Category: Words

As I was driving home from a friend’s house the other night, I sang along to James Taylor’s song “You’ve Got A Friend” and hit the repeat button, the way you do when you like a song and want to sing some more. Maybe a few times. Four times. Four. Okay? I get a little obsessive sometimes.

The song made me smile, because for a long time I just couldn’t deal with that song.

I think anyone who loves music tends to connect people to songs. Even more than that, I have a couple of songs that are like barometers. They indicate the various pressures in my relationship to the person the song belongs to.

For a long, long time I couldn’t listen to that song at all. I didn’t really know why, at the time. It was a song I used to listen to with someone who had been very important to me. Someone I eventually disappeared with fairly extreme prejudice. I sort of mentally erased him. But that song would come on sometimes, and it would make me uncomfortable so I’d have to skip past it.

It’s not that I didn’t like it any more. It didn’t make me sad. I just couldn’t stand hearing it.

When I made peace with the person it was linked to in my heart, I got the song back too. Bonus. The minute things go a little agley, though, the song goes with it. Up and down like one of those fluid barometers with the floats in them.

Right now? It’s up. So I am singing along while I can.

It makes me hopeful I’ll get (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes back again soon, but I am guessing it may have become a barometer as well.

Which sucks.

I really did use to be disgusted. Now I really do try to be amused. I used it as an online dating tag line in the 90’s. I refer to certain people with angelic nicknames. I need it back. It is MY FUCKING SONG.

The thing is, once someone takes a song away, it’s not like they can just turn it back over. I’m sure they would. It has to come back on its own. Once whatever took it away gets resolved.

I sure hope it doesn’t take 30 years this time…

Sometimes I worry about thinking and overthinking. Not sometimes. Frequently.

A friend told me not to ever quit reading and writing because he suspects it is what is keeping me sane. Uh sane-ish. My words, not his. The blog, he thinks, is helping me work things out.

I worry sometimes that what writing actually does is get things all stirred up that don’t need to be–the metaphorical sleeping dogs of my inner life.

Then I thought that really, it’s a sort of meditation. I can touch on things and start to either let them go or deal with them. It’s a way of catching myself spinning on something I am fixating on and saying “Hey, Dumbass. You’re feeling this. Maybe you should figure out why” but instead of just randomly obsessing about it, I can move past it.

It’s constructive. Ugh. When did I become constructive???
I’m not sure I approve.

And yes. That means he was right. It’s good for me.
You might not think so, but it’s hard. Hard just doing it every day. Hard being honest. Hard thinking of what to say. Hard even looking at myself this closely.

Lately my mantra has been if it’s uncomfortable then do it. If it’s uncomfortable, think about it. The blog is generally uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable at times. Maybe for the people who see themselves, too. I hope not.

Mostly? It’s about me, even when I am fixated on other people or my reactions to them.

Bear with me…

Aside:
A friend and I spent the evening with another friend who had lost someone dear to her. We drank some beer and wine. Ate some food. Talked a lot. Laughed a lot.

I am always amazed at how healing laughter is, and how resilient humans are.

Or maybe Andi is just particularly amazing.

Well. Yes. We know this is true. I mean, we went over to comfort a friend and who came home with art? Andi got overcooked eggs, and Paddy and I got beautiful glass. This does not seem like a fair exchange!

I love you, Andi Mae!

You too, Paddy.

I had lunch recently with one of my VIPs. We mostly talked about nothing in particular, like you do when you have some adult beverages with someone you enjoy being with, but at one point we talked about how differently people remember things. Or how sometimes a person remembers something very intensely that you don’t remember at all.

I have a very specific memory of the first time I saw him. Not the really, really first time. We went to the same school, so I’d seen him around for a year without really noticing him in particular. But the first time I saw him and it stuck? I remember exactly how he smelled, of all things. If he remembers, I wonder if it would be the same day, the same place. Not that it matters at this point, but it made me wonder what would be different. Something would be.

Some guy in high school says we made out in my bedroom one night after going to a dance. I have no recollection of having gone to a dance at all, don’t remember his name or his picture in the yearbook and I did not have so much attention from guys at the time that I would have forgotten having one in my bedroom. I am pretty sure I could name them even now. Or could I? Does this guy just have me confused with someone else? Or am I the sort of person who kisses and forgets?

I have no idea about the kissing in particular, but I am a person who forgets.

It’s not uncommon for me to be introduced to someone that I knew vaguely in school who has no recollection of me at all, so I guess maybe I should be a little relieved that in this case, at least, I was not forgettable.

No one likes being forgotten.

How many times does someone say “remember when..” and you don’t?
Memory is so powerful, and so…misleading. I am very sure that there are things I remember clearly that never took place. There are other things that happened, maybe important ones, that I don’t recall at all.

If I don’t remember them, does that mean they weren’t important? Maybe there are a lot of people I’ve spent time with and then forgotten.

I wonder if it matters?