This is a weird post for me to write, because while I even think about writing it, I think about how weird this similarity is and how I kind of don't want to talk about this because this is something so dear to me, so close to my heart. Really, it is one of my Secrets. And it is good to keep those to yourself... to always have a few. But I have gotten a lot of apologies lately from friends saying "sorry for being so depressing" (don't apologize for feeling your feelings!) and it makes me feel like even though I am glad to have those things shared with me and think it's important to sit with those experiences and feelings, I want to share something that makes me cry remembering, for a good reason, for happy reasons. And today being the 1 year, 7 month a versary of knowing Bryan Wilson, I thought it would be appropriate to share today.
Two Pink Floyd songs make me cry. Wish You Were Here and Brain Damage. Both of these songs have been played to me from different guys, very important and dear to how my life has gone and is going. Both times these songs have been played in my presence, I've bawled. Completely, outrageously, painfully, beautifully. These are the happiest tears I can remember crying in my entire life, and it's weird to me that both relate to these Pink Floyd songs when I barely listen to Pink Floyd on my own. Anyway...
When I was in high school, my boyfriend at the time played me Wish You Were Here the night before the first time I went to Wisconsin. Him being a pretty shy person, and both of us being pretty secretive, this was a pretty monumental moment, him opening up and sharing his voice with me. I'm addicted to the darkness, to loving all of everyone, to experiencing that inner most-ness of anyone I care about. That was him letting me in. I don't listen to this song now, because that chapter of my life is one I don't find necessary to visit so often these days. When I heard the chords sometimes I still get teary because I just remember feeling somebody wanting me to know them. That relationship helped shape me into who I am today and how I relate to others. For some reason, this time sticks out as sort of the precise image of our overall relationship--- the sort of melancholy of the lyrics, the desperation of the chords, the brokenness of his voice through quiet masculine tears... and the sweetness, too. It's good to remember.
Last semester, during one of Bryan's visits, he played Brain Damage for me in the living room of my trashy Cunningham home. I'm pretty sure he wasn't playing "for me" (air quotes are so tacky but convey the point, so alas), but the notion of him playing in front of me, the boy behind the electronics, just a guitar and the most soothing voice I've encountered... to see him so soft in front of me... this tender moment just moved me. I watched his fingers graze the guitar strings and felt them on my arms, felt them wrapped around me and let the tears cover my cheeks. His voice danced with the notes, reminding me of this person I know so deeply... I thought of the time we held hands through the trails at West Georgia and he told me His Story, The Story everyone saw happening but not a whole lot of people really know. His voice calling to the lunatics on the grass just made me hear him, just him, desperate and unapologetic and lovely. I remembered how I knew I loved him when he told me that story, and how I could feel myself loving him as the words poured out from his lips, as the guitar sang the rhythm. His willingness to let me in always breaks my heart, even still, because it's some kind of miracle for us as humans to show ourselves to somebody else, but Bryan does this to me all the time. I love remembering these quiet moments with him, the times with the most tears, because that is what kept us both calling, writing, being.
It's wild to me how these patterns show themselves through our lives, relationships... how these details come back, how those songs with their abstract lyrics are so weirdly concretely relative to our lives/situation. It's incredible and fantastic to me that I can see these moments still, that I can feel the cold driveway or the hot living room, hear their voices in my whole body, just so much beauty in the softness of a human being. There's no good reason for sharing this, and I didn't do either memory any justice, but it's good to reflect, to sit with these experiences and just do nothing but remember and feel- and share. I'm just really glad to be in this room in Albany, California right now thinking about knowing the people I have and do, doing nothing but simple thinking, remembering, loving.
And now, I hope to get sushi and laugh with my rockstar boyfriend and worry about money and feel just all right.
If you read this, thank you. It makes me feel a little bit less alone, just, so you know.
