SHAKE ME
