Take Better Care of Your Heart
Alright, I’ve been working on this one for a while now . . .
Few things more are difficult for me than trying to understand how I’ve become the person that I am. Perhaps it was the loneliness of being raised as an only child, or one too many heartbreaks that have caused me to habitually develop such deep connections to people, to places and to pieces of music and art. Whatever the reason, I’m a terribly sentimental. And when I get down I only find myself searching for more sadness - sad music, sad stories, sad films. Much of the time, this trait makes me feel like a huge sap. At other times, I know without a doubt that this sentimentality has made me into the writer that I am.
What I’m trying to say is that it’s been a sappy few weeks, for me. Probably because the coming of Carolina’s autumn feels so much like Michigan’s summer, because I’ve been feeling distance growing in so many of my valued relationships, and because I’ve realized that, three months into this residency, my heart is in many ways still not in Spartanburg, but split between the places that I used to call home. In an attempt to purge some of this sentimentality from my system, I’ve made a blog-exclusive mix for y’all. They’re not all sad songs, but they each hold meaning for me.
TAKE BETTER CARE OF YOUR HEART
a mix of my most sentimental songs of the past year
1. Another Sweet Summer’s Night on Hammer Hill - Jens Lekman: (Ann Arbor, MI) The theme song of the summer that was spent sitting on the corner of State & Catherine, slugging forties, enticing passers-by to jump over the neighbor’s hedges, pulling the TV and sofa out into the sidewalk and watching Charlie Chaplin films out-of-doors.
2. I See a Darkness - Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy (Ann Arbor, MI) The end of an era. September brings the start of school and the city is changing. Jessica skips town for Chicago, leaving her bat-infested apartment across the street vacant. John moves out of our apartment and into downtown Detroit, beginning an autumn of late-night Amtrak rides into the city on weekends. I learn how much I love reading and writing letters on the train.
3. Consequence - Notwist: (Detroit Metro Airport) Putting an end to our elaborate weekly cooking adventures, to late-night nonsense poem-writing, and to Cheap Brandy Sundays, Edward goes to teach English in Ukraine for 27 months. He leaves me with Julia Child’s The Art of French Cooking, his copy of Anna Karenina, and his red road bike. I cry the whole way home from the airport and never tell him.
4. Not Dark Yet - Bob Dylan: (somewhere outside of Wheeling, WV) I call John around 10 p.m. on an October evening to say how much I miss the mountains and he shows up in Ann Arbor an hour later with his bag packed. We drive ten hours through the night - stopping only for a road atlas along the way - into the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. After a short late-morning hike, we nap and drive home.
5. On A Neck, On A Spit - Grizzly Bear (Ann Arbor, MI) Early November. I struggle to get any work done. In a last-stitch push for productivity I move my desk into the front entry of the house and spend a whole week sitting in there with the door closed and the space heater glowing, furiously writing interviews for the radio show and working on poems for a reading at Crazy Wisdom with Tania and Marshall.
6. O Do Not Be Afraid - Actual Birds ft. Rachel Harkai (Detroit, MI) Dustin (Actual Birds) is on tour from Portland and the whole crew road trips it to Detroit for his show in John’s living room. December sends gusts of wind and gales of snow through the beams of the back porch but spirits are high, despite the weather. To close out the night everyone croons a candlelit, acapella version of “O Do Not Be Afraid,” a song Dustin and I recorded for his EP.
7. Beatless Wonder - Diane Cluck - (Grand Rapids, MI) Winter break brings me home for the first time in four months. The prospect of Christmas shopping gives me a panic attack in the parking lot of Woodland Mall and instead of wading through crowds of spending-crazed shoppers and snotty children, I opt to sit in the car and listen to Monarcana from start to finish.
8. Fiddlegree - Clogs (Chicago, IL) New Year’s Morning. John, Jim, Jessica, Kathryn and I spend most of the morning snuggling on Kathryn’s bed listening to the vinyl copy of Lantern that I bought at Reckless the previous day. I try to make sense of the vague memories I have of Jessica, Kathryn and I violently dismantling a chair in the lobby of whatever party we were at the night before.
9. 1/1 from Ambient 1: Music for Airports - Brian Eno (Ann Arbor, MI) January 2007 breaks all previous records I have set for sadness. I do nothing but stare out the window, drink whiskey and listen to Music for Airports for two weeks straight. When I finally stop crying I realize that I’ve written one of my best series of poems so far - On Hearing Brian Eno’s Ambient 1: Music for Airports. I get off the couch and finally do some dishes.
10. Wally, Egon and Models in the Studio - Rachel’s (Ann Arbor, MI) February brings more and more writing. I spend most of the month pouring over books of Egon Schiele’s art, giving stories to the paintings and listening to the music Rachel’s has set as the score of his life. My series finds its title in their album’s name: Music for Egon Schiele.
11. The Greatest - Cat Power (Ann Arbor, MI) Almost March but it’s still snowing. Mike and I sit in my old, red living room trying to figure out what to do with our lives. I fill out the last of my residency applications and proof-read his personal statements and cover letters for jobs all over the country. We both decide that neither of us will ever amount to anything and will one day share a cardboard box.
12. Deeper into Movies - Yo La Tengo - (Providence, RI/Philadelphia, PA) I visit Meghan at RISD for the first time in over a year. We drink, we dance, we watch too many films. Yo La Tengo sounds through the car stereo as we drive to Philly for Matt’s gallery opening. I drink green apple juice for the first time and a little piece of my heart stays in Philadelphia forever.
13. The Big Ship - Brian Eno (Washington-Dulles Airport) Snowstorms leave me stranded outside of D.C. for six hours. Tired of uncomfortable airport seating, I somehow find my way to a gigantic glass bridge built over a construction pit hundreds of feet deep. Overwhelmed by the strange beauty of the situation, I spend almost the whole layover looping Eno in my headphones and watching the tiny uniformed men move piles of dirt around in their big hole.
14. Elephant Gun - Beirut (Ann Arbor, MI) Saint Patrick’s Day ’07. Determined to do Saint Patty’s Day right, despite the cold weather, Emily and I bring chairs onto the front lawn and somehow manage to get the space heater out there with the help of at least three extension cords. She and Marshall fight over the cookie monster chair and we drink Jameson and Guinness into the afternoon.
15. As Ugly As I Seem - The White Stripes (Ann Arbor, MI) Marshall leaves for a two week trip to Portugal and I’m late-night lonely at the radio station. While DJing the 3-6 am slot he sends an email request for the White Stripes and I cue up some tunes for my first internet audience overseas.
16. King of Carrot Flowers Pt. 1 - Neutral Milk Hotel (Charlotte, NC) Mid-April I fly to South Carolina for a weekend visit to the place that I will call home for the next year of my life. A mixtape Marshall leaves me before his trip abroad revives my love for Neutral Milk, which I listen to as I drive into Spartanburg for the first time. I quickly develop a fear of acquiring a Southern accent.
17. A River Could Be Loved - Brightblack Morning Light: (Ann Arbor, MI) May begins as a month of mixed drinks and Scrabble marathons. After a hectic return to America, Marshall moves out of his beautiful apartment on Packard and into a new place down the street. While he shelves books at the store, I spend more than a few afternoons listening to Brightblack and reading on his most-uncomfortable subletted sofa.
18. I Don’t Want to Get Over You - The Magnetic Fields (Windsor, Ontario) With only a few days left in Michigan, Marshall and I retreat to Canada for a tour of the Canadian Club whiskey factory. In line at the bank we quietly celebrate the death of Jerry Falwell and the Canadians don’t seem to understand our sentiments. Later, we drink dirty martinis bought from money won at the casino and try to find a Hungarian restaurant in the rain.
19. Common People - Pulp (Ann Arbor, MI) As I steel myself for a move to the South, Mike, Tania, Marshall, Emily, Elliott and I share a last dance together at THE BANG. Dressed as superheroes. Enough said.
20. Rains on Me – Tom Waits (Ann Arbor, MI) June. My last day in Ann Arbor. I start crying into my milkshake when I say goodbye to Ray outside of the bookstore and later listen to Tom Waits on repeat all afternoon while I empty my bedroom. Somehow, I manage to fit everything I own (minus my red road bike) into my tiny car and hit the road next morning.
21. Woke Up New – The Mountain Goats (Charlotte, NC/Spartanburg, SC) After accompanying me on my roadtrip into the South and helping me get settled in my apartment, I drive Marshall to the airport. We stop at Dairy Queen for banana split flurries on the way and say an emotional goodbye on the evening before his 22nd birthday. I find myself living alone for the first time ever.
22. While You Were Sleeping - Elvis Perkins (South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio, Michigan) On July 5th I wake up and make a spur-of-the-moment decision to drive to Michigan for my birthday. Being back in Ann Arbor brings waves of sentimentality and I experience the anticlimax of turning 22. I drive twenty hours in four days, most of which are spent listening to While You Were Sleeping again and again and again.
23. At the Hop - Devendra Banhart (Bryson City, NC) Driving out of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park with Marshall in tow, I listen to Devendra while reflecting on our backpacking trip. Upon returning to Spartanburg we enjoy Harper’s, hot showers, curried carrot soup and shitty beer at the Nu-Way.
24. Dumb Luck – Dntel (Spartanburg, SC) While driving to the health food store I play Derya what I have named as the unofficial A-I-R theme song: “Just don’t forget that it’s dumb luck that got you here. Don’t fool yourself; misfortune’s waiting for the best time to appear. To make it clear that all the courage and the talent that you had was just in dreams . . .”
25. Damn, Sam, I Love a Woman that Rains - Ryan Adams (Spartanburg, SC) As August comes to a close I realize that I’ve been living in Spartanburg for nearly three months. At 2 A.M. I’m too upset to sleep, so I drive until I don’t know where I am, pull the car off the road, roll the windows down and listen to Ryan Adams while staring at the sky.
Posted in Blog
September 4th, 2007 at 11:01 am
I am at school right now. I’m surprised that your page hasn’t been blocked yet.