It's All About the Journey

 All this happened...let me think, twenty-two years ago, to the best of my memory. So don't be too mad if I don't manage the details perfectly. Memory changes everything and everyone remembers everything differently. The way I recall it is this.  It must have been two or three months after Daddy died. I think that's right. I remember that Mama was with us and she really didn't stick around long after. Me and my baby brother left with my grandmother, having lost a father and our mother having lost her mind. I really felt like I had nowhere to belong. Don't guess I really think I have since.  I clearly recall the look on his face when I told him what had happened only moments before he arrived home from school. I was the only one they had collected. I knew why. The last time I'd seen his eyes was three days before. I'd looked down and told him I loved him and kissed his forehead before I left for school. He looked at me, but there was no one there. Reminds me ...

 I think I've decided to reframe this blog. I think I want it to be more about me and less about other people. It started out as people I went on dates with. And it ended about the time I got married. I may be feeling a little cynical. Anyway, I think I'll turn it into a collection of tales from my past. Yesterday, I went river swimming for the first time in years. It felt like a baptism. I've been having a really tough time for weeks, months, years and I think it's all finally decided to boil over. Explode outward. Folks keep checking on me because I'm so out loud lately. They seem to think my crying out is a sign of something bad. That's the thing about me, my depression isn't so dramatic. My darkness is a desperate quiet. Like I've been living in for years.  A rather old friend shook me. Hard. Shook me all over and it hurt and it felt good and it woke me up. I don't know how to relate it to anything I've ever felt before. Phantom limb syndrome...

Nothing brings me the same joy as music and finding a new to me artist is a good day for me. I stumbled across Noah Kahan literally today. I liked his sound and he worked "metastasized" into a song lyric pretty cleanly.  So I went listen to more. And his lyrics have that immature flavor of self-abuse, less reflection and more busted knuckles. But also this way of expressing that green flash and twisting ache of anger that you haven't learned to name.  A couple songs really got me feeling things. And that's impressive.  So I listened well on my way home from a hard day. Mandolin and finger picking and a tenor that cracks open onto notes I can't find. All wrapped around these lyrics that I can identify with, but I bet so can a kid my kid's age. I wanted to look up some lyrics because the one  song really stuck with me. Opened up Google and typed in his name and pressed Enter. Then I'm pretty sure my heart stopped and that same flash and twist and ache ripped...