Nothing ever happens at the right time. Things are what they are, and they happen when they happen. One’s perception of right and wrong are an illusion, something based on how one feels about the event. I generally tend to be more impressed with the event itself, and assert myself as calmly as possible to take the moment, the lesson, the gift if you will, into myself and accept it, try to understand how this impacts my current path, and what action to take next. This is true, generally, for positive experiences as well as negative ones.
Looking at things this way keeps me open, and allows growth, surprise, and a sense of the world that I cherish. I would not change this part of myself, but it is not always effective either. It seems I lack common sense. I tend to think in absolutes, yet these extremes I undertake are portable, moment to moment experiences which forgive the past, and meet each moment with the eyes of a child. This can make things difficult when lessons are to be learned, or intelligent discourse is called for. Sadly there are so few things which I actually have a working, knowledge of that ever come up in interpersonal conversation that I am left with emotions, and impressions as my guide for content. My emotional life, the center of all my experience, can obscure the moment so completely that I don’t accurately appraise my circumstances, or clearly see what is happening in the moment. Maybe it’s naive to think that what my heart sings, and whispers is truth. Perhaps, but I’m not here to harsh out on myself (for once.)
I do not connect easily, not truly, not deeply. Nor do I let go easily, if I ever let go at all. So when love arrives like a crack of lightning. I am totally unprepared, and caught with my house in disarray. Of course the flood of practicalities parade through my mind like unpleasant family members, but being the man I am it is easy to dismiss their opinion. I appreciate the input of my critical thinking, the moralist, the cop, the priest, they are each a part of a greater committee in my brain, but they hold no seats, and have no authority. No, when it comes to love, all voices fail, and no vote united could block what my heart has been possessed with.
Perhaps this is just bad thinking. Childish emotionalism. But what is to be gained by making an effort to control love? What is really to be gained by making any effort to control anything? Ok, sure, we don’t get hurt. But is that even true? It has never been my experience that harnessing something creative, pure, or beautiful has ever come to any good.
He is a beautiful mirror of what I teach him. When I behave selfishly, or without presence, he learns and quickly responds in kind. While I was only trying to get a minute to myself, perhaps sneak a smoke, or have another cup of coffee before facing what felt like the onslaught of play, what I accomplished was a lesson. So easy to teach, so difficult to undo.
If I had been given the chance to record for a major label now that I’m older, I might make different decisions. Knowing what I know now, I might have made the decision to make the best selling record I could. I would certainly not have side stepped the pleading of A&R to make a more commercial record, or pay for commercial remixes in order to reach a more mainstream market. I also would not have been such a bitter vanguard of the scene. Everyone tried to explain to me that the scene was an illusion, and eventually it would abandon me. My role, they said, was to make the most accessible music possible so that I might have an audience to rely upon when the scene had gone. I was short sighted. I was blind. I was deaf. Perhaps I still am. If I really give it any honest thought, to my ear, the best music comes from either children who are in no position to make rational decisions, or the lucky few who are left alone to dream and create the very best music there is, and somehow manage to sell enough records to stay employed. I have already been the former, and seek the path of the latter. I don’t think any other path could have lead me to this place of peace with my art.
I have to accept that this happened at exactly the right time. I have no regrets. I accept that this was a part of my path, and what unfolded just another life lesson. It was sort of fun, and though I went bonkers trying to hold onto things which I never possessed in the first place, it was just exhausting enough to be a deep, damaging, and very clear lesson.
Love comes, and it is deflected. It does not conquer anyone but me. It is not the right time. I curse time. It is so hard to let go. but I must. Not because to hold on isn’t a beautiful dance which tears my flesh, and slices my heart, and haunts me, but because it is saying no. I must listen to what the world has to say, and mold nothing with my hands, be-spoil no moment, wish for anything other than what is actually happening in front of me, being said directly to me, and allow it depart. Oh the pain of this. Oh my…
Nothing comforts me but the wisdom of my experience. I know that in time these dreams will fade. I know that in time I will move on. I know that with effort, and acceptance, this love, come like a flood at the wrong time, despite its depth and purity, despite its durability, despite its transcendence of everything around me, will be something which I see as having passed through me for the best.
I don’t really believe any of this. It sounds like the pathetic comfort of a detached friend or companion who knows nothing of love. I’m not sure why I’m typing any more. I began to write an essay about how things happen when they happen, and time means nothing. I wanted to mock the thought that “It’s not the right time” is laughable at best, and conditionals like “right now” feel like strange, ambiguous buffers to protect the speaker from having to say something clean, or clear (like no.) I can say no. I say it a lot. But I can never say no to you.
I suppose it is a botched effort here. I guess we’ll have to chalk it up to the archives, and I can safely assume that most of my level headed friends and companions skimmed the first few lines of the piece, quickly lost the thread of what I was plonking on about, and then went back to myspace. Fun. I suppose it’s also pretty sad to leave this in anyone else’s hands. To put it on you, and wait for word from HQ is pretty sad really. It’s up to me. The pain is delicious, the agony is almost sensual. It just doesn’t make any sense. There is, for me, no casual relationship with time. Love is the most important thing in the world. It erases all time, and clearly has dominion over rent checks, and cartography as well.
For now, I’ll leave it this way. Time is what it is. And I am where I am on a horizontal plane. I have work to do, and things to get done. I am looking forward to so many things, and will take some pleasure in each one of them. I will not seek to bend your ear, or change your mind, or anything other than to hear you as clearly as possible, ponder the irony, and paradox of my unsettled heart, and the sad, sad state of affairs that seem to make it dance, and sing, and fly.
The Wolfgang Press Time
(crappy album mix, not the awesome deep house version i have always loved… sorry)
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It’s difficult to accept something that is harsh and to move on, yet take it with you. It’s hard to explain, but you get the gist of what I mean? It’s all so full of contradictions.
Sometimes I think, at least for me, I find comfort being in pain, being depressed, because it’s familiar. It’s always there. It’s what I don’t know, new experiences, being fully in the moment that scares me so much. I don’t like change.
I like to believe that there is someone out there for everyone, that we spend our lives searching for that empty space, but more and more everyday I have my doubts. You (by that I mean anyone) can spend your life waiting for someone who may never materialize. And I’ll still be waiting when I’m 80…
And there is nothing one can do.
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I feel you.
I suggest that you stop “waiting” at once, and set about looking and living.
I think that where I’ve come to thus far in this discussion with myself is that the trouble isn’t in determining what is not right, it’s more about accepting what comes next when you find what is right.
It’s easy to settle. To do things because you are lonely, or desperate, or confused. I’ve done a lot of things in that condition. And, I have to admit, that I have secretly harbored the deep and secret dream that somehow, some way, someday someone would come along and…. so I suppose, way down in my heart of hearts, through long terms relationships, marriage, and even child birth, fatherhood, divorce, I have been waiting.
But what I can say for myself is that I was not sitting on a bar stool or a park bench all dolled up hoping to be discovered. I was out in the world, as I remain, swinging my heart around like it’s a battle axe.
Call me an idiot, or a glutton for punishment (and you might be right on both counts) but at least I’m here, present, and awake.