Funny how the past revisits your life every now and again, stealing its way into your present day, gently, sensitively, surreptitiously.
Recently, I stumbled across David Sylvian's Voice of the Beehive album (well, the CD version of it at least) at a local record shop (well, CD resale shop at least). An album almost forgotten to me but one that I listened to repeatedly for a period of time in the late '80s, when it was originally released.
I was living in Washington, D.C., then but traveling some. I think I had a cassette of this album with me when I went to Australia in September-October 1987. Or maybe not. I definitely remember sharing my Feargal Sharkey cassette with a guy on a plane to Melbourne sometime around then. Maybe I did the same with David Sylvian, too.
Anyway, even though I sometimes, oftentimes, remember my Washington days with a certain bitterness and discomfort, I did enjoy the music, art, and culture I was exposed to then. I don't think it was a great town to be in to be tuned in, at least not in the '80s and at least not without a lot of money and an East Coast pedigree. Maybe there is no town like that, at least when you're in your twenties, and you're ready for your life to begin, not realizing that it already has. It's just another capitalist media fantasy, handed down, layered on, built up with the goal of increasing your dis-ease and making you want, strive, need, buy, break, die, then want, strive, and need, again and again.
But the times I visited New York then, often just going up for the day on the train, too cheap or too broke to stay overnight (a missed opportunity, no doubt), it did seem to be the place, at least in the mid- to late-'80s. Edgy, seedy, dangerous, forward, cool, powerful. Most definitely unlike Washington, where everyone seemed to be focused on an upper-middle-class sense of responsible cool and measured power of a different sort. Trenchcoats and 401Ks and liabilities and political maneuvering--and that was just among the clerk-typists.
If I had to do it all again, I'd probably do it all again, but I'd probably do it all again in New York or London. Or, heck, Melbourne. I'm not sure I would have been any more comfortable in my own skin there and then, but I think it would have been more interesting.
Having said that, I don't regret the times or the time in Washington. I just wish I'd done more with it, been less afraid, taken more risks, accepted more opportunities, and had more fun.
And I'm still feeling that way about my life today.
* * *
So one little David Sylvian album brought that all about.
It reminded me of then, and it reminded me of now, and it reminded me to feel: Moody, pensive, relaxed, luxuriant, sad, bittersweet. Something.
When was the last time I did that? Why don't I do it more often? Did I lose all feeling in my heart and my head after age 30? I can remember in my 20s having a glass of wine, listening to Nina Simone, sinking into the moment, shedding a tear or a giggle, enjoying my own company, and calling it a wonderful night.
And now . . . now it's TV and Twitter and Facebook and phone calls and trying to keep the stereo down so as not to disturb the neighbors (ironic, that), and staring out at the same street day after day, night after night, expecting it to look different each time. And not feeling anything at all, except . . .
The need for change is in my system again. It's been there for a while, and I've been too busy and dissatisfied with the day-to-day to notice it much. Maybe it's just the head cold and the cold medicine talking, but this year, or the next, but please God, not the one after, a change for the better will occur.
I turned 50 last fall, and I barely had time to notice it, so busy was I. But I feel it now. I'm still here. I'm still alive. And I want something more, something different, before it's too late. Or I simply forget to feel again.
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