Stuck Between Stations
It used to be that I’d mourn the end of something - whether an era of my life, a relationship, whatever it was - with music directly from those moments. Whether that meant a slew of baudy Celtic ballads at the end of our junior year of college or a P.I.L. song that played when I started on a very bad road with a very bad boy that turned out very badly but still seemed like such a good idea. Or the fact that “Our Time in Eden” still makes me feel young and terrified and out of place and in love with the world. I don’t even remember being the girl who discovered 10000 Maniacs in the backwoods of a too progressive place in Vermont.
And it made sense, right? That mix tape in your mind, that rom-com/tragi-com/train ride soundtrack that seemed to follow the affair. Afterwards, it was something to look back on and catalogue. A timeline and a post card.
But as I get older, my allegiances have shifted. Maybe because my whole life tends to be a soundtrack. Maybe because everyday is Bob Dylan and Josh Ritter and a little bit of Pixies, and ever increasingly a lot of Elbow, and some Sandy Denny and Sleater Kinney and the roller coaster fantasy of Daytrotter’s free sessions or the fact that I can go see live music whenever I want.
But my mourning no longer consists of the real soundtrack. It’s still related, sure. And yes, I still have to listen to “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” at the end of every ending, because it’s the song my heart holds for endings, making me cry but with a big, angry, sly, wry smile. But somehow my associations are different these days. So I spent the weekend listening to “Boys and Girls in America” and “Stay Positive” over and over again because The Hold Steady aren’t heartbreak to me, not really. They’re my get through it band, my fuck the world and hold me tight band. And I laid in a bathtub full of pink bubbles and ready a book full of pink bubbles and got righteously, raucously angry and cried. And got better. Not fixed. But better.
