heroes and villains: just see what you done-done
This is a blog of mourning.
I'm trying to write a short paper for a class, and I can't. In the silence, I grow restless and wander about the house, so I turn on the radio and half-listen out for Kerry's concession speech. When that becomes unbearable, I switch to Smile, Brian Wilson's long awaited and recently released album. The first track, "Our Prayer," is a haunting a cappella track without words, tight chords of "Ahh-oh-hm," which today sound like a mournful ballad. I turn it up loud and stand in front of the speakers, my hands on the screens soaking up all the vibrations (good vibrations), like I used to do as teenager when I needed solace.
During the last inauguration, I was living in DC. That day a low cloud ceiling hung over the town, and it was so dark I wondered if the sun had fully risen. In the rainy afternoon I went to Tryst, a tony coffee shop in Adam's Morgan, to write. I'm not sure why I chose that place, because its hip atmosphere usually depressed me. But I remember needing to get out--that same restlessness I feel today. Anyway, I couldn't concentrate on my writing, and ended up watching the soundless TV there. The images I remember: a limousine rolling down the street, men in black trench coats running beside it. I remarked bitterly to the barista that it looked like a funeral procession. I suppose it was in a way.
Everything I touch today is tainted; Smile will mean something different to me in a couple of months. But right now I'm stuck on "Wonderful," the seventh track:
She belongs there left with her liberty.If you heard the melody, you'd understand how it's hopeful.
Never known as a non-believer.
She laughs and stays in her one, one, wonderful.She knew how to gather the forest when
God reached softly and moved her body.One golden locket, quite young and
loving her mother and father--Farther down the path was a mystery.
Through the recess, the chalk and numbers.
A boy bumped into her one, one, wonderful.All fall down and lost in the mystery.
Lost it all to a non-believer, and all that's left
is a girl who's loved by her mother and father.She'll return in love with her liberty.
Just away from her non-believer, she'll
sigh and thank God for one, one, wonderful.