Somewhere Inbetween, Everything is A-OK

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

-Aldous Huxley

Good music feels like home to me.

I've been thinking lately how attached I am to music. Even when I'm the most lonely, I can put on familiar songs and be taken to a different place. Music is often my solace, my place to vent rage, a familiar face instead of a bleak and colorless expanse.

I find it interesting how I attribute songs to people and times in my life. I can be miles away from those people and times in my mind, but as soon as "Smile" comes on random play, I think of R, and how she anchored me, showed me how to hope again, and how she taught me to say "Fuck it" to all the rest. "The Future Freaks Me Out" reminds me of Pittsburgh and how I miss that city and how I regret not spending more time with the people I should have been spending it with. Yo Yo Ma reminds me of bathtime. Songs that I refuse to listen to anymore because my heart can't even take listening to the introductory notes take me to places that need to stay in the past.

I feel like songs become mine and they take on meaning for my life. I've decided not to do my Student Teaching or get my Level II License next semester, which is a big step for me as I rarely diverge from the "responsible/laid out" path. It's not that I'm giving up, it's that I've decided that not every inch of my life has to have a plan and that I'm not bound to decisions I made five years ago. I'm instead going to apply to grad school because more education is what I want more than anything. I want the experience of being out of my element and being challenged more than I have ever been. I'm ready to go someplace where religion doesn't matter as much as it does here - where faith is a choice instead of a social pressure. I don't know if any of this makes sense, but it somehow makes sense in my head as I listen to Buster.

The following lyrics reflect not what I feel to be love, but to be life. The words don't make me sad; maybe the combination of the music changes how the words sound, but this song makes me feel more at home than few other places lately.


Well, you're just across the street
Looks a mile to my feet
I want to go to you
Funny how I'm nervous still
I've always been the easy kill
I guess I always will

Could it be that everything goes 'round by chance?
Or only one way that it was always meant to be
You kill me, you always know the perfect thing to say
I know what I should do, but I just can't walk away

I can picture your face well
From the bar in my hotel
I wish I'd go to you
I pick up put down the phone
Like your favorite Heatmeiser song goes
It's just like being alone

Oh God, please don't tell me this has been in vain
I need answers for what all the waiting I've done means
You kill me, you've got some nerve, but can't face your mistakes
I know what I should do, but I just can't turn away

So go on love
Leave while there's still hope for escape
Got to take what you can these days
There's so much ahead
So much regret
I know what you want to say
I know it but can't help feeling differently
I loved you, and I should have said it
But tell me just what has it ever meant

I can't help it baby, this is who I am
Sorry, but I can't just go turn off how I feel
You kill me, you build me up, but just to watch me break
I know what I should do, but I just can't walk away