7 posts tagged “death”
Relevant in so many ways... Today would have been my grandfather's 70th birthday, if he lived to see it. And just as I was at a concert as he was passing slowly on, I will be at this band's show in 15 hours... For every loss, death or heartbreak, this speaks to me now.
It always comes back to music for me.
Music is my soundtrack to all of life's events, both trivial and tantamount to shaping who have become and am becoming. Music fuels me when nothing else can motivate me to keep pressing forward. Music makes me laugh, and cry. Music is cathartic, especially live. As Third Eye Blind once sang, "The four right chords could make me cry."
Music is there, even when it's 4am and no one's answering their phone or online. Music is fun and silly, and intelligent and challenging. Music can evoke a mood, or change it for the better.
Music is my oxygen.
Music can also take me back, certain songs triggering memories so succinctly that they feel real again, feel as if the events were unfolding right this moment. I can close my eyes and remember it all: the way I felt, how cold or warm I was, who was there and what we did. Certain lyrics will forever affect me, forever connect to certain people or places. Such is the case with Pictures of Success by Rilo Kiley. In late 2007, I suddenly found myself feeling suffocated by life, by my failed aspirations, by my own mood swings, and by the illnesses in my family, namely my grandfather and father. I had to escape. I had to leave town and recharge completely.
In the end, with a lot of luck, as if the universe understood what I was in need of, I found myself in California right before my birthday, and spent the actual day slinging back margaritas with some of my best friends in the world on a patio in Tijuana. It was perfect weather for me - late spring temperatures for my home city, with sunny skies and breeze. Everything about that trip was exactly as I wanted it to be. In the entire month of November, I'd blared Pictures of Success over and over, as if willing the fates to work out, singing along: "They say California is a recipe for a black hole/And I say I've got my best shoes on/I'm ready to go..." And I was ready. I walked away from that trip in late December, turning to my boyfriend and saying, "That was what I needed. I feel strong again. I feel ready to cope now."
That was December 17th, 2007. By December 1st, 2008, my foreboding feelings over my grandfather had proven terribly true, with my grandfather going from back pain to heart attack to cancer to terminal to passing away. So much can happen in a year, much more than we ever anticipate. I dare not consider how well I would have handled that year without that time in the sun, to breathe in the ocean air and revive myself.
And even now, as I miss him terribly, that song drifts into my head, to remind me of that strength I found. I wish I had a plane ticket now; I'm definitely ready to go, once more.
525, 000 journeys to plan
525, 600 minutes
How can you a measure the life of a woman or a man?
In truths that she learned, or in times that he cried
In bridges he burned or the way that she died..."
Seasons Of Love - Rent
But I can be some courage at the side of your bed..."
Thief - Our Lady Peace
Dedicated to my Nanny....
Bravely you let go of my hand
I can't speak yet you understand
Where I go now I go alone
This path I walk these days of stone
[Chorus:]
I must go away
Wait for me here
Silently stay
And don't ask me why
Only believe
This is not good bye
All of my strength all my desire
Still cannot melt this breath of fire
I go to meet some kind of test
Bury the truth that scars my chest
And the angels are calling and calling
[Chorus]
I gathered all my courage
I shaved off all my fear
With this banner on my shoulder
I hold your essence near
And the angels are calling and calling and calling
[Chorus]
This Is Not Goodbye - Melissa Etheridge
You crawled from the cancer to land on your feet
Are you crazy to want this, even for a while?...
We're done lying for a living
The strange days are coming and you're
You're gone, you're gone
Either dead or drying
Either dead or trying to go..."
Strange Days - Matthew Good Band
It's the sort of song I turn to when I need to ease out of numbed autopilot existence, when I begin to emotionally shut down. And lately, even music can barely touch my heart. I know that this is the mind's way of coping with overwhelming duress, but for someone so governed by passion and emotion, it's a terrifying existence. I appreciate that it keeps me from buckling to my knees at work and screaming of the injustices I feel are being inflicted upon those I love, but when away from work, I don't sleep, I don't cry.... I don't feel alive.
One of us is dying. That is one too many. I need not join.
"At first the melody would come and walk with me through the mists in North Cornwall England. I would take this melody back to the Hammond Organ, the B3. I would sit and play with this for hours. Soon I began to have to deal with my mother's heart condition and she survived a cardiac arrest in September. Because of this I began thinking about the life cycle and that dying is part of the life cycle. Even though I realized this, logically, I couldn't accept the idea of losing my mother emotionally. The song started to become clearer as the days went by and I began to realize that the Beekeeper that had taken my character in the song, to death, to plead for my mother's life, the Queen Bee in the song, little did I know that although my mother would survive and that death did pass her by it would be the last time I saw my brother when I went back to stand by my mother's bedside. So life/death has it's own rhythm and it's own rhyme. The Beekeeper really acts as a Shaman, similar to the Medicine Man in the Native American tradition. We have the Beekeeper in the Celtic tradition"
Tori Amos - MSN Chat 2/22/05
I understand now, more than before, now that the proverbial wolf is finally right outside my door, just how much the soul can ache to travel to the keepers. How great the longing is to offer every exchange, including one's own life, to spare the loss of one so beloved.
This is my bargaining stage. This is me asking for time to stand still, to wait, to slow down. This is me not ready. This is my rage at life's cycle, despite a long-term respect of nature borne of my personal beliefs, storming the castle gates and insisting I will not relinquish my King.
