Giddy, Like a Child

My mother died a year ago, and her loss has taught me much. I had dreaded her death for years, much more than I dread their own, and I think it’s because I’d always felt that the sadness of losing that essential piece of my make up would simply be too much for me to bear. I have a long history with anxiety. We’ve become somewhat intimate over the years. I’ve had to reroute entire portions of my twenties in order to accommodate fear. In retrospect, I’m not sure what I thought would be so bad about her being gone. I guess it was just a certain feeling that came over me at the mere thought.

With a year now since she died, I’ve had plenty of time to both mourn her passing and to reflect on how it has changed my life.

One thing I didn’t really expect was the great sense of relief I feel now. My mother had serious health problems that could easily have crippled bigger, healthier animals than her. Her cancer, shitty heart valve (replaced twice), consequential heart infections (two of those too), pneumonia, corneal transplant, chemo, radiation, eight or nine pills she had to take three times a day – every day, shingles, and arthritis of the eye (no, I’m not lying), were the curse of all curses on a woman who in all honesty deserved none of it. The thing is, life-fucking ailments are the province of us all. No one is exempt from death and suffering. The Buddha was right about that one. Life really is about suffering. It is the one defining characteristic in our being that is constant and unyielding.

Now look here. I’m not trying to say that I think I’ve cornered the market on being able to savor the acquired taste of agony. What I’m saying is that despite my mammoth list of idiosyncratic shortcomings, I still somehow have managed to get by.

I’ve survived the one thing that used to eat me from the inside. In fact, her passing has brought me a certain sort of peace that I have really needed, in a sense. Yes, I miss her dearly. I miss being able to talk with her on the phone and make her laugh until I think she’s going to pass out. I miss having my mother’s love. That’s something you get no more of once it’s gone, and I am acutely aware of that. Nevertheless, I never expected her to live forever, and in the end, I don’t need her to survive anymore. She gave me what I needed in life, and I have taken it from there.

Given her pain and her personal issues in life, I think that mercy has a big place in how some things pan out.

One thing it took me a while to recognize was the anger I felt at her being gone. For several months, I felt pissed off, even more than my usual amount, and I mistakenly attributed that to the impending birth of my daughter. I knew from experience, having gone through it once already, that having a child puts a bit of a damper on your being a creative, independent individual, which is something I must view myself to be in order to survive. And for the record, that wasn’t what was pissing me off, but it should have, because, Jesus, it has not been easy functioning as a human with two children.

My wife shares my aggressive need for solitude. Between us, we have no friends that we feel the regular need to visit with; not that we don’t care for anyone. It’s just that we are so private that it is difficult for us to spend much too much time with anyone without becoming very uncomfortable. Having children in the house is the great equalizer. They don’t give two shits how hermetic you are. They just want to have fun, or in my daughter’s case, she just wants to eat, poop, smile, sleep, and poop some more.

So, it’s not that I’m lamenting the loss of my otherwise explosive social life, because I never had one to begin with. I just would like the chance to record at my leisure, or sleep in, or not care about paying for daycare, or play guitar all night without getting in trouble, or read a book because I’m not going to fall asleep the moment I crack it open, or not have to go to another fucking children’s birthday party where I have to pretend like I like people just because our children are banished to the same daycare during the work week.

I keep coming back to me feeling alien in this world. I think I have become pretty good at being there but not being there. Know what I mean?

So, my mother is gone for good, and I am able to deal with it, but things are just a little big uglier as a result – myself included.

I’ve mulled over the idea of eulogizing her in here right at the one-year anniversary of her death, but I ultimately decided to leave her memory alone for a while. Thinking about what to write this week, I decided it was time to mention her, and in the process, thank her for all the work she put into keeping our fucked little lifeboat afloat. Yeah, we were pretty much lost at sea, and yeah I’m as lost as I’ve ever been as I write this today, but if she taught me anything, it’s that you laugh, wave your middle finger high, and get out of bed in the morning. Sometimes, that a bundle.

I don’t have a word to share with you on music. Well, maybe this. I am the sort of person who is caught up in the machinations of his life. Sometimes I make the mistake of forgetting who my friends really are. The way I am, aloof, vague, distant – it’s a wonder anyone cares to keep in touch with me at all. And so, when someone does something thoughtful for me, something that shows they are thinking about me in my absence, that can sometimes be the size of a mountain.

Son of Raven, who you folks should recall from his time logged amongst our ranks, and who, I should add, has been too busy to come round these parts much, twice did a small generous thing for me that meant a great deal. On his perusing the 99 Cent Store just down the street from the bookstore I work in (as does he on occasion), the young Mr. Raven discovered some interesting items in their music section. Nestled among the cutout Menudo CDs, and the Lithuanian pressings of Paul Anka’s greatest Arkansas folk songs were a couple gems that are not only totally badass, they are also utterly bizarre.

He stumbled across a collaborative CD between bassist extraordinaire, Bill Laswell, and anti-jazz sax monster, Peter Brotzmann, titled Low Life. For you Brotzmann fans out there, and I know there’s a couple of you fuckers, Low Life is one of those items that stands out from the pack a little for its being a tad off the beaten path for the artists involved, and also for being something that is not only out of print, but real tough to find shrink wrapped and virtually pristine. Nonetheless, there it was, languishing on the shelves of the 99 Cent Store. And the man among men, Lord Raven, not only picked himself up a copy, he went one further and grabbed one for me. A small act perhaps, but a huge gesture of kindness from a guy who never delivers anything less. And then, to top it off, he went one further. The next time he was trolling the same store for new items of cultural misplacement, he outdid even himself for his talents of serendipitous presence. There on the same shelf, where just days earlier, he had run across Low Life, he happens across a Last Exit CD. Last Exit is a band comprised of Brotzmann, Laswell, Ronald Shannon Jackson on drums and vocals, and electric guitarist, Sonny Sharrock. This band burned its way across Europe in the 80s, virtually kicking everyone’s ass along the way. The CD is taken from cassette recordings made during their 87 Europe tour, and the damn thing smokes. They rage like no one else, make it sound fun, and throw in the distinct sound of American blues and soul whenever they damn well feel like it. At a collectors price, this CD would be worth every penny, but to be found, again, shrink wrapped and sitting on the shelves of the world’s most progressive 99 Cent Store is nothing short of miraculous.

I miss my mother. I have so much I need to tell her. She never was able to meet her granddaughter, and I want so badly to tell her how I am right now, what I am going through, and above all, that on this day, in this life, for reasons all my own, I am enjoying the rarest of sensations: I am giddy… like a child. She would be smiling for me.

And I thank you too… because, well, you know…