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Friday, October 10, 2008

Everyone I Love Is Here


We all cruise along through life at various levels of awareness. Some of us are acutely aware of every nuance of every situation, and some are clueless about the signals they send out and that they receive in return. I've always leaned more toward the latter category. A couple of weeks ago, I discovered that my world was not working the way I thought it was.
When your world is suddenly not where you expected, you start looking around for it. It's a painful and scary experience, not knowing what's real and what's just a self-imposed delusion, but I'm lucky, because I have people around me who aren't afraid to tell me the truth. They anchor me, and help me fix the problems I create.

And in the midst of all of this, there's music. (As if you expected me to write about travel or architecture...)

One dangerous, yet thrilling, thing about a personal crisis is the new meaning that old familiar songs take on. Suddenly, So Much To Say has a depth I never recognized before; the sassy humor of Ben Folds becomes a defiant rallying cry in Philosophy.

Because the emotions can be so volatile and unpredictable, I actually avoid most of my music during times like these. A few years ago, a line from Cool, Cool River hit me so hard, I had to pull to the side of an English fen road and weep while tractors and little, annoyed cars swerved around me. This week, though, I found a special gift in my collection. The Finn Brothers Everyone Is Here, a 2004 CD I picked up at the library last year.What does it mean when
you promise someone
no matter how hard
or whatever may come

It means that I won't give in,
Won't give in...
Won't give in...
'Cause everyone I love is here,
Say it once, and disappear.
Won't Give In
They have my number; the heart of my problem and the solution wrapped together in less than a stanza. But they go further, too, and in six lines, they manage to describe the root of what I'm feeling:Homesick
For the people that I live with
Homesick
For the spirit I'm missing
Homesick
For the country that I'm living in
Homesick
The hardest problems to see are the ones that are right in front of you. The missed opportunities to show, not tell, someone how you feel. The conclusions they draw when they compare your actions to your words. I've been so busy wallowing in my own Homesickness, I haven't seen what has been happening in my own best friend's heart.
I've never had the time before
Leaving things where they fell
I was going door to door
Always thinking I was somewhere else

You saw me
And what I could be
And now I know what love is for
It's the only thing sets you free
Must be the luckiest man alive
Luckiest Man Alive
So now I know all of this. I know what I've done wrong, and how to fix it. I know I'm better off than it seems, and how to make it better. But life is hard, and the road ahead is treacherous. There are no guarantees, only faith in each other.

What am I going to do about it?And I will take my chances
'Cos anything can happen
Don't believe it's over
'Cos anything can happen
Anything Can Happen
That thought cuts both ways; if anything can happen, that means good or bad. But she deserves my faith; and she's hurting, too. She feels guilty for hurting me, but she had to hurt me to get my attention. I don't imagine it's easy to watch someone grapple with a pain that you think you caused, even if you know that it's no one's fault. It's too easy to waste energy blaming yourself. Fortunately, there's some wisdom here for her, too:
All the mud in this town
All the dirt in this world
None of it sticks on you
(You shake it off)
Cause you're better than that
And you don't need it
No, you don't believe it
Nothing Wrong With You
In case there is any doubt about it, the Brothers will say it for me: "I walk along with you/There's nothing wrong with you."

There are a lot of things in this world that are insurmountable. Most people don't come back from the dead, and very few can fly or shoot heat beams from their eyes. But there is no reason to give up, not when there is love like ours in the world, and musicians to remind us.A chance is made
A chance is lost
I carry myself to the edge of the earth.
Won't Give In

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