1990 was a year of astounding changes for me. During the summer between my 8th and 9th grade years I lost about 20 pounds, ditched my glasses for contacts (my ban for the F-bomb was over!), and grew out my hair to get a perm. I entered high school looking like a completely different person. I joined the cross country team (this was a fall sport; I played basketball in the winter and ran track in the spring) and made the varsity squad within two races. Boys started noticing me. While working out over the summer, I first heard Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence" come on the radio, and about 30 seconds into the song I froze in my tracks, captivated by the melody, the voice, the lyrics.....this song was officially the stepping stone of my transition from metal to alt/synth/electro (with the exception of Metallica, but I'll come back to that in another post regarding another crush). Within months I was pumping Violator on my cassette deck over and over, alternating with Cure's Disintegration for good measure due to my newfound fascination of the darker electronica. I had no draw to Robert Smith, however. My heartstrings were instantly pulled by Dave Gahan's velvet vocals. All it took was one look at him brooding at me from a poster at Musicland, and I was smitten. Quite honestly, all my crushes (save for Matthew, a topic of a future post) from Dave onwards were musicians. While many escape to drugs, alcohol, movies, hobbies.....my escape was music. I lost myself in music. Thus it seemed only natural I would forever be bent towards musicians. This has been true for the past 20 years....
My first high school boyfriend was a senior named Andrew K. He was a drummer, and he instantly stole my heart. We would steal kisses behind the high school double doors outside of the band room, and Depeche Mode's "World in My Eyes" would constantly play in my head when we did. I trained, studied, and opened myself to the world of Erasure and Pet Shop Boys, but Dave always came back to me. The summer between my senior year of high school and freshman year of college I met Peter C while working at the Belford Drive-In. He would make me these mix tapes of music I adored and cherished and played over and over for the following few years. He introduced me to James (the band). We watched What's Eating Gilbert Grape one evening in his basement, and "I Feel You" is the only song that keeps coming back into my head from that night (no, we didn't sleep together; I had just lost my flower to Eric M four months prior, and he was the only one I shared flowers with until the end of 1998--yes, I know that sounds weird for that time span of 17-22--but I protected my flower!!!). Pete's intensity, writing, and philosophical viewpoints attracted and scared me simultaneously. We had a complicated connection, since I was dating Eric M. Pete and I had to remain friends, and that was that. That was hard for me, since it was the first time in my life I was caught between a boy I loved (Eric) and a boy I felt truly connected to (Pete). I loved Eric madly, but he was into metal, hair bands, and sported a buzzcut, while Pete was into electro, synthpop, ambiguity, and had this floppy new wave cut, glasses, and eyes that would melt a polar icecap (plus his dad was a math professor, and I am a math geek!). Today Eric and I no longer speak, though I wish him well. Pete and I remain good friends. I guess that speaks volumes, yes?
Dave Gahan was a staple on my dorm room walls throughout my college years, and he made me cry during the Singles Tour when he sang "Only When I Lose Myself" so beautifully. I had broken up with Eric six months prior (January 1998) and was trying to adjust to being single after having been in a relationship for five years. I wasn't quite ready to date again, so I folded myself back into the music I loved the most. And that music was Depeche Mode's. Dave made me cry. He helped me release the loneliness, the heartache, and he soothed me back to sleep. I can't wait for their new album to come out in 2009. You can bet your bottom dollar I'll be getting tickets for their next tour! And watch the video I provided a link to below his picture. I'm telling you that voice gets me EVERY TIME.
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The haunted rivers return. The memories flowing. The memories ebbing. The world is full of joy, of light. The world fades, and turns to black. And is alight all over again.
I find myself sitting at a river's edge, watching the waters run. Everyone that I have ever loved, passes by.
In the reflection of the waters, I see myself. As I was. As I am. As I will be. Could be. Should be.
I put my fingers into the waters. I let the waters trickle through the spaces in my skin. The crackles, creases. The world part, and my soul is open.
I lift some water up, to my mouth. To cool my lips. To cool my heart. My heart is running. Racing. Eternal in this moment. Full of regret. Of laughter. Of emotion, rolling emotion, tumbling over my head, my shoulders, still standing, where I belong.
Do I dare to return to the waters. To wade in. To bathe myself in memory. To sing these thoughts all over again?
The lovers keep passing by. The memories, fade, change, sting and soothe, as the waters run over me. Under me. Through me. As this time passes me by.
I find it fascinating how you remember me. Remember us. I wonder why you return to me now. Return to your lovers in your past. Your dreams, that have come to pass. Now all is beholden to you. In these moments you reflect, and watch yourself unfold in the world you spin. Spinning. Dreaming in the stories of old, where a lover's gift still warms your heart.
I remember the note you gave me. Remember knowing that the note awaited me. I remember you lingering after work had ended. Staying on your last night to wander with the rest of the rag tag workers, to clean up the trash. The mess that the watchers left after the nightly movie had ended. You were there. I felt your warmth. I feel you still.
The music I had lent you. The music you returned to me. With a note. A confession. A realization that my heart longed to hear. With your words pouring out. How I needed to leave the doubt behind me. The confusion. Absolute in my heart. I wanted to reach out to you that night. Tell you before I had read your words, that your words were too, in my heart. That attraction was felt, was not confined in you.
Reading your note, over and over. I sat listening to James. Skin Diving. Five-O. Replaying the songs. Over and over. I was elated to hear your heart. To read your thoughts. About me. About me. I am grateful to your openness. Your daring. The entire night, my heart open, the world complete. I so longed to see you again. To touch you, to hold you, to kiss you before this night would end. And so I wrote, and you wrote me more.
This was before the age that connects us all now. This was before the world was zipping and flying its way back and forth to one another. The time we moved closer, was a time when we wrote, and waited. For the mail person to deliver. I began to compose, my words, selecting songs to send you. I was frightened. Young in my doubt. My own world. Patiently, I awaited your return. To hear your response to mine. To read your words. To sing this song that warmed us both. In our different places. In our different states. The music warmed, as we both, sang along.
I remember driving to Loras. To see you. You dressed, in a skirt. In a calico top. You wore make-up. I explored your beauty with my eyes. With my heart. Nervously. Cautiously. Every moment wanting to touch. Awaiting our first kiss.
I remember every moment. As do you. And it warms me that you remember as I do. That you too are held in these memories, kept in the dreams, the fascination decorating our past. For a moment, our lives wove together.
There is the pain of loss. Tempered in youth. In doubt. I always felt your heart belonged to another, needed to reconcile with another before it could move on. Whether it was to be with me..., in my heart, I did not want to admit, that you and I were not to be. Instead, I lingered in sadness. In darkness. As I so often did in those years. Punishing myself. For what end? In reflection, I can see why, but I wish I could touch myself to health in all those days I spent dancing alone. But I am who I am today, because of all those dances, because of all the pain. And I am thankful for it all. As I've told you, I hope you do not hold yourself to blame, as I am no longer in the pain of these memories. I am no longer held by the silence my heart, for so long, spoke to me. No. I am released from this. I do not blame you. Nor do I blame myself. Love just sometimes ends. But in memory, somewhere, love is always alive. And so my heart remembers, the shadows in your eyes. The shades of color, dancing in your smile. In your cheeks. The moments of you. The note. Our first kiss. In these memories, there truly can be, no darkness. There is only the light and warmth. The beauty springing forth from our minds, our hearts.
And so the waters flow. Just as the men in your life are revealed, the women in my life are brought to the same light. A different examination, perhaps. For you, I see how the obsessions wove into the fabrics of your truest life. Your lovers in this life. Closer. Beckoning you on. As the waters run. Never remaining the same for too long. It is these memories that bring us, build us, make us complete, help us find a dryer ground to walk. To move on. To live our lives, to continue singing a song, that exists somewhere between memory and dream. Fascination and the world that seems to be so real, but ebbs and fades, just as the waters running still around me now.
I always appreciate your openness. Your candidness. Your heart. Your words are a reflection into my past. Seeing myself through your eyes. My world, in your eyes as it were. Appropriate given your original post. Even as our lives have taken different paths, I am still here. Listening. Believing in all the laughter. Finding every reason to dream the dreams, and leave no memory untouched, as the waters run through my fingers, and back into the rivers, that flow all around this part of me.
Having you in my life during that time period helped shape me for what was to come, for what I had to eventually face. I was in denial for a six-month period at the end of 1997, and it all came to surface on the night of one of my best friend's weddings. It had to. I was scared of getting engaged to the wrong man. I had to go through the hardest breakup of my life, for here it was....5 years...and I just didn't love him anymore. It's not his fault, nor mine. We just grew in separate directions, and I couldn't see myself coming home to him every day for the rest of my life....so why prolong the inevitable? It was time to get off the pot.
There wasn't another man in my life again until the end of the following year, and even then it was rather brief. This was a familiar pattern for me for 4.5 years.
I went through a painful period from 1998 through 2001, one which left me standing and holding a slew of unanswered questions. The music we used to listen to together helped me get through that time. It was a time period I felt very alone, stuck in a job I hated, questioning my profession, and wondering why I couldn't meet the right partner. Some of my best creative writing came from that time period, as I poured my emotion into metaphor and visceral dreamscapes. Writing was my catharsis, while music would sew me back together again.
I am a better person for my husband today because what we shared back in 1994 taught me many lessons I needed to learn about relationships, relationships with men in particular. For that I am grateful.
For now I have found a man with whom I have shared the past 7.5 years of my life, a man I met on a blind date (on a whim, nonetheless), a man for whom I sacrificed my Texas plans to take a chance on what just felt right. I can not wait to see what the next 7.5 (x2, x3....) years brings us. He is the other side of my coin, and through the music and words you and I both used to listen and share, you helped lead me to him. My husband Mike is my "Home".
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