Mistletoe

Been trying to tap into my dormant memory lately. The collapse of my compartmentalized social and psychological structure over the last decade or so has left me well practiced in the art of forgetting, almost to a tragic degree. Not only did I evacuate the painful from memory, but it came at the unfortunate cost of evacuating the benevolent as well. Now that it’s behind me, I’d like to reclaim a bit of my spirited youth; my ability to romanticize the past, however recent, and bask in the unique colors that only I can create. It begins with the ability to make new memories, once again…rather than running from them as fast as possible, instinctively.

Tonight I wanted to think of my dad, so I put on a little Jim Croce, and laid my head down on the desk for a spell. Operator? Can you help me place this call? The number on the matchbook is old and faded. Indeed, Jim, indeed. The song has three verses, and a chorus pronouncing both how much he’s changed– and how much he really hasn’t. He asks the operator to connect him with his past so that he can proclaim new ownership over himself, reconsiders the truth to this and begins to weep, and finally reconsiders the whole thing all together– telling the operator to never-mind, and keep the dime. For a long while I thought it was a song of triumph– he realized that he was different, better now, and that because of this he actually had no real need to go digging into the past……but tonight I heard something different, yet equally plausible. Perhaps, just perhaps, he reconsidered because he realized he hadn’t changed, at all, and because of this he couldn’t go through with it. Perhaps it was still too premature to declare any new ownership over the past…and perhaps it might be so indefinitely. Perhaps it was deliberately open ended in this way…or perhaps both paths could coexist simultaneously, each in their own contexts of truth.

Either way, I did not intend for sentiment to give way to philosophical ponderings, but so it goes, so it goes. It’s snowing now, blizzard of the year they say, but I barely notice it. It should smell like fur trees and hot chocolate and sober reflective cleanliness, but to me…it just smells like my living room. Sentiment, perhaps, is what I’ve lost…but do I even mind? I know I should. I distinctly recall adoring it. Perhaps now that I’m awake, I am acquiring it as we speak. Perhaps this blizzard that goes seemingly unheeded now will bring me something unexpected and memorable. Something to come that one day I’ll long to have returned to me. Perhaps…

In other news, I’ll be heading back down to the south to see Nick Cave in concert this spring…while he tours his new album.
It should be a grand adventure.