list 43 songs and the memories they conjure

...just to get the glow.

Mother liked her white wine
She’d have a glass or two
Almost every single night
after her day was through.
Sancerre, chardonnay, chablis,
Pinot grigio,
Just to take the edge off
Just to get the glow.

I have loved a lot of women who were like mothers to me. On in particular is the mother of a good friend. And she’s just wonderful.

When I first heard this song, it made me think of a morning in California with M and her son J. I think we were drinking champagne in the sunshine, working through pancakes, and nursing the hang-overs. The best think about M’s house is that when you’re there, you’re family. This means that you get to find out about the hard stuff sometimes. It means there’s tears. But, at the end, there’s so much love.

...I’m begging you please
To come home…

Here’s a recipe for a night of mischief:
Get a few hundred day-old bagels
Find a baseball bat
Take two (or more) of your friends.
Go to a field
Play some ball

Walking back from a spectacular game of bagel baseball, my darlings Paul and Alex start singing this old tune to me. Of course I join in when the “Oh-oh oh-oh ohs,” come in. And we dance. We dance with each other in the street, with jubilation, of course.

...you know what it’s like
The long farewell
of the hunger strike.
But can you save me?

He does seem like a perfect fit, even though I have no understanding of the reality of that statement. In fact, he’s in no way a good match for me. All these things that might drive me mad and he lives on the other side of the world, for fuck’s sake. But, he broke a few barriers, and was the first sweetheart who I ever rode a train with. And he promises me he won’t let me down.

And when I write about it, I feel like an asshole. He’s the writer, not me. I’d cringe at him reading this… for more reasons than one. I feel lost. I suspect that I will never love anyone…

Angie bought the CD, but I think it was Jeff’s idea. Or vice-versa. All I know is that I got to bring it with me in the mini-van on the run back into Toronto. Why is it that I needed so much loud music on that ride from the airport? After spending two weeks with the community I like the most, why did I feel so misplaced? It was a cycle, arriving last, leaving last. It’s fun to get to the party once it’s started. Maybe somebody is waiting for you when you get there with bated breath. What’s hard is watching all the guests leave, picking up the pieces, and then going yourself. Nobody is left for your send-off.

Wake me up inside/wake me up inside
Call my name and save me from the night
Bid my blood to run/ before I come undone
Save me from the nothing I become…

...I was hoping you had changed your mind…

Shouldn’t this song reming me of my time in Paris? Shouldn’t it recreate a moment when I, too, sat on a metro car and tore myself up over love? It’s round-about, my association with this song. It’s wouldn’t be so sharp or poignent if I had never lived in the city, rode those lines, or felt heartbroken over the boy who first played me this song.

I will say that it’s the voices of Bella Morte that haunt me, not Berlin (that’s another story). The memories in question happen in a basement in rural America. He is made of alabaster, white and strong. He is so different from me, but something draws me. It’s easy to say I was young, but so was he. And I never would have believed that he would stand next to me for so long.

When you grow up you grow apart; that’s the trouble. And in my case, you grow away. At the end of it all, it’s not the distance that ruined my relationship, it was me. I was comforted by the city of light and by time. When I think about those underground trains and I think about love, a memory of someone who never rode them comes to mind. He never did come to Paris. And I never really came back.

...Miss Sweeny, be my girl.

What do you do when your best friend should really be more? Nothing, that’s what. If there isn’t a spark, and beleive me we’ve tried, then there’s no helping it. But I still sit in the passenger seat and ache for us to be together. It’s not unrequited, it’s not-quite-right-ed. Needless to say, that sucks.
This happened just days ago. We’re in the car with a new album and he’s playing favourites. We listen to this tune and I can hear The Who and Green Day, but most of all, I hear honesty in song-writing. It’s soooo good! And we be-bob our way from the bar to my house, listening to the stero at full blast. And chord after chord plays until it all comes together… till the fade. It’s so quiet in the car and there we are, looking at one another.

“Again,” I grin.

And that’s just what he does.

...and I can’t do…

The rain is comming down hard on the little grey car. It’s long enough ago that when I give Erin five bucks for gas, that covers me for a week and sometimes two. Those days were filled with giggling and stories. You know what they say about Redheads, right? Well, she was a fire-cracker, that’s for sure. We never had a bad time, even if her mom never seemed to like me. WeWe drove that day, North and West, away from stupid Highschool problems and the other kids. Like I said, we did a lot of laughing when we were together. She never took anything personally. She loved to shop. She loved to detail her crushes to me. And, thank goodness, she didn’t mind doing the driving.
I’m certain she never married Joe Sackic, but I hope that she’s out there and happy.

...if she’s out there?
“You can call me Mary Lou…”

-I’m getting pretty used to be the one that you always ignore…

Everyone around me is such a disapointment. That feeling hasn’t gone away in a while. I realise that I have high standards and that they’re difficult to attain. But I promise if you get up here, the view is AMAZING. I’m reminded of all the moments where I’ve tried my damnedest to cater to the needs of my “friends” and “lovers,” when what I needed to do was ask for my own. So many people have looked at me like I’m a bottomless pitcher, that I can pour out and fill them up, over and over. That’s exhausting. I’m tired.

This song makes me realise how badly I would like to have some fuckin’ reciprocity in my relationships. Too much to ask? No.

Not anymore.

-Leave you where I found you… I figured you out.

...look at what we would be missing.

You know me by my name. My full name. You have seen underneath the sparkle and know that I glow. You have brought out the best in me. I have shown you the world, because I was eager to share it with someone. You challenged me. You asked me why. You read the books I said would change your world. You understood them in ways I never knew. And you shared that with me. You cared about me. You cared about my Mom. And my car. You shared your passions for mechanical things with me. I will never feel an engine turn over and not think of you. I will never smell gasoline and not think of you. I will never see a camero, especially a blue one, and not think of you. You are the reason I love AC/DC and hockey. I made sure you got a passport. You were my first date. You gave me a part of yourself which I gave of myself in return.
You were my first love.
This was a love song I used to sing to you. Turns out that another girl is really “the one” for you. Doesn’t mean that I don’t sing this song and think of what we had together.

...lonely and dreaming of the west coast.

I have a basic undestanding of chemistry. One takes two compounds and mixes them together. Sometimes nothing happens. Sometimes something neat happens. Sometimes there’s a big flash and a surprise. That’s the kind of chemistry I like. Even moreso, I like the kind of chemisty that takes two inert substances and makes them useful and beautiful.
We sang together. We were always the ones leading, too. From that first day. Sitting on those mats, telling secrets, we were concocting something.
Amy comes by and in her impeccable accent says, “no cheating, you two. You need to find someone you don’t know.” But we’d never met. Really, we never had. She wasn’t the only one who didn’t believe.

...With my big black boots and an old suit case, I do believe I’ll find myself a new place…

He left Cali for the cold city. He should have come to live with me, girlfriend or not. We were made for that city. We traveled to Brussels and to Lyon. It was always fun, always romantic. I beat him at scrabble. Then he started to beat me.
I met his mother, we got on swimmingly. I celebrated his birthday, I almost died. I was trying to figure things out, he came along for the ride.

...I just want to see some palm trees…

A few came into the circle. One in paticular. We were quite the troupe. And when I kissed the other one, I was always kissing him. Till one night, we were ALL kissing, and that’s where that ended. Another night, it seemed like the low would never end.

...we can live beside the ocean and leave the clouds behind…

We were lucky, we got a last night. And it was just as good as all the others. Walking and laughing, we spent all those moments like hundred dollar bills. They were all valuable. We played our game. The one that had scrabble tiles but was as much about love as anything else.
And we kissed. Because sometimes that’s what friends do.

...swim out past the breakers and watch the world die.
I left like a criminal the next morning, with the wind, and the eyes of the little dog following me. We’d done the right thing, done right by the other girl.
Who came home to tell him that there was someone else.
He called. I came over. We sat arm in arm on the parkbench and cursed and applauded ourselves. We had been good. And it felt so wrong.

...I am still dreaming of your face…
I miss him, living on that West coast. I want to see him so bad. I want to meet his brother and his dad and the dogs and the turtle. I want to tell him that French Bitch was no good for him. I want to drink tequilla and walk in the surf. I want to waste his ass with a 75 point bingo. I want to kiss him again.