22.May.2004
.
--
i want to break his heart and give him mine.
When I was in Detroit, something happened to me.
Everything was a blur and memory fails me, but, Sunday afternoon coming out of the previous night's confusion and into the studio with Vast's Nude in my hand, I sat down at the Kurzweil and slipped on the headphones.
I repeated one track with my head bowed achingly toward the keyboard and spun absently in the computer chair. Michigan was morphing into United Kingdom grey without all of the foreboding depth and history. I slid down into Jon Crosby's soulful repetition and accompanied his piano-forlornity and
I
just
missed
you
so
fucking
much.
How desperately, how searchingly, how humanly do we not continually reach for something, that here amongst the progressing limbo, we have something toward which to work magnificently, and it isn't at the selfish whims of my heart that I want this. It just seems so logical.
Recording in Michigan was arduous. I had to continually fling myself into a catharsis that simply wouldn't come. Beckoning passion over staccato trebles in a skin constructed from pure indifference alone challenged the intrinsically heavy nature of the songs themselves. Musical disservice. But, wanting something fiercely as my inner ear vibrated to sentiments I innately understood, I knew something had to change. I was going to change it without formula but with some nebulous simulacrum of direction.
I returned to that place where everything stifled emerges, a sort of emotional Pandora's Box, a heart-twist in the scheme of things. Psychological regurgitation. Purified.
I recorded the rest of the tracks, wrote out a playlist, and left them in the machine for mastering. The next day, I took off to Massachusetts, riding through New York City as I did to get there, and seven days later, returned to New York.
New York does something to me. There is so much life and so much art that the stagnancy I suffered in Oklahoma lifted instantaneously. I am young and full of recalcitrance, juxtaposed by submissive hope and ceaseless longing. $375 later, it was vanilla cappuccinos and the pulsating fact it doesn't fucking matter where anything goes or to what price, because damn it, this. is. fucking. immaculate.
Whatever this is. Whatever it becomes in the flesh. And, it'll be so wonderful, I'll question why I hadn't done it sooner.
I was so scratched, bitten and loved up, it hurt beautifully. This is the kind of pain that forces one to dismiss doubt. I had experienced this previously on separate levels, but because of its unique intensity, it was impossible to classify. The demo was done. The traveling stopped. The past and its ramifications dissipated. This is a new life replete with new possibilities, and that masochistic nature was replaced gorgeously.
Simply, it's boring to break in half for another or a circumstance. That's been done before. Strength is in short-supply. Nothing is sacred and nothing is pure. Perhaps a script re-write is in order, yes?
And I adored you with the birr of a fool, without formula, hoping for direction. Openly. Nothing is secured nor concrete. Time is transient. Things are destined to change and re-change. This is the very nature of our molecules.
I remember Ferndale/Detroit. I remember Cleveland. I remember Albany, Troy, Nanuet, Boston, and Wellesley. I remember Nyack and that stupid, silly grin I get when I think about it. I haven't really been fair to you.
Ruminating in a different city is a vice. Scaremongering is natural. The fear of losing potential based on the spokes of cycles is an addiction. Patience.
Jon Crosby managed to summarize how I feel in a song four minutes and fifty-six seconds long, because this is the kind of thing you get when you're not looking. It can neither be forced nor controlled, and the head-strong deviser in me bows shamefully. You cannot tame energy.
That moment in a recording studio illuminated with red-bulbed heat-lamps and off-white strings of Christmas lights, a headache and memories I don't have, existed solely for me to re-discover something so immersing and primordial to me here:
I love you.
I never wish for that to be taken for granted.
--
time & machine