Singing in the Rain. Wizard of Oz. It's a Wonderful Life. Peter Pan. These are just some of the movies I used to watch over and over and over again when I was a kid. And then I grew old. I finished school and got a job. Reality bit me. Hard. An ongoing battle has been brewing inside me for a while now. Thing is, there's already too much going on in my personal life pie that I sometimes think twice about attending to these other things outside the pie. But then, is it just because I expect too much from people that I demand exactly the same or even more? Or perhaps, while I struggle to disregard and just get on with my own thing, such loathing vibe gets worse every time it makes it all harder to ignore. And the Shantaram speaks, fate always gives you two choices, the one you should take, and the one you do. Ok, that should shut me up.I am disenchanted. I'm perpetually baffled by the pettiness, ambiguity and general nastiness that abounds. Not that I don't have my share of these nastiness. Nastiness would be an understatement as far as my life goes. But loyalty and honesty to the people I'm loyal and honest to are terribly important to me, and these things are so elusive these days. It's exhausting to question. And I remember writing earlier, a lot of other things are reserved for all the other ages to uncover. Otherwise, there would be no purpose to wonder, nothing left for every age to marvel at.
The short, small trips allow you to think of bigger, long term things. And it dawned on me that if I can just simply stick to my inner vision without demanding that the rest of the world conform to my ideals, then it may one day dawn on me that such involvement and conviction is not wasted just because I sometimes have to compromise with reality. The tendency to cling to an ideal and become bewildered when it's punctured is most visible in my job and my relationships. And throw in the way I live my life everyday. Then the song in your head plays, you can't always get what you want...you can't always get what you want...you can't always get what you want...but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you just might find, you get what you need.
Remember the mad ones, those who are mad to live, mad to talk, wanting everything at the same time. the ones who never yawn and burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars. Now I refuse to believe that those are the same ones who want too many things, who get all confused runnning from one falling star to another until they drop. Those who have nothing to offer except their own confusion.
I recently made this Ode to Dad playlist on my iPod. I miss the old man. Especially when I feel like I'm in a rut and feel like I'm losing myself. When I feel like a complete unknown, no direction home, like a rolling stone. I can almost hear him say, "deal with it, marish. deal with it". The thought of him snaps me out of my annoyingly shallow drama-queen mode. I become this little girl not wanting to grow up. But I'm no longer that. I feel restless, itching to get up and go. Because perhaps tramps like us were born to run. And then you slow down and listen to the cymbals on Metheny's Last Train Home. The same exact song I was listening to over and over while I was at the beach, feeling the sand on my feet, the breeze on my face, smoking my cigarette. And then Steely Dan's Deacon Blues immediately follows. And that moment, like this moment as I write, makes you realize that things aren't as bad as they seem. Now I just wanna drink scotch whisky all night long and skip dying behind the wheel.
Life may not always end up where you had planned, and things might not work out exactly as you'd have liked them to. So I'll try not to fuck it. And for once in my lifetime, I might, just might stop it with the griping, stop wondering what it all means and just start singing this song in the rain.
And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself-well...how did I get here?
Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by, water flowing underground
Into the blue again, after the moneys gone
Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground.
And you may ask yourself, how do I work this?
And you may ask yourself, where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful wife!
Water dissolving...and water removing
There is water at the bottom of the ocean
Carry the water at the bottom of the ocean
Remove the water at the bottom of the ocean!
And you may ask yourself, what is that beautiful house?
And you may ask yourself, where does that highway go?
And you may ask yourself, am I right? ...am I wrong?
And you may tell yourself, my god!...what have I done?
Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...same as it ever was...
