One Of A Kind Of Many

Sometimes I like to be alone. The reason for that is complicated and likely even beyond my capacity to answer. But I do know that it's an inaccurate disposition. I actually hate being alone. And slowly, as time progresses its unforgiving agenda, I am realizing that any experience is only valuable such that I can share that experience with someone else. It's similar to the cliched saw obviating objectivity without an observer in the forest to hear the falling tree: perhaps my experiences alone are meaningless -- or better stated, valueless -- without someone for whom share that experience. Without such validation, what truths can we ever acquire? Certainly not our own, for those are cloaked in a thick, protective subconscious veil. And so the truths we often seek, whether that of a beleaguered relationship or an indecorous social comment, lie in the summated validation of others sharing one's experiences.

Soon I will lose the shared experiences of a true friend, and hence, a snippet of my truth. This friend has completed her tenure in this fine city and it is her actualization that pulls away to personal fulfillment (and arguably societal fulfillment if one considers her global ambitions). It saddens me, yet I can't help but weep with joy. She is succeeding in her journey. So it might even be selfish to mope among my loss when she is gaining so much, but alas, I will certainly long for the truth in which she enlightened me; but to be fair, perhaps she will long for the same in which I enlightened her. That is only something she could answer. Yet, with her departure now eminent, it is impossible to prolong any further the gravity of our experiences together as friends. She truly contributed to what was, is, and will be the value by which my life experiences are waged.

But what is it in this person, as well as the others that I'm blessed to have in my life, that bestow such value and truth to my life experience? For her, and possibly others, i realized that it has been her faith in me. She accepted me no matter the song, no matter the rhyme, no matter the idiosyncrasy, no matter the joke, no matter the mistake, no matter the success. And it has been this unabashed acceptance that has fortified my own fragile belief when I so often defaulted to personal atheism. This "friend" -- which certainly isn't a powerful enough noun -- showed me how to shine my brightest. And even if my glow was an odd color, she reminded me how uniquely beautiful it lit the room. The self-evident, beautiful irony, of course, is that this insight and utter altruism reflected her own uniquely beautiful light. And so I'm humbled. She has reminded me that the relationships I've invested with others are also an investment in myself to be my best. And, conversely, when I let others down, such as her, I also let myself down.

I am blessed to have not just one, but many people in my life that provide me with the truth, meaning, and value of my experiences. Every relationship I've had with these truly beautiful people has been unique, but such is the complicated requirement of this complicated life. And so with all humble acknowledgement and appreciation, i need to thank my dear friend for her recent reminder that every relationship I've had in the past and have to this day defines me to be the best person i can be, for the last people I want to let down are the people that give my life value. So long as they feel the same, then we can be nothing but our best. And our frail planet demands nothing less.

Thank you, Christina. You are beauty; you are one of a kind; you are one of many.

Truly, A Part.

And here I lie. Alone. And i hate it. And so i must write. I've never been one for a candid, extemporaneous blog entry, but apparently tonight is the night. No premeditation, no attempt at adroit wit or uncanny satire -- just raw, unfiltered neurotic thoughts (for better or worse). But it's an apposite entry, I suppose, because today is March 11th, 2010. On March 11th, 2009, I met her -- the woman that made the room sink around her and the woman that would change my life. And change it for the better (or so i keep telling myself). A quick fast forward to March 11th, 2010, and I'm faced with a poignant, yet inescapable reflection. Now at 29, I had thought I'd felt pain. I was wrong. The pain I've felt over the past two (plus whatever/forever) months outweighs even the pain branded on the scars from my alcoholic childhood home (at least acutely). I am hurt on March 11th, 2010, and hurt like never before. I suppose it's the Siren call of love that has betrayed me (as she does), or even my own pattern of bedeviled relationships rooted in my voracious desire to fill my vacancies with love, attention, and affection (ah, but don't we all want that?). Details aside, on March 11th, 2010, I'm alone. And I hate it.

The woman I loved (and certainly still do) over the past year -- despite her recent demonic haunts upon every night of my attempted sleep -- has changed my life for the better. How can this be (I ask...continuously)? Because at the age of 29, I finally know what it means to truly love someone. Cliche, of course. I'm a musician, so I'm well-aware that nearly every single album on my digital archive deals with such subject matter. But until one has felt what it's like to be literally destroyed by someone else's vacancy, no song, no poem, no advice, and no prayer can adequately prepare nor offer solace for love's power. Love is an experience, not an emotion. Therefore, the loss of my first "true love" (i know, the cliche again...but seriously) is like a death inside. And so the pain I feel is the grief of loss. My life has lost something that it once had: the experience of my life with this truly special, beautiful woman.

Fortunately, I haven't dealt with much grief in my life. I haven't lost anyone in my life (yet, fingers crossed) that was particularly close enough to me to push me to grief. And my father was ill with addiction since I can remember, so his absence (at least during my childhood) was never really a "loss" since it wasn't fully there in the first place. But losing my found love -- someone that I came to define myself through, not with -- is grief. The year we spent together was unmatched by any clock. I could spend two hours with her (as such the last two hours i saw her) and the hands might as well spin off the wall. Our bodies were like two raindrops magnetically fusing together -- or in our words, "of the same substance". Yes, romanticizing a bit, but only in terms of frequency, not amplitude. Our darkness was shared, and so was our light. And my, were we bright together. Most experiences I recount (particularly our travel sojourns) were filled with as much risible lightheartedness as they were with academic conversation. And to speak of amplitude, the experience that was our love swept from the expansion of the Pacific Northwest wilderness to the intimacy of stargazing through my foggy bay window. She knows my darkness and I know hers; she knows my light and I know hers; which, I suppose, brings me to another substance of love: vulnerability.

Clearly, I made myself vulnerable. In fact, I've never been so vulnerable to another person as I was with her. Otherwise, I wouldn't feel shattered into a million (+ 1) pieces across my wooden floor. It is like emotional nuclear technology, wielding as much potential for salvation as wielding potential for destruction. Hence, I paradoxically feel as though I've been saved and destroyed at the same time. And this is what permits me to claim that my loving relationship with that stunning woman i met one year ago today changed my life for the better. This is because I now understand value; that is to say, I know now what it is to have because I know now what it is to not have. And tonight i do not have my true love. I've had and lost love before; but "true" love -- that in which i define myself through someone else -- I have not. And so the death of my relationship with this true love has also poisoned and killed a piece of my own identity. That is the source of the pain i am feeling tonight.

I never knew I could be myself around someone and have them accept me -- all of me. I've been a pariah my entire life, and it has taken an ugly toll. Too much "crazy" creativity for most mentors (including to this day, perhaps); too many questions in class (so why don't we remove you and put you in "special" classes so you feel less isolated -- ahh, the irony); too little patience to understand my confusing adolescent peers with their inane dramas and "crises;" too quirky of a humor to make anyone (but myself) laugh; too accepting of all beauty -- whether black, white, male, or female -- to be taken without challenge in a relationship. The woman I write of tonight, accepted these things about me (...or did she?); in fact, she loved me for them, perhaps because she herself is afflicted with similar insecurities. Whether it seems selfish in the end, that two people would match largely to accommodate each other's childhood (and now adulthood) vacancies is moot. I think if anyone is truly honest with themselves, we all match, at least partly, to provide what we lack ourselves. And for me, it has been, is now, and probably forever will be: acceptance. The woman I met on March 11th, 2009, laughed at my jokes. How silly (no pun intended) does that sound as the most outstanding criteria for instant compatibility? But it's true. I remember telling one of my closet friends this the following day. One year later, I laugh in reflection: she laughed hysterically at my ridiculous, asinine, non sequitur humor that somehow convened on the topic of a squirrel. And, importantly, she made me laugh as well. Consider it a shared infection.This was (still is?) a woman that accepted me -- all of me.

Except my love, ironically. Not to get rancorous here (i'm over most of the anger stage...right?), but that remains the only thing I'm convinced she didn't accept from me. I wasn't a perfect lover by any means. Who is? Gaging from the above pity party, I clearly have self-worth issues that would easily make a career paycheck for a willing shrink to tell me "you actually didn't give her all your love because you don't feel you're worthy enough to receive love (thanks, Dad)". Okay, there's probably truth in that. But I wanted to try. I truly did. I wanted to roll up my sleeves, brace myself, and change. For the better. With her. And help her. Change for the better. With me. And I was rejected. And I broke. Apart. Into pieces. Not to abuse the ironies, but the ugliest part of our relationship was the breakup itself. I find that interesting. I can't think of a single "fight" we ever had while together. When issues arose, our relationship was one of amicable confrontation: when something was "up," we talked about it. And then we would move on. Wow -- talk about one more hook and sinker to pierce my heart. I know that's rare (and perhaps fiction, because...).

Yet, we failed. How? I feel it may be a bit naive for me to speculate now, even after a couple (+ forever) months. And I do think the answer to that question is very important so long as it's honest, but in some regards it doesn't matter because now, at 29, I've truly loved. And I can finally value love beyond any hackneyed song or film. Having and then losing the experience of her in my life has allowed me to value love and demand nothing less in my next love-worthy relationship (although evidently I'm suppose to date around and have various "rebound relationships" or whatever(s) to fill my current emotional and physical vacuums with boredom and droll facades of interest...which is precisely why i'll likely be single for some time, for better or worse...or i don't know...i'll have to do some thinking about those things). In other words, I learned more about myself through being with my true love in a year than i learned about myself in the past 29 years. That is power. That is beauty. That is not regret. The love I am now able to experience when i so choose will be the result of my relationship with this beautiful, quirky-witted, imperfectly-perfect woman's willingness to risk her vulnerable identity (the best she could) for a relationship with this beautiful, quirky-witted, imperfectly-perfect man (the best he could).

I've said before that (being a scientist and all) the only truth we can honestly attest to is in our experience: if we have "experience" in our memories, then it was "real". Anything else is speculation by others. And so to define a love for someone as a beautiful "experience" is also to define that love as true. I have no doubt, then, that I truly loved this woman because I have the beautiful experience to prove it. Even if for just 10 months together, her precious impact may transcend even into my future paternal legacy -- because she showed me the experience of love, and therefore the value of love necessary for a healthy, lasting relationship. I can only hope I showed her the same.

Counting Ghosts

The bottom is when death seems to float an inch off the ground.

Counting Sheep

True love is the most terrifying of visitors: It arrives unannounced, makes itself at home, and shows you rooms you never knew existed. But if it leaves, it takes your house along with it and leaves you with the mortgage. Yet, I keep my doors unlocked, because I'd rather have no home at all than own one I've never seen.

A Rose With No Roots Grows Cold

Blossom

Without anyone to love you
What will you blossom into
Without anyone to hold you
How will you grow
And in the Wildwood trees
The wild wind blows
And the nighttime crushes the hurricane rose
And with no one to care for you
Who knows

Blossom for me rose
You're the picture of my love
Blossom for me rose
Stretch out underneath the stars
And when tomorrow comes
I will hold you up
Little blossom, shining in the sun

Without any place to go to
What will your soul return to
Without anyone to keep you
Where will you go
And in the shadows of the past
Where you're spinning so fast
It's hard to see it coming
And it never lasts
And with nothing to judge your life by
How will you know

Blossom for me rose
You're the picture of my life
Blossom for me rose
Stretch out underneath the stars
And when tomorrow comes
I will hold you up
Little blossom, shining in the sun

Without anyone to love you
What will you blossom into
Without anyone to hold you
How will you grow

- Ryan Adams
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Muse For The Day

Day Is Done

Waking is so hard
You made it this far
If you don't give up
I'll promise I won't give in

You're crawling through dark streets
Afraid of your own dreams
Remembering where you are
Is so much more than where you've been

Don't say it's over
When the morning breaks you will rise again
Day is done
The battle's won
And no one's keeping track of where you've been

Is this love or ruin
You try to forget
All those past mistakes led today you're paying for
Stop tracing your footsteps
through circles of regrets
Oh, you've come too far to let your heart close the door

Don't say it's over
When the morning breaks you will rise again
Don't say it's over
Whatever it takes you will see it through to the end
Day is done
The battle's won
And no one's keeping track of where you've been

So open up
Open up
Open up your heart and start again

-David Moore

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Of Sleepless Nights

I found a couple old poems I'd like to share...perhaps simply with myself by typing them aloud. I'm not sure what compelled me to write them back in November of 2008. But I feel compelled to revisit them now.

***

God, if you read my blog, this one is for you:

Wishing I Could See The Stars - 11.02.2008

Through the glass
All I can see
Is the sad state of misery
Fogging up my view
Of the heavens up there
Sprinkling about wishes like loose change
Promises of better days

So when there's clouds up above
I know the stars are still there
One for every memory
A million for my despair

Oh, sweet lovely
Without you, the sky is all black

Would you grant me a wish if I fell to the ground
Like you do so often when I'm not around
I just want to wipe these tears away
Heavy like clouds
So I can see your sweet beauty
And try to make you proud

***

The one below is about not wanting to be human. I often wish I could 'mutate and upgrade to missing link'. The burden of my flesh feels encoded in so many scars. I want to move through the seas; I want to spin with the clouds; i want to dissolve into the moonlight. I want to be among the beauty that is always out of my human reach. But most of all, I want to be freed from love. Its beauty is too much to bear when all it ever does is leave. So I'd rather just not have to feel it at all. But in order to do that, I can't be human. So mutate me:

DNApe - 11.02.2008

Bound by these codes of inadequacy
Bound by their organic lies
Corporal punishment in a spiritual life
Ruled by rules with unforgiving time

Reflections weigh heavy
A realization of my own
What is this creature but utterly alone
Plagued by what worked eons ago
No longer needed now
True love has no code

Mysteries abound in this world of mine
Filled with ideas floating off the ground
But bound again in acids
Burning up their power
To change the way we see the world
To change the way we live and die

There is a better code within
Unchartered by science
One of energetic symmetry
The way God intended
The way we disappointed

So free me of this suffocating code
And all its inane results
For I don't want to be this anymore
It's filled with too many faults

A Little Bit Destroyed

Forever love to all those that have been 'just a little bit more glue'



A Little Bit Destroyed

just a little bit lonely right now
just a little bit tired of falling down
just a little bit of love left somehow

but i feel like there’s so much more that i need to say
because i didn’t know who to tell when i woke up alone today

just a little bit of tears left from you
just a little bit of memories left to lose
i’m a little bit destroyed over you

but i know that i’ve got to move along and try once again
because i know that i don’t have forever to spend
and because i just can’t fail and let you win

just a little bit of pain left to feel
just a little bit of pictures that seem so real
just a little bit of time for these wounds to heal

but i hope that i'm strong enough with just a little bit more glue
but i hope i'll be strong enough with just a little bit more glue
because i’ve been a little bit destroyed
over you

The Fortress

Only a ghost can walk through your walls...



The Fortress

so why do you say you love me
while you run away so fast
maybe you just don’t love me
or maybe because you’re last
to know how you feel inside
burning like a secret lie, girl
you’re a fire inside alright
leaving me side by side
with your demons in the cold

i don’t want to be the one to go
and fight them all alone
without you
is all you’ve let me know

so why do you pull me close
while you hide away so scared
from your dreams of all you want
from those tears you never share
so how can i be your fire
to burn your love’s desire, girl
when your walls just keep you in
with your dreams on the other side
to slip away again

i don’t want to be the one to go
and climb these walls alone
without you
there’s only one now
with you
i’ve never known

BT: These Hopeful Machines

Brian Transeau, or “BT” as he’s billed, makes music. Lots of it. Not in a Ryan Adams-I’m-going-to-release-three-albums-in-one-year-way, but in a way that genuflects to nearly all varieties of music within a single career, if not within a single song. BT’s sonic prowess is no doubt encoded in computer language, but he utilizes this lexicon as a canvas to meld every invented genre into one: “music”. His latest release, These Hopeful Machines (Nettwerk Records) could not better exemplify of how BT imagines music as a vast, contiguous landscape.

While certainly drenched in electronic confetti throughout, These Hopeful Machines, unlike some of his previous work, understands that people don’t go to parties for the confectionary, but for the experience the confectionary augments. Hence, restraint is of the essence. Organic voices, guitars, strings, and drum kits alike weave between a digital interface so elegantly, it’s easy to embrace the intentional glitch tracks, stutter edits, and dare I say, “techno” beats, that accompany nearly every minute of this two-hour opus. One gets the sense while listening that the analog age is reluctantly signing a lease over to a new stranger, but a stranger that is kind enough to indulge in a conversation before unpacking.

Musically (and I mean things like melody and song structure), These Hopeful Machines is arguably simple. This isn’t to say it’s banal. Simplicity is the formula by which the complexity of genius can breathe. I would invoke examples of this argument in Nirvana’s Nevermind or some of the early Beatles albums. These Hopeful Machines is of the same formula. Many of the songs on this album were likely conceived on nothing more than a lonely guitar in a lonely room. What provides the complexity of genius is the added texture to the melodies, harmonies, and hooks. And BT layers texture like no one can - and i literally mean no one since he builds many of his machines and computer programs.

These Hopeful Machines is packaged as a two-part continuous listen, with “A Side” and “B Side” sold as two independent downloads, each having six disparate “movements”. Therefore, discussing specific songs is a bit of a disservice, but still relevant. The album opener, “Suddenly” idles for only 22 seconds before the 21st Century introduces itself. Loudly. But as if responding to a question from this bold stranger, BT’s human voice responds on behalf of the previous millennium with “You and your emotion/I’m on your side/I say your prayer”. A cordial conversation between these new friends ensues for the remaining hour and fifty-one minutes. The final word in this conversation is a necessary, albeit poignant goodbye from our analog past with a gorgeous, tape-recorded (seriously) cover of the Psychedelic Furs’ “The Ghost In You”. I have no doubt that this ghost will soon become the haunt of on old friend from times past.

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