There are some evenings that are just perfect.
A hot day, followed by the rapid cooling of twilight. The sweat's still trickling down you back, but the breeze coming in through the windows suddenly causes chicken skin (that expression is so much better than 'goose bumps') all over your body.
And you're driving, and the local radio station which normally carries music you can just barely tolerate is blasting out the absolute best songs ever.
Songs that you know every single lyric to - songs which have that perfect harmony part (essential to someone like me who can never stay with the melody alone).
Songs from when you were in college - or when you had that incredible job or when you lived in that fabulous place.
Some times they are the ones that make you cry.
The first song you danced to with him.
And sometimes lyrics don't even tug, they simply wrench your heart.
Do these lyrics mean anything to any of you? Because these were the ones I was hearing:
It's kind of a special feeling
When you're out on the sea alone
Staring at the full moon, like a lover
So I'm sailing for tomorrow, my dreams are a dyin'.
And my love is an anchor tied to you
Tied with a silver chain.
I have my ship and all her flags are a flyin'
She is all that I have left
And music is her name.
He runs, wishing he could fly
Only to trip at the sound of good-bye
Wordlessly watching
He waits by the window
And wonders
At the empty place inside
Heartlessly helping himself to her bad dreams
He worries
Did he hear a good-bye?
Or even hello?
You need to find a brand new start
But you're almost afraid to be true to yourself
Oh, but it's all right
Once you get past the pain
I've come far
From the life I've strayed in
I've got scars
From those dives I've played in
Now I'm home
And I'm weary in my bones
Every dreary one night stand
Someday your child may cry
And if you sing this lullaby
Then in your heart
There will always be a part of me
There's just an empty space
And you coming back to me
Is against all the odds
And that's what I got to take
Get up in the morning, look in the mirror
A moment there's a toothbrush hanging in the stand
My face ain't looking any younger
Oh.
And you need to be eating an ice cream, especially one that is rapidly melting, during all this.
Trust me on this last one.
We are living in a foreign country. -Edmond Jabès, The Book of
Questions Image: Edward S. Curtis, Chaiwa, a Tewa Indian girl with a
butterfly whorl ...
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