The Fall of the Music Makers

 I was walking down the trail with a group of friends. We were talking, singing, and sharing stories of truth and hope. The day was mostly sunny, even though there were rumbles of thunder heard now and then in the distance. I was not worried. 

I noticed that those on the camp's outskirts vanish without explanation. With them, only their art remained. Some would become even more famous as the years passed, while others were awkward and did not fit well in the modern psyche. 

Towers of song as far as the eyes can see hum with indiscriminate sound. A band of millions all playing a different tune.  Those left standing, voices stripped of them, they go on even though it is all gone, the ship is sitting on the ocean floor, and yet, they stand on the deck holding their little bouquet.

Our exodus from one world to another has been going on all of our lives, every moment since we awoke. Our closest ones are spreading the news, letting everyone we encounter know that things are not what they seem. In the misinformation age, people talk, people listen, but just like always, they cannot hear. 

Some give so much that they become our rock. It never comes to mind that we are just people. We live and we die, no one does anything else.  I wake up on the turntable. The red label below me. I am too small, too close, to know what it is. I am in the midst of greatness. I did not know. I did not know that it had a thousand heartbreaking expiration dates. 

The construction of the towers was well on its way on the day I was born. There was fire, there was energy. All of the hope, all of the dreams. We skipped along the sidewalks, ears covered with music, kindness being our vintage clothing. If I were lost in the moment, another dancer on the path steadied me and smiled. I smiled back, and then we bounced off into our respective sunsets. We never thought demise was around the bend. 

The valued artists all around me, who defined every moment of my existence, public and private, were being picked off by the sniper that no one wins against. The early ones were absolutely shocking and were the exception, not the rule. Today, I stand in the ruins of nuclear creative annihilation and cry because now, it is so normal, so inevitable, that we lament over our lack of sincerity about everything. Just selfish little children, playing in our mud puddles and sand boxes. We were too stupid to understand that a summer day is but a blip seen out of the corner of one's eye.

Give it all back to me, and I will show you! You want to see appreciation, yeah, I got that. People talked to me and I answered. I was numb and did not know it. My inattention was indeed a crime of ignorance, of selfish distraction. I walk in the burning wasteland of a billion cried tears, knowing that no matter what I did, we would still be right here, in this mess. On the edge of the city sit more towers than I could ever count. A million voices sing to me as I listen. A whisper, a cry, a memory of those who no longer live. I hear them every day, every minute, and always. Someday I will be gone, and the towers will continue. They will sing in the wind, always.

Our Last Days in New Orleans Village

 The summer of summers had faded into fall. Trouble was everywhere if I wanted it to be. I was breaking the rules in so many ways as I stepped out of the shoes of a child and into a place where I felt shiny and new. 

The winter cold kept me close, and the old steam radiators tapped and banged, producing heat and a cadence, just like they did for the last 68 years. We were mobile again after being stuck for two years. I turned to the nighttime stratosphere to find my friends, and there they were, although it was clear that the times were changing, and the tide was going out.

Our house and the one before it have been a hub for many years now. It was nice to have people around us. It had been four years since we moved to this town nestled in a valley in the northwest hills. In the 1700s, it was called Mast Swamp. In the 1800s, New Orleans Village and Wolcottville. In 1887, the village was incorporated as Torrington, a name given to it back in 1732 after Great Torrington, England. In the 1970s, it was impossible not to have the robust history of this naturally quarantined town seep into your pores.

At first, we did alright, but a year and a half in, the wolves found us. They moved in, coexisting with us, making life somewhat of an amusement park ride. It was bright and fun. I thought I was old enough to understand everything that was going on, but really, I could not. Spending half a decade here implied we would always be here. Nothing else seemed possible. 

It was at an age when someone like me had to play the hand I was dealt. The people around me molded me into who I was, who I wanted to be, and who I might become. Tied to a table in the kitchen, taking in the vices of others with a healthy dose of smoke, and living on the wrong side of everything. I was still who I was, and I could say, weren't we all.

We fled in the winter to our third home in the city in the valley. It would be our last one here. It is funny how the world can be so different when you just cross the street. Now childhood was essentially ending. Morning conversations in the presence of a red aluminum percurelator and the sweet kiss of fall, new love, music, and affliction. It all came together like a congealed central explosion of textures.

As the early sun set, I knew my friend would be flying over the houses in the valley in the darkness. I spun the rope of a lasso and pulled her down into the light of my hibernation. I could tell she had aged, too, even though I had considered the whole timeline of her life; our relationship was a small moment. I didn't know this was the swan song of the things I'd taken for granted.

 I was understanding everything, or so I thought, but adulteries were burning like little fires all over the perimeter. Some I witnessed painfully, and others were hidden just beyond the lens of my youth. 

The winter had been long and hard. The spring in the final year had just begun, but something happened. We were riding high on the wave when something stationary, just below the surface, contacted us, throwing us into the cold depths. The storm troopers knocked on the door and told us it was time to evacuate. There was nowhere to go. We were falling, and there was no rescue.

As I look back on this, I have questions. The one prominent question was: What happened to the foundation of our family that allowed this? There was a relationship happening at this time, a pretty serious one, and yet, we were allowed to fall. It took me 46 years to figure this out. To say I thought I knew is ridiculous.

We stayed tight. A great woman stood up tall with the power of her blood, sweat, and tears. I wish I could tell her today how much that meant to me. So many years had to pass before I could see how incredibly strong she was, and the bravery and tenacity of what she did. I hear echoes on the wind. She was thankful that this was in her power. But I know that she always had this power because it was a flame within her heart she could never extinguish. No matter what the world was or what it could deal, she would do what she needed to do. 

It is funny how everything that starts with me or someone else in my family can be traced back to my Grandmother's incredible strength. What a human being she was. Like all of the things we lament today. The world used to be filled with giants. These were wonderful people who always put others first. When they got cuts and callouses from giving themselves fully, they were grateful to be able to do so. I have no words but only to say: Thank you. It really made a difference in our lives. Any success we see today finds its origins in the love you showed. 

Twilight Time (Season)

 Old friends, indifferent to my feelings, barge into the room as I stoke a fire that I am not prepared to make. The auditor stood like storm clouds over me, calling for dues, making the clocks in my house spin faster than everyone else's. 

Photo by Vlad ION on Unsplash

I walk the gauntlet that turned out to make my day what it has been. I stop, one by one, look my captors in the eye, and dismiss them. Maybe rain, maybe snow, but you know it can't balance or last. As I kneel over my ambition with the desire to resuscitate, I catch my reflection in dirty glass and feel like I need to call it.

I know that is not an option. I hear a bird overhead, sadly singing a song indigenous to her. I stand and meditate upon her flight in the parasitic sky. I try to piece together her journey. There are many gaps because I couldn't possibly know. Then I find an incredible and devastating clue left by her brood. Not only had the worst happened, but it had happened some time ago, and I was unaware.

As I turned the pages of the news, the tears of people I once knew fell into a private resolve, telling no stories, but leaving evidence of their love and respect. As for me, they have no idea the impact this one had on the course of my life. There is no way that I would be where and who I am without that treacherous meeting one cold October night thirty-six years ago.

It feels like a betrayal of the laws of physics. This would-be assassin, who became my true friend. Nothing could shake him. He was a rock. Then, gone. As I let the news sink in, I opened Ecclesiastes, Chapter 9, Verse 11: 

"I have seen something further under the sun, that the swift do not always win the race, nor do the mighty win the battle, nor do the wise always have the food, nor do the intelligent always have the riches, nor do those with knowledge always have success, because time and unexpected events overtake them all."

I pay my respects to a man who was who he was and nothing more, and certainly nothing less. He will always live in my memory and heart as the man who gave me direction when I did not know if I could ever walk again. He helped me fly, and he never intended to motivate me; he had no such intention. Was it his contrast from what I was told that he was? Was it just the good man of heart that he was? I know that the details do not matter. I can still hear his voice, and because of that, he lives every day. Those who love him do not even remember that I exist. That too has to be alright.

I shudder a little because I just had a thought. November is turbulence for me. If October is like this...