"we seen the sun coming up easy
while the rain came tumbling down
and it washed our bodies so clean
we could feel them rise up off of the cold cold ground
it was in love I was created
and in love is how I hope I die...
yeah we watched the sun coming up easy
yeah we watched the sun coming up easy..."
Paolo Nutini, Coming Up Easy
Hard times of late, don't you think?
Just seems like bad news everywhere you turn.
Wars as far as the eye can see. The economy in shambles. Our electeds seemingly stuffed into the bulging back pockets of interests opposed to ours.
And on the personal front, I ain't feeling so chipper myself. My mind of late way overfilled with flashbacks to nightmarish scenes in a hospital two years ago, to scenes of doctors telling me yet another surgery had gone wrong, yet another complication, yet another life and death moment that eventually led to her death.
Almost two years into young widowhood, and it seems like the clouds'll never clear. Every time I try to think of a brighter tomorrow, it seems like the clouds of reality blot out the future's sunshine.
What do I want out of life now?
I'm not ready for love again, not yet, I knew all along I'd need at least two years, and maybe even many more than that, before I could even think about going there, but still. I'm a good father and a good friend and a good brother and a good son, but nothing made me happier than being a good husband, a soul mate. And the thought of never assuming that role again scares the shit out of me; I'm forty three years old, and like anybody, at any age, I could die tomorrow, which would make the point moot, but then again, I might live another ten, twenty, thirty, even forty years, and the thought of living all of those years on my own, of living out decades on my own, well, it seems like a dismal and half-lived existence, but right now, I can't see it playing out any other way. I'm slightly overweight and broken-hearted and out of work and pretty soon I'll be out of money, and the thought of someone signing up to join me the rest of the way, given all that, seems ridiculous.
Yeah, I'm running out of money, I left my job six months after my wife died, in order to stay at home with our babies, and it seemed like the right move at the time, I felt certain of it, but now I wonder. While I was busy tending to my little garden of grief over here, it seemed that a full-scale economic depression broke out. Finding a job, let alone one I find satisfying and meaningful, like the one I had, well, that seems ridiculous, too.
I need to lose a few pounds. I'm not far from where I need to be, my dcotor and my brother and my sister, all in great shape, workout-healthy-living types, tell me how I'm so close, just three or four good solid months away from an ideal weight, from what I weighed when I got married. And every Monday through Friday, I load my two babies into a jogging stroller, a hundred pounds worth of kids, and I walk through the streets of this dirty old town, as fast as I can, as close to jogging as you can get without jogging, for ninety or a hundred and twenty minutes, and I eat well, strong, healthy, nothing but good stuff, but then Saturday comes and I feel beat down and I run back to the same old points of refuge, to the comforts of huge meals full of fat, and of too many beers, and Monday comes and it's all a wash, another good week negated by another bad weekend, and I don't gain, but I don't lose, and I swear it, yeah, this week, I'll turn that corner, but deep down, I know I won't, I know nothing will change.
And at night, during the week, I work on my book about living through widowhood, and I work on my screenplay, a reworking of probably my favorite book ever, Dostoevsky's The Gambler, and people tell me to keep working, and I read and think maybe I have something, and then the realist within kicks in and I think, this is all shit, why do I bother, and I realize that nothing will come of this, either.
&&&&
This morning when I got up the kids were still sleeping. I made a pot of coffee and logged on here, and read around. Diaries about the Moore movie, and about plutocracy, and about the fucked-up economy, and about Baucus-care, and about the sell-outs, and about the destruction of the environment, and so on.
And I think about how imposing my own personal problems seem, and I think about how I want to, but fail to, address them. And then I think about our collective problems, and how massively they loom over our collective tomorrows, and I wonder, if I can't even stop myself from thinking I suck, if I can't even stop myself from eating too many grilled hot dogs and drinking too many beers on a Saturday night, if I can't even rise out of the muck of my own tiny sandpit, how in the hell are we all going to rise up and get cracking on the massive problems sitting there in front of us?
But giving up isn't an option. Is it?
&&&&
A few minutes ago, our oldest son walked by me, on his way to the bathroom. On his way out, he stopped to talk to me.
Gimme a hug, dad.
I gave him a hug.
Are you listening to that song again? he asked.
Yup.
Lemme put the headphones on.
I put the headphones in his ears.
It was in love he was created, and in love is hope he dies, many, many, many years from now.
He smiles, and starts dancing around the room, he starts bopping his head up and down, and he takes the right ear phone out and puts it in my right ear, and he's got the left one in his ear, and he's laughing, and I think, he's got school in the morning, he should be asleep, but fuck it, and we listen to this song together, he likes the song, too, and we start singing, "don't you remember seein' the sun coming up easy, while the rain came tumbling down..."
For some reason I think back to another October night, not two years ago, but seventeen years ago. A Thursday night in October. Standing under a streetlight, on the corner of Madison and Quail. Rain pouring down. A girl, not his mother, a girl from before then, a girl from another country, standing across from me.
I'm kinda seeing someone back home, she said.
I kissed her anyway. She kissed me back. We kissed in the middle of the night, on a corner, under a street light, in the pouring rain. Later on that night, we watched the sun come up easy. And life seemed easy then: you didn't even worry about the rain. You didn't even worry about dodging it. You just did whatever you wanted to, right in the face of it.
&&&&
My boy took out the one headphone, hugged me again, and went off to bed.
There's no rain falling tonight, but there might as well be.
Doesn't seem like you can dodge it, even when it's not falling.
So tell me, my kossack sisters and brothers, tell me, tell my aching, wounded, hoping-against-hope but doubting self, tell me, how are you gonna get up tomorrow morning, in the face of all this, in the face of odds that look too long to beat, i mean, jesus, what a fucking mess we got on our hands, but tonight, as i watched my boy sing, as i saw the look on his face, i thought damn, we cannot quit, can we, so tell me, i just wanna know, i wanna hear what others are thinking, what, in spite of it all, gives you hope tonight?