my therapist had a baby last night so no therapy recommendations for me today, and the thought of my "writing a letter" would crack us both up. I find it oddly touching that she was keeping me on therapy schedule until the babe was crowning - that is slugger level commitment to conversation.
last night, I drove up to the shore in Youngstown to hear a musician return to whatever he sounds like now. his kid died a few months ago, young, in his early 20s, of that thing where you get a cold and wind up with fluid collapsing your heart - I know what congestive heart failure is and not nearly this many people should be dying of it in their 20s and 30s.
Jude, the boy, had a brain tumor when he was a toddler, survived it, but it changed the shape of all of their lives forever. he was their only kid, and they orbited him tightly as if he might just disappear into a sinkhole. and then he did exactly that.
the musician, his father, I can't say that he's a friend exactly, we've just known each other a long time, and once while we were talking after a show, I don't even remember why, something he said caught me, and I 👁, my attention focused. it was a summer night with breezes off the water, us standing by his dumb car he loved (that weird kind they made for a while to look like an old gangster car had sex with a station wagon, it could hold all of his guitars perfectly, he's a very practical person). he is extremely standoffish, the kind of person everybody knows but nobody knows em. it was out of character for us to even be having an intense conversation of any kind anywhere, but we did.
after that, he always knew my name and always asked Sunshine how I was in polite exchanges, but he had said a couple of odd things to folks that stuck as funny and created parameters. the one I remember is "I can't be alone with that one"👁, which everyone took to mean that I was some kind of sexual temptation. but he's not like that. he's married and very Catholic (Polish, of course). if there was any temptation in the vicinity, it was entirely my department. and after his son survived that childhood illness he was extremely devout. regardless of concert schedules, he went to church several times a week to keep a promise to God to do so to keep the boy safe.
why did I know that? I don't know, honestly. 👁 must have learned it.
he looked great last night in that dangerous way some of us look really great when we've recently been in hell for a spell. I noticed that he took one drink, and only because Sunshine bought it for him. she thought it was very concerning after the boy's death that he stopped drinking entirely. that made perfect sense to me, with everything it feels like I know about him: he wouldn't want to miss one moment of grief, that would be like being without a son even more, so he would try to stay awake and aware as possible for it.
a memory that stands out: I was out to dinner at one of the quieter fancier restaurants around there. he was playing guitar alone, dinner accompaniment. typically he would play in a group, excellent cover bands that lend themselves to dancing, that was kind of the vibe of the whole area, cute tourist town w dancing on patios. but this was just a solo gig and he just happened to be there and I just happened to be eating dinner. to say that he plays guitar well is almost absurd - he plays it like he was born with it as an extra extremity, borderline idiot savant, if you can still say that. at one point he began a song turned into Kashmir, but slowed way down and all of the lush sound of it made by one guitar. I remember I stopped talking and eating and just watched him do that. he closed his eyes and kind of disappeared into it, and I've never forgotten how beautiful it sounded, it was stunning.
looking at him last night, I thought about that book, Things in Nature Just Grow. a tree does not wonder if life is worth living, it puts out new leaves. whatever else he was and is, whatever roles he plays, father and husband for instance, there is a thing that he just IS. I saw it that night. I figured that's how he's surviving this, and that's why he was on this stage, not because he was just making a living, he was Being.
I didn't go up to talk to him, everybody else was doing that kind of shit, being super friendly, not that there's anything wrong with that. it's just not my way. when I was leaving, he spotted me from the stage, and genuinely smiled, waved, I waved back then walked into somebody because my attention was solely focused on that wave. I'm sure I looked like an idiot. I was very satisfied looking like an idiot and getting a genuine smile vs talking to him and forcing him to a polite reception of my condolences. I would have felt like a fucking asshole doing that.
Sometimes quiet is loud.
I went home and rewrote "Choking"
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| card of the day enough to leave - billy strings |
