Sic Semper Tyrannis

I promised at the outset of this blog, not many posts like this...

This is a moment of sublime bliss: listening to "Nomads" by High Llamas on my ipod here in the calm after the storm at work. The circular, confectionary pop in pristine detail as I recount the younger version of myself who took a chance on this music however many years ago. The fact that I can't remember where or who I was at that point only adds to the vague transcendence of it all.

And now as David Gray sings "Tears fall..." I definitely remember the painful time of my life during which it served as a balm and shall henceforth always be tied to memories of that time--lost and unsure and nursing a "what-the-hell-were-those-two-years about?" broken heart. The feeling of starting over--alone-- with a new college, new major, new people populating my new world. Sleepwalking through the drudgery of my new music store clerk job. A job which seemed so perfect for me.

Turned out to not help. "Everything's colored by a broken heart," I once scribbled with a leaky pen next to calculations of gas mileage on a little notepad while driving myself to the edge of the continent one summer.

It's true.

The years connected with David Gray's album Flesh just have this...sheet of unhappiness draped over them in my head. I mean an existential type of deep unhappiness. The kind of unhappiness that doesn't even bother to disallow you to smile or laugh. I'm sure I found things to laugh and smile about. But it's so big and all-encompassing that the trappings of happiness exist inside of it. Like those Venn diagrams you see in high school math class with sets and subsets.

Man, I'm glad those days are behind me.

posted by Mike @ 4:29 PM