Slow Monday…

It’s Monday morning.. the news is slow… the water’s rough and I feel like writing..

Ever since I read Nick Hornby’s book “Songbook”, which is essentially a collection of essays on his favorite songs and why he loves them, I feel less self conscious about writing about the way a particular song hits me. I’m consistently amazed by the way songs can kind of serve as postcards to very specific moments in time. I remember the first time I heard “Letters from An Occupant” by The New Pornographers. I can honestly sit here and remember that exact moment. And I think that music has that capability, that unprecedented transportational quality. Meanwhile, I think that some of my favorite songs only remind me of themselves. Songs like “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over” are relatively free of emotional attachments or postcard moments. That song simply reminds me of itself and how much I love it each and everytime I listen to it.

It sounds really lame but there are songs that you hear when you’re single and it makes you kind of wish that you had someone. I don’t know if it’s appropriate for adults to have “songs” like for their relationships. You know what I mean, like in 6th grade when your song was some 98 Degress jam. But I hear songs like Ray LaMontagne’s Shelter, which I still believe is one of the greatest love songs I’ve ever heard or Can I Stay? and it kind of makes me want to be in love.

I was talking to someone the other day about relationships. And she expressed to me that she was worried that one day she would no longer care for the man she currently cares a great deal for and it seemed to me that she was trying to predict something that few of us even understand — our emotions. I’m grateful that I have the parents that I do, married for 25 years now, who have been able to serve as a model for me of what a healthy relationship is. There are no relationships in your life, romantic or otherwise, that will make you bouncing off the walls happy at all times. Sometimes it’s ok to be contented.. complacement in the moment that you spend with that person and finding solace and comfort in the fact that in this whole crazy, violent, scary world that we live in, there’s really no place else you’d rather be. I think what it comes down to is that you know when you’ve got something and you know if you don’t. You know when you really click with someone because everytime you think about them, unbeknowst to you, you smirk a little — or a lot. And those connections are rare and worth holding onto and will probably come a price. Because anything worth having is worth making sacrifices for.

Random thought for the day inspired by a motion picture:

Rob: Should I bolt every time I get that feeling in my gut when I meet someone new? Well, I’ve been listening to my gut since I was 14 years old, and frankly speaking, I’ve come to the conclusion that my guts have shit for brains.