.getting the hang of it
One of Julian Casablancas’ “Phrazes for the Young” has been on play for seventeen rotations now - you can’t stop listening to “River of Brakelights”. Usually, your obsession with music focuses on the songs you learned as a boy/adolescent/teenager. Those songs have an unfair advantage in the preference hierarchy, as their meaning is forever tied to some event, some lover, some place, some time that becomes hazier and happier as time goes on. The objective truth of the tune stays the same, forever infused with the feelings of the then, even though the memory may now be utterly subjective. The internet at the coffee shop cuts out; right now the utility of getting up to get a new code is less than continuing writing. The outside world will just have to wait. You try one more time to reconnect, and then come back and write this sentence. It’s the 20th of December, and you are closing in on your first complete calendar year in California. You figure now is as good a time as any to think about what’s happened in the interim, as you missed writing about your actual one-year anniversary in the Golden State. You aren’t even sure what the day is, although you do remember leaving Arizona. The state howled in a symphony of rain, wind, and… well, weather. It was a fitting send-off, a 3 a.m. storm. It…. You look up, and think about saying goodbye to LC, getting in your moving truck, and pulling away. Nostalgia is a bitch. It will be a moment that will survive the years, or at least the emotional echo will. So it is. …was beautiful. It was passionate. It was not a normal early morning for the valley of the sun. It’s almost as if the state knew. You look up, again, mistaking one of the baristas for a girl who has your eye. You realize that the girl who has your eye has a bit more than your eye, apparently. Your tangents are surprising, as you feel the methylphenidate in full force. At least it is easy for you to get back on track. You wanted to talk about your year here, and how fitting it is that you will end the decade in your new home. You have always liked New Year’s Eve, and think this one will be no exception. Damnit! Another digression. Let’s try it like this. This year, you have: • Figured out that you love what you do for work • But that work is most certainly not all you are • In fact, you are many other things o Artist o Lover o Fighter o Happy o Content o Insecure when it comes to family o But generally a-ok • Found something closer to you • And are continuing to explore it There you go, you think. You hope that the list formatting will transfer over to the internet. It will be fine for the printed version, but there’s something about html that makes you wonder. You notice that Word wants you to capitalize the i in internet; you think that is silly. A calm part of the 20th or so repeat of “River” is playing in your ears. You think about how that is a perfect metaphor for right now - a moment sandwiched firmly in between a balls-out chorus and a soon-to-be crescendo that portends some sharp reality - and if it isn’t reality, it sure as hell is trying to be. Getting the hang of it, indeed, Julian. There will be more soon.