At the time of this writing – very early in the morning before house or town are even awake – it’s still raining, as it’s been for the past two days. This has been a consistent hard rain, with flooding in many places. After a stretch of sunny warm days, this change has felt especially jarring, and maybe that’s the reason for the melancholy of late. “If I hadn’t seen such riches I could live with being poor…”
Remember, comparison is the thief of joy. I am telling this to myself mostly, screaming into a void where the “ones who once called you forever now can’t call you back” and the only way to get through it is to quote songs that speak more eloquently to the pain of rain than I ever could. As we bid July farewell tomorrow, here’s a musical way of saying goodbye.
Ev’ry time we say goodbye
I die a little
Ev’ry time we say goodbye
I wonder why a little
Why the Gods above me
Who must be in the know
Think so little of me
They allow you to go
When you’re near
There’s such an air of spring about it
I can hear a lark somewhere
Begin to sing about it
Maybe this should have been the farewell to summer song come September, but some goodbyes happen before you’re ready and willing – those are the toughest ones. And when endings happen in the middle of summer, they somehow seem even sadder. This is the spot of the year when Dad left us; I found myself crying in the shower the other day for seemingly no reason before I realized what was happening. The body and mind will insist on release even if you don’t think you’re ready. At times of great upheaval, I find it best to go with the flow while letting the river simply rush around you. It also helps to accept the sadness and sorrow and loss, let the torrents out while feeling every last blade of hurt, and then, slowly, coming back to your breathing, back to the only way you learned to survive, back to the exquisite beauty of being alive and being vulnerable. Back to the ritual of saying goodbye.
There’s no love song finer
But how strange the change
From major to minor
Ev’ry time we say goodbye
