Michael Kiwanuka has been on of my favorite musicians for a few years now. I’ve posted some of his other videos elsewhere on this blog. I listen to him a lot when I go on my walks. My daughter came to visit me specifically so we could road trip up to Nashville to see him play live. From time to time I’ll pull up one of his concerts on youtube and listen as I cook or putter around the apartment. Today, just before lunch, I found a live show I hadn’t seen before. About three or four songs in, his song “Always Waiting” came on. I generally avoid this song – not because I don’t like it, I do, but because it just seems like a sad song – especially if you watch the video. When it came on today, I got emotional. Is this how it will always be? Will there be certain songs that I can’t hear without getting sad? Songs that will always be a trigger?
In September of 2018, my girlfriend and I went to see the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in Philly. I didn’t know the band, but they were one of her favorites. We walked around, had some drinks during the opening acts, and made our way to the middle of the crowd for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. She was excited. She knew all the songs. She danced. She tried to get me to dance – I’m not much of a dancer. If I remember this band was one of the last bands she and her husband saw together. At one point, they slowed things down. My girlfriend knew this song too. She started to cry. I tried to listen to the lyrics, but couldn’t make them out. For that moment, I completely lost her. I’m sure I asked her what was upsetting her. I knew it was memories. She didn’t share much, she just said that the song made her really sad. When the tempo picked back up, she tried to blow it off and dance some more. I had trouble snapping back out of it. Suddenly, I was the one who was lost.
When we got back to her place we talked about what happened. she got defensive over my questioning. I told her it caught me off guard. We went from being present and together to her being upset and in a different place. I didn’t know if she was at the show with me or if she was there with her late husband. This was probably our first substantive conversation about her husband. I tried to say that this is all new to me, that I don’t know what to think as I look at his picture every time I come over. She got upset with me and said fine she’d take the picture down and the one of her mother too. She felt like I was saying she couldn’t have memories of these people. I told her that wasn’t what I was asking for, that I was just trying to figure out where she was with all of it. We had a good long talk. We both cried. We hugged. The pictures stayed up.
There’s an irony to where I am at this point in my life and where she was. When I went to see Michael Kiwanuka in Nashville my eyes watered on more than a few songs. I think if I were out watching him with a girlfriend now, I’d probably have a similar reaction as to what my ex did at the Yeah Yeah Yeahs show. When these things hit me unexpectedly like it did today I start to think I’m not ready to meet other people. I don’t want them to wonder where my head or heart is. I have to allow it might just be one of those permanent scars.
“Always Waiting” gets to me in particular because of the video. There’s something sad and beautiful about memory and lost love and visions of reuniting. I’ve never been one to think much about the afterlife. I’ve also never really believed in soul mates. Yet, when I was dating this woman, a woman I would eventually ask to marry me, I really started to believe that we were meant to be together – that she’d be the one I’d meet again when it’s all over. I’m not sure I was the one she was hoping to reunite with in the afterlife. It’s an interesting hypothetical question to explore. If there is such a thing as the afterlife and you can spend it with whomever, who would you choose? And if it’s not the person you’re currently with, is that a problem? Do most people just assume it’s the person they’re with? The question feels unfair and extremely limiting of the word love, yet it feels like it’s how we’re conditioned to think of the term – a happily ever after, and ever after again.
Once in a while my ex-fiancee and I would talk about this type of a thing. She was certain that she would be the one to go first. She said she thinks she’d want me to move on but she was worried I’d forget her. It’s odd how the two of us seem to have switched places. Four years ago, she was in mourning and I was moving on. Now, I’ve been the one mourning a loss and she’s been the one to move on. Most days I feel like I’m getting incrementally closer to where I need to be, and then a song comes on and knocks me back a few paces. I suspect we’re both still waiting – though perhaps for different things.