i wish i'd stayed asleep today

close to me ~ the cure
close to me (live) ~ the cure
close to me (cover) ~ why?

"just try to see in the dark,
just try to make it work,
to feel the fear before you're here.

i make the shapes come much too close,
i pull my eyes out,
hold my breath,
and wait until i shake."

i have far too many memories that the cure triggers, a film's worth really, or possibly a the first half of a novel. for years (and then some) i could not make a mix tape without including one of three songs from the cure. they were never necessarily my favorites, as with the memories, i have far too many favorite cure songs to ever just pick three. yet, it was a certain three that always tapped on my musically-obsessed shoulder and said choose me when i was making mix selections. this song was one of the three.

this morning, in the pre-sun coming up hours, the song recalls a myriad of memories. they flutter by, some in jangly hiccups of images like some dusty film strip rolled out on a cart in a high school classroom. they all collide into each other in non-linear fashion, which honestly is the way my mind often works, random - ever random.

i remember dancing at cloud nine at knott's berry farm, the discounted admission with emptied agree shampoo bottles. we used to buy them on the way and pour out the sticky green liquid into the trash cans before buying our tickets. another memory, my first car over-crowded with friends, conversations overlapping as the music played. mike would make a crack about "the next song will be the cure" because eventually he recognized my three song pattern. i also see the first cure album i procured, on vinyl (as i seemed to have most of their albums on cassette, back then). it was not a traditional album per se, but some kind of collection of singles. it was a birthday present from a girl i barely knew in high school, yet we did spend most of the time in u.s. history class discussing music.

it used to be so easy

the last day of summer ~ the cure

"all that i have,
all that i hold,
all that is wrong.
all that i feel for, or trust in, or love,
all that is gone.

it used to be so easy,
i never even tried.
yeah, it used to be so easy."

i know this is not the true last day of summer, but with the end of a long weekend for most of the people i know, and the girls heading back to school tomorrow, it certainly feels like it. this song captures those feelings to me, the last gasps of late mornings and bits of careless abandon that the perception of summer provides, watching it drift away like clouds clearing the midday skies.

it isn't the same once you are out of school. the transition from summer to fall is more about the passing of time, or fashion choices, or what is playing on the television, and the the expectation of cooler weather. it isn't the bittersweet farewell to freedoms that you feel as a child.

but, no matter what, it is near escapable not to catch some of that feeling. just walking around the local grocery, or picking up a newspaper, you cannot escape the sights of shiny new binders, pen and pencil sets, and sweater-weather sales. in all of it there is that frenzied excitement as so many of us stand at the cusp of another year.

i see it in my children's eyes. the way they flicker with nervous energy, the coming together of enthusiasm and dread. fresh starts are made of this, i suppose. and all of it is beautiful, formidable and vividly real. i think part of my love for new starts hold my breath a little as this change is ready to begin; part of me is holding my breath.

it used to be so easy.

another time undone

keep art alive; art by allison torneros

"hopelessly drift in the eyes of the ghost again,

down on my knees and my hands in the air again,

pushing my face in the memory of you again;

but, i never know if it's real,

never know how i wanted to feel."

when i write somewhere in my head a title looms; stark and distant, at times, but there all the same. i don't know how much it affects the words used, or the plots turns and eventual end, but it must. i would think it would have to dictate something. occasionally, though, words fly out of me as if someone has sliced open a vein and left me bleeding. and it is this, the sudden and determined outpouring, that i sometimes find myself labeling it 'untitled'. there is freedom there, mystery, and perhaps it lends itself to a delivery that is ripe for the reader's own interpretation.

with this song, i know i have felt it mean different things to me at different times. and maybe, in it's lack of a substantial title, it is left more pliable. i know i have molded it to fit, and change. even today, sitting here writing a bit of fiction on the side, i hear it and it layers over my words. a soundtrack happening without my knowing, or planning. untitled, yet fitting so well in a piece i have given a name to. and it is here, playing along, and fitting right in.

untitled ~ the cure

but i never know if it's real

keep art alive; art by kelly haigh

"we are walking down the street, holding hands. there’s a playground at the end of the block and i run to the swings and climb on, and henry takes the one next to me, facing the opposite direction, and we swing higher and higher, passing each other, sometimes in synch and sometimes streaming past each other so fast it seem likes we’re going to collide, and we laugh, and laugh, and nothing can ever be sad, no one can be lost, or dead, or far away: right now we are here, and nothing can mar our perfection, or steal the joy of this perfect moment.”

the time traveler’s wife ~ audrey niffenegger

untitled ~ the cure