It’s been a few days since I’ve written. Travel makes a whole bunch of things inconvenient, breaks routine, introduces new ideas, new scenery, new people. I spent the last few days at the NAMM show out in L.A. It was interesting to be around so many music industry people. There were long lines to meet and listen to artists I’ve never heard of. There was a cacophony of music – people testing out drums and guitars at almost every booth. My initial take is that it’s an industry with a pretty big ego. Because I’m a fan of “Teaching the Ape to Write Poems” I think ego might be needed to create. I’m not surprised that ego abounds when so many people are scrapping and clawing trying to make it, when so many people have to self-promote in order to get noticed. There’s lots of talent in the world, what is the “it” factor? However, a lot of the people in attendance are industry people (as opposed to being working musicians). Many of them were musicians at some point. Some still carried around an air of self-importance. I’m thinking of one person I met – he handled artist relations. My guess is that he’s able to drop some names – he’s in demand, or so he thinks. I approached him, told him what I had wanted to talk about (securing a sponsorship), he dismissed me pretty quickly. He gave me a go away kid look, we don’t do sponsorships. He avoided eye contact as we talked, he kept his body slightly turned away from me, half there, half not. He was constantly scanning the room for more important people. I hope I never become that way, and that if I do, someone has the good sense to take me down a peg. For me, being present is one of the greatest gifts we can give to another person – I believe in giving it often.
I’m also thinking of the first morning I was there. I stood in a very long line waiting to get in to the opening breakfast. A side door was opened so some people could leave. I watched multiple people try to get in through the side door. Some approached out of ignorance (not seeing the long line winding through several rooms), others approached as though they needed to be in the room ahead of everyone else. I watched as the event staff turned them all away. I watched as the staff patiently listened to why each person should be the exception. “But I just need to….” “The line starts back there….” I shouldn’t let these few instances color my take on an entire industry… It’s another example of how the negative impressions stick much longer than the positive ones.
Going new places always stirs up wanderlust. Planes and skies that are sunnier than the ones left behind. It also stirs up the life of travel I had envisioned with my ex-fiancee, B. She once had a friend do a tarot card reading for her…. it said something along the lines of she’ll be in a relationship that would have it’s struggles but travel would be the thing to smooth things out – we traveled really well together. I’m approaching the anniversary of when I proposed, being in the California sun reminded me of it (so did google photos, and I’m sure Facebook will too). It was a really good time in my life. From time to time it still has the wistful tug of what it felt like to dream a bit and walk softly in to a directionless, imperfect, and amazing future with someone else.
Last night I went out on a date / non-date. We had a nice time, but we’re not a good fit, I don’t get the sense of warmth that I find so attractive. She’s still pretty angry at her ex – they have a little one together. It’ll take time for that anger to go away – especially since she has to deal with him on a weekly basis. I got home and texted with a friend for a bit. I can definitely see and sense, that we’re more friends than we are potential dates. She’s been cryptic lately. Indicating that something is bothering her, but not really wanting to get in to it. Last night I learned that she still thinks about her last relationship – she blames herself for it not working out. They broke up last March. They were only together a couple of months. She misses him everyday. I’m not sure I’ve shared much of my recent story with her, the engagement, the months of missing someone everyday, the not really knowing what happened, the internal blaming and re-examining of everything I could have done better, the amount of self-forgiveness that was necessary because I felt guilty and stupid for holding on to something that only worked for one of us, the wanting to fix it in the worst way.
I know how she feels. Selfishly, it was comforting to hear that someone who had been in a much shorter relationship (he had only just said I love you when things ended) is still questioning and missing and mourning – not because I want her to feel those things, but because it gave validation to my feelings – I should miss the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I feel like a jerk for feeling this way. I wanted to share my story with her, tell her that she will come out the other side… I’m only now starting to turn a corner. Only now am I starting be ok with placing “blame” where it properly belongs, am I starting to see B as someone other than the person I fell in love with. Only now is the self talk shifting to a point where it doesn’t matter that she said yes or that she said she loved me more than anyone else…. in the end she made a choice to not be with me, decided she wanted something (anything) else, and no amount of effort on my part was going to change that.
For months I’ve been trying to leave my heart open to my ex, because at my core, I believe in having an open heart. For months I’ve been telling myself that she really loved me and that her past trauma made it difficult for us to move forward. For months I’ve been saying she wasn’t ready (ex-friend J and a therapist who knew us said similar things). For months I’ve been blaming myself and my past for causing some of it. I suppose I’m finally coming around to accepting that it doesn’t matter why she left, the fact is, one day she decided it didn’t work for her and she left… Of course, it doesn’t help to be in touch with these women who still hold on to their past relationships, who keep their hearts open to other people, who want to try again. It stings a little to think that in the end, B didn’t want to do that for me or for us.
How does it all tie together… a trip to L.A., failed relationships, the push and pull of life? There are days when I want to be bigger than I am, when I want to run with a different crowd. There are days when I think I want a life of adventure and hanging out with rock stars and all-night music filled parties, a life suitable for a single guy, an unencumbered and untethered life. I came to Memphis telling myself if I can’t have love, I’m going to have music and adventure. More often than not, I also know this isn’t my core. I write – it’s a solitary behind the scenes pursuit. I date people who just want someone to snuggle up with on the couch, who want to enjoy lots of quiet moments together. It was the best life I had envisioned with my ex-fiancee. It’s what I imaging being with someone like the woman in Omaha would be like. I’m working on my version of “How to Like It.” I loved this poem back in college – I’ve always felt this stirring and complexity, this old soul sensibility.
How To Like It
These are the first days of fall. The wind
Stephen Dobyns
at evening smells of roads still to be traveled,
while the sound of leaves blowing across the lawns
is like an unsettled feeling in the blood,
the desire to get in a car and just keep driving.
A man and a dog descend their front steps.
The dog says, Let’s go downtown and get crazy drunk.
Let’s tip over all the trash cans we can find.
This is how dogs deal with the prospect of change.
But in his sense of the season, the man is struck
by the oppressiveness of his past, how his memories
which were shifting and fluid have grown more solid
until it seems he can see remembered faces
caught up among the dark places in the trees.
The dog says, Let’s pick up some girls and just
rip off their clothes. Let’s dig holes everywhere.
Above his house, the man notices wisps of cloud
crossing the face of the moon. Like in a movie,
he says to himself, a movie about a person
leaving on a journey. He looks down the street
to the hills outside of town and finds the cut
where the road heads north. He thinks of driving
on that road and the dusty smell of the car
heater, which hasn’t been used since last winter.
The dog says, Let’s go down to the diner and sniff
people’s legs. Let’s stuff ourselves on burgers.
In the man’s mind, the road is empty and dark.
Pine trees press down to the edge of the shoulder,
where the eyes of animals, fixed in his headlights,
shine like small cautions against the night.
Sometimes a passing truck makes his whole car shake.
The dog says, Let’s go to sleep. Let’s lie down
by the fire and put our tails over our noses.
But the man wants to drive all night, crossing
one state line after another, and never stop
until the sun creeps into his rearview mirror.
Then he’ll pull over and rest awhile before
starting again, and at dusk he’ll crest a hill
and there, filling a valley, will be the lights
of a city entirely new to him.
But the dog says, Let’s just go back inside.
Let’s not do anything tonight. So they
walk back up the sidewalk to the front steps.
How is it possible to want so many things
and still want nothing. The man wants to sleep
and wants to hit his head again and again
against a wall. Why is it all so difficult?
But the dog says, Let’s go make a sandwich.
Let’s make the tallest sandwich anyone’s ever seen.
And that’s what they do and that’s where the man’s
wife finds him, staring into the refrigerator
as if into the place where the answers are kept-
the ones telling why you get up in the morning
and how it is possible to sleep at night,
answers to what comes next and how to like it.