I remember the sun that never seemed to go down until I was with him. I remember driving home in this freak storm that roared in the sky and pounded in my chest. Hail was being thrown from the sky it was midnight and the road dissapeared and everything seemed to be stolen away from around me. It took some strange reserve of courage I didn't know I had to keep the music on because I knew turning it off would just make the chaos around me more audible. I felt something that tore through the sky and threw me back like a child- small and terrified and reaching out. But that song...I swear to god it carried me home that night.
At first, I looked to this song to come to terms with what I was learning about myself at the time. it was a tough pill to swallow, and tougher still to feel whole as I walked through life having finally admitted to myself that I am missing something, incapable, and I felt broken especially in wake of a new relationship with my boyfriend. I was still getting comfortable with driving, but this album has never left my car- so I would often take long drives and listen to it just to sort things out. To drive away and escape, but also to bring myself back home.
Later, I looked to this song to come to terms with what was happening in Kyle's life. Like a cancerous clot I could feel the thought gripping at my lungs, destroying my sleep, raging my appetite. I would look at the album cover and see that figure standing alone, light and color beaming out, and I would find solace in this image. In this faceless figure, I would see and know sorrow in another face and I would sing and cry out and it was like I was communicating with something bigger out there than just me in my car driving down the highway. I couldn't see the future, but I did see better days- if whatever existed between us got me this far, it could get him farther. And I felt a God then, too- in his heartbeat at night I felt something like the hum of a thousand voices and a rolling of sentiment came over me. Like flight I caught the wind of faith, and I knew love suddenly like a waxing moon. I would listen to this song and in lofty chorus settle in and be carried home.
I never did imagine Gods as some benevolent human-like thing looking down on us. When I am afraid or when I am stolen in awe I see Him, and that's all I can ever know. I will always hear Him in "Better Days" and for a moment sometimes I will catch that memory- that feeling of plummeting down Alice's well scared and losing control, and being thrown up with liberation in my reaching, prostrating arms when I sing along. I hear God in this song, but I also hear myself and when I do, I am in love.
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