This Creative Life

Welcome to the creative work of Alan White, head writer and producer of "FEEDBACK; A HERO'S CALLING," now at Broken Sea. The "Feedback" in question is Matthew Atherton, My Hero. He and other heroes of mine have links found down the left side of these pages. Enjoy!

Sunday, September 10, 2006

"The More You Cry, The Less You Pee"

I am, and am not, confused.

I had a good morning, doing my internetting and posting the preceding post. The world felt very nice and very good.

I had shunted off the news coverage that I saw this morning in the gym while I whittled my pounds away. Tomorrow is Sept. 11th and I didn't want to be reminded. The calendar I consulted on Friday told me that tomorrow is a national holiday called "Patriot's Day". I didn't want to think about it.

So I enjoyed the phenomena of Tech Support and Matthew Atherton and set out to go get me some lunch. I downloaded India.Arie to my new mp3 player along with her new contemporary, Corinne Bailey Rae. Miss Rae has a new song on the radio which has been crossing all genre, all markets, called "Like A Star". At the end of this post, I have a treat for all of you who have heard it, or wish to. Or you can fast forward now and go take a look/listen. Something about that song gripped me from the first note. Something about the chords on the simple guitar strumm. Something that resonates with a chord inside me. That's all I can guess.

So I turn off my comp, get in the car, and I'm listening to my player through the dashboard cassette (I have an adapter) and I go to Chili's to get my favorite meal (like a monkey on a cupcake!) and suddenly I find myself weighed down with a gravity I can't understand. The day was going good.

I decided to go eat the lunch in a park somewhere--it's temperate and slightly overcast, perfect day for me. I go to a Park and Ride near "my" house, sit on my car trunk, and eat and read,no mp3 player. I listen instead to classical music on the radio and I read the book I've been working on for a few weeks (its a quick read, but I've only been snippetting it when I'm eating).

When I'm finished eating, I shut the car off and seal it up because I know I'm going to walk a bit of a distance to throw away my trash and because I'm thinking about my mp3 player and Corinne Bailey Rae. So I put my earphones back in and I play 'Like A Star' as I walk in time down the winding wheelchair ramp along the Garden State Parkway to the garbage below the underpass. I put the song on continous loop so Corinne can continue to sing this over and over to me. Please read these lyrics carefully, as quoted from here;

Like A Star Corinne Bailey Rae lyrics
Artist: Corinne Bailey Rae
Album: Corinne Bailey Rae
Year: 2006
Title: Like A Star

Just like a star across my sky,
Just like an angel off the page,
You have appeared to my life,
Feel like I'll never be the same,
Just like a song in my heart,
Just like oil on my hands,
Only to love you.

Still I wonder why it is,
I don't argue like
This,
With anyone but you.
We do it all the time,
Blowing out my mind.

You've got this look I can't describe,
You make me feel I'm alive,
When everything else is au fait,
Without a doubt you're on my side,
Heaven has been away too long,
Can't find the words to write this song,
Of your love.

Still I wonder why it is,
I don't argue like
This,
With anyone but you.
We do it all the time,
Blowing out my mind.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

I have come to understand,
The way it is,
It's not a secret anymore,
'Cause we've been through that before,
From tonight I know that you're the only one,
I've been confused and in the dark,
Now I understand...

...I wonder why it is,
I don't argue like this,
With anyone but you,
I wonder why it is,
I wont let my guard down,
For anyone but you
We do it all the time,
Blowing out my mind,

Just like a star across my sky,
Just like an angel off the page,
You have appeared to my life,
Feel like I'll never be the same,
Just like a song in my heart,
Just like oil on my hands

(Thanks to Helen for correcting these lyrics)


When I went back to the car, I sat back up on the trunk, which was facing the Parkway. For the whole walk down and back, the weight was back in my chest. The words were weighing heavy on my mind. I knew what was happening. I knew who I was thinking of.

Then below me, a funeral procession of cars came slowly up the Parkway and I layed my head back on my rear window and just gave in. Cried and I cried. When I thought about it a little more, I cried again. And again. Right there under the New Jersey sky.

What I didn't include in the narrative is that before I left, I did some SiteMeter scoping before I had left to get lunch. For some reason, a lot of other blogadeers have been to my blog just today, after a few days of inactivity. My 'Tech Support" buddies were here and commented in the last post, but these other visitors came from these other blogs and SiteMeter didn't track from where else they had come so I wasn't understanding the sudden flow to my site. But I was glad of the traffic and read the visit details. Doing so, I found that one person had been to my archives as well. They had been to August 2005, so I went there too. And I read a particular post that I remembered. This one. I read it and then I went to go get lunch.

At the lyrics page, someone who posted the lyrics was helped by a 'Helen'. I discovered that when I copied the words for this post. I included the thanks because 'Helen' is my mother's name.

I discovered that this song is about my mother. It's like's she been with me since I re-read that post from August 2005. Since I went to get lunch and since I listened to the mp3 and since I paid attention to the lyrics on the way to the garbage at the Park & Ride and since I saw the funeral procession and since I came home and posted this now, and since I retrieved the lyrics and since I typed this very line while tears are streaming down my face

Its like she's been with me all my life, and you know its because she has and you know i miss her and i'm just so sorry we never seemed to get along

i hate september 11 and i hate that so many people have lost so many of their loved ones--even the ones who were arguing with each other on sept 10th and never told each other at 8:00am that morning that they loved each other anyway even though they made each other so mad sometimes and then they were gone forever and they were never going to be able to apologize

and i do you know?

i apologize but its too late and it'll be too late for the rest of my life

and even though i just now broke down, i'm going to publish this and just urge you all out there to take advantage of the time you have with your friends and your wives and your husbands and your mothers and fathers while you have them

because one day you won't

and it might be too late then



*deep breath*

I titled this post after something my mother always used to say whenever I threw a tantrum. She was funny that way.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home