Thirty Sad Songs and One Sweet Giveaway

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If you know me at all, you know that I only listen to sad music.

I actually have a playlist for entitled "Just In Case I Die: A Musical Tribute To Kelly Bergin" on my computer, because I will haunt any fool who tries to play "Spirit in the Sky" at my funeral. I will pull a Tom Sawyer and fall out of the ceiling to shut that shit off. It may be dark, but I want to be prepared to combat any crappy music played at my dope funeral party.

So whenever I meet someone new, I almost always ask to hear their favorite depressing song. I like bulking up my library with classics I haven't heard of. I may generally a positive person (stop laughing, I'm trying!), but nothing makes me feel and write like a good sad, song.

When I first met Matt Logelin nearly four years ago, the first thing we talked about was music (and booze). Since I moved to Los Angeles, Matt has dragged me along to Amoeba on Sunset more than a few Tuesdays to pick up a new album. Sure, he may pretend not to know me as I scour the VHS tapes for a rare copy of Hanson's 1998 tour video (buy me a copy, Internet!), but I know he totally appreciates my unique musical insight. (i.e., repeating things I read on Pitchfork).

So when I talked to Matt about giving away a copy of his book, coming April 3rd to paperback, I tried to think of a unique way to introduce Matt to those of you who may not know him. Music plays a big part in his memoir, which details the loss of his wife, Liz, 27 hours after the birth of their daughter Madeline. The narrative of Two Kisses for Maddy is loosely shaped around music both Matt and Liz loved, and I know a big thrill for Matt was getting some of his favorite artists to allow their lyrics to be reprinted in his book. (I also know how much he enjoys watching Maddy develop her own awesome music taste, no doubt aided by his catalog of songs with the words 'ghost', 'ninja' and 'Batman' in them.)

Matt graciously agreed to write up a playlist of his favorite songs AND allow me to give away a copy of Two Kisses for Maddy to 2 readers. I also wrote up my favorite sad songs, in case you also love weeping in your car while stuck in traffic on the 405.

Two winners will be chosen at random but first must provide their favorite happy, upbeat song. God knows our playlists need it.

But before you try to pump us up and make us see rainbows and sunshine, here are our picks for Songs That Make You Less Dead Inside...

Hands of a Child, Chest of a Lady

Good morning and welcome to Music Monday, a new column on this here blog wherein I post an original song every Monday. So, like, once a month.

Oh, for all those new readers (a family member who just learned to read maybe?), by "write and sing", I mean "get an annoying stream of words in my head and then grab my child-sized acoustic guitar and play the one chord I know over and over".

I've written multiple "songs" about my sister and her stupid, beautiful red hair that always gets her a ton of attention; about Gen and that time she ate cat food; I've even written a thoughtful song for my mom when I was too poor to buy her a Mother's Day gift!

But I failed to break into autobiographical territory until this "song", about the unfortunate disproportionation (is that a word?) of my body.

So for all of you out there with T-Rex arms and lady boobs, this song goes out to you.

Sorry, Dad.

Note: I don't write down lyrics or even try to do a second take. That's why all my songs end abruptly and don't have any structure. Sorry, all real musicians, THIS IS A JOKE! Also, can I join fun.? 

Note, continued: I'm only writing this note because my one piece of blogger hate mail came from someone telling me I didn't know how to sing or play guitar. Uh, duh! Also send me more hate mail, that totally made me feel cool.

real time ramblings

in the thick of the pain (the smashing of hands into walls, the vomiting from its intensity, the dealing of what is utterly unfixable)...

i must remember what makes me whole.

i don't have a choice when it comes to this life.

i have been doing this a long time.

i sometimes wonder if i'd be happier without all this––these twice monthly bouts of ulcers and the nasty side effects of prednisone--

and i find the answer is a simple no.

if i did not know this pain,

if i had not known it my entire life,

i would not appreciate the things that the healthy do not.

i would be annoyed more easily.

i would hate more.

the joy i see

because of what i don't get to see...

it makes me whole.

i am not grateful for this disease, no.

but i am grateful to have this perspective. to have earned it.

i am proud that i am not bitter anymore.

Gravy

On my birthday, it was hot and we drank outside. 

The sun was persistent, staining my cheek a cherry red. Matt and I had lunch and beer and a new friend, Erica, joined us. We talked for a long time until the sun buried itself in the west and I changed into my dress and went to Nikki and Jacek's, where my friends sang me happy birthday.

Rachel and my aunt and uncle took me out for a wonderful birthday dinner and Erin met us, straight from the airport. I fell asleep here in Los Angeles, my head heavy and happy, warm on my pillow. 

Two days later, Erin and I got into a rented Chevy Aveo and pointed the compass North.

--

We headed up the 1, a packed 24 hours in Santa Barbara behind us. 

I sat in the passenger seat, afraid to drive, that a quick and thoughtless jerk of the wheel would send us careening over the rail and into the Pacific.

The 1 starts to open up like the beach roads I drove down as a kid, but as you wind north, the terrain becomes craggy. Juts of exposed rock dot the sea, pointed and sharp.

And although visibility is shit, there is real clarity in this view, on this stretch from Los Angeles to San Francisco. 

We watched the narrow road take us north to Carmel. The car filled with laughter and gripped knuckles and corny statements that you'd find on bumper stickers.

But when I said I was so fucking lucky to live this life, I meant it.

--

We stopped for grilled cheese and french fries, desperate to be in Big Sur by sunset. I had heard it was breathtaking, but I was not sure the beauty I'd seen could be beat.

We were lost and then found, three miles too far. Stalled in traffic by beach goers with a similar mission, I hopped out of the car and jogged half a mile in boots, my camera swinging around my neck.

Erin caught up and we trudged through a wooded alcove that suddenly, inexplicably, led to the sea.

To this.

I ran up the rocks, determined to find the best view. But after falling in deep pools of ocean more than once, I put my phone and cameras down so I could experience the sunset with my eyes, instead of through the lens.

Pre-fall

It's hard to really see when you are surrounded by beauty that forces you into a tizzy, desperate to capture every last inch of the wonder. To find a way to download the beauty and keep it with you, forever.

We stayed until the sun had finally set and we headed to Carmel, anxious for civilization and cell service.

Erin was cold.

--

Five days later, we ambled along Haight Street, trying to make a decision.

Do we do it? Do we get tattoos?

For years, I've had wrestled with the decision to get one. Most of my peers have at least one, but until the past year or so, drawing on myself with Sharpies was just enough.

I have a complicated relationship with my body. Not in a normal "OMG, my sweatpants are tight" way, but as someone who has never felt ownership over her own self.

February 4, 2012

I am constantly being examined by strangers, and poked at for science's sake. I have scars that are big and deliberate, proof of a trauma I did not court.

There's a part of me that has always wanted to mark my skin myself, and to do so in a way that felt real, and meaningful. 

February 26, 2012

So, on Thursday, I decided on what I wanted and where. I wanted a paper airplane because it represents writing and travel, all in a small design. And I wanted it on my forearm, because it is so often the site of my scars and bruises. 

I wanted to see something new.

--
As I watched the sun set in Big Sur, I had the feeling that I could be anywhere, and as long as I had my writing, my camera, and my credit card, I could be content. 

I found comfort in knowing that what we call home can be changed.

And that gives me peace, peace I first found in the trip I took to Paris and London by myself last spring. It continues now, as I live 3,000 miles away from where I was born.

I am slowly building a life that allows me to see the sunset in Big Sur, the Macy's fireworks over the Hudson, and my f'nieces on the sand on the Jersey Shore.

That is more than enough.

Everywhere else–everything else–is gravy*.

San Francisco Beach, February 25, 2012

*: Donations to my travel fund greatly appreciated

THE RULES OF INHERITANCE- A Review

Obligatory Note Thing: This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club. The opinions expressed are my own.

Non-obligatory Note: BUY SOME KLEENEX WHILE READING THIS. 

Non-obligatory Note, Part 2: If you know me at all, you know I read a lot about death. Sort of obsessively, one might (and has) observe. It's possible that my struggles with cancer and lupus have led me to bury my pain and fear of death in the tales of other, greater tragedies. But in these works, I find connection and reassurance. They make me a little bit braver.

Claire Bidwell Smith's The Rules of Inheritance is a gutting but beautiful memoir about the author's loss of her parents, at a young age. When I read a short synopsis before I agreed to review the book, I was immediately reminded of Dave Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, a book I once examined as a literature student. While the situations each author faces are similar, these are two very different books, both sharply rendered in the retelling of unthinkable tragedy.

In The Rules of Inheritance, Bidwell Smith recounts the illness and death of her parents, first her mother at 18, and then her father at 25. The book is written in the present tense, even as she writes about the past. Her pain, drawn out in the current, is both thrilling and gut-wrenching. 

The narrative, much like the healing process itself, is not linear. Each section is headlined by one of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross' 5 stages of grief. Rules of Inheritance jumps between these stages, so that in one section, Smith may be 21; in another, 28. 

Reading this felt like a shock to my system, in the best way. Starkly beautiful in its gritty, unflinching honesty, the narrative will easily draw you in. Her pain is intense and it is real, left for us to absorb. 

Unquestionably dark, she recounts her relationships, struggle with alcohol and wandering twenties. But ultimately Bidwell Smith builds toward a hopeful ending, as she reaches her early 30s and becomes a mother, wife, and grief therapist.

What Bidwell Smith achieves with this book is a work that will serve as a connection to between her grief and the grief of readers. But even those who haven't experienced tragedy will connect with the book, from her desperate need for love and security, to the risky behavior she indulges in as a twentysomething. (Someting I know nothing about!)

Such a big part of growing up is coming to terms with the past, with all its ugliness and beauty. Bidwell Smith manages to capture her past self as it was, as it happened. In doing so, she has written a riveting memoir about grief, and left us with the reminder that life can still exist, even when it seems that you have lost it all.


(Follow along with the BlogHer book discussion, here: http://www.blogher.com/bookclub/now-reading-rules-inheritance)

san francisco

we arrived late monday afternoon and unpacked the rental car, shedding three days worth of inhabitance and shaking the lint and dust off our jeans. i lost my debit card in the debrief, but i would not know this until later.

i stretched my arms out fully and widened my shoulders. i grabbed my bags, and we walked out into a sunny San Francisco. 

-

"let's take a look in here," my friends said. every shop we stopped in was busy, flush with tourists and natives, off for President's Day.

my knees ached and my calves seized. i sat in a chair as they shopped. i took off my sunglasses and without a prescription, i saw shapes and hair, nothing concrete.

i confused a stranger for a friend and admitted that i'd never felt more in tune with a city's style. every shirt being sold looked like something i'd already owned.

-

we got in the car and went down the curviest road in the world. the curves reminded me of the parking garage at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, a place where i spent a lot of time as a child.

my mom would gun the gas, likely topping out at 30 MPH. but for me this was a roller coaster ride, the best part of the trip.

we'd get happy meals after, and this too allowed me to tune out the negatives of these visits and focus only on simple, childhood rewards.

ten years after my last visit to CHOP, and i miss that garage, that time with my mother.

-

i woke up yesterday in a strange bed, in a new place. 

i walked to the bank and then to coffee and i bought myself a blueberry pancake. and i felt so warm, sitting there, reading a book that i must review by tomorrow.

this is my favorite part of being a nomad: finding a piece of an unknown city that feels like mine, and settling in there, if only for a moment.

-

san francisco makes me feel like things are possible. that it's another place that i feel home, that i could possibly be one day.

i've felt this way about new york, and paris, and los angeles.

and there is still so much more to see.

twenty six

Twenty weeks ago, I rode my bike around the neighborhood with my father, inhaling the summer air.

"I can't wait to get to LA", I said. "The weather will always be like this."

--
I spent four weeks at home for the holidays, sandwiched between the mid points of December and January. I found myself rapidly regressing–no fault of place or season, just my own state of mind.

As I woke up to another debilitating hangover from another embarrassing night that made me cringe, I wondered why I did this. I could not be at peace at home, and the reason for that was the same that made me want to stay.

But I cannot fix problems that are unfixable, and I cannot save those who refuse to be saved.

It took me four weeks to book a return ticket and I will admit that a big part of getting back on that plane was pride, proof I hadn't failed at this big adventure I had hyped.

But mostly, I did not want to blame illness as an excuse for staying put, even when I knew I could.
--
On Martin Luther King Day, a car picked me up at 4 am and I slept as we flew up the New Jersey Turnpike and into Queens.

I disembarked, grabbed my bags and waited for my plane.
--
Matt said: "I didn't think you'd come back."
Erin said: "I can't believe you came back."
Rachel said: "I was sure you wouldn't come back."

No one thought I was coming back.

But four weeks have flown by. I have settled completely into a new job that is challenging and interesting and allows me to work from home in my 1987 Phil Simms jersey (G-MEN!!) and workout shorts that haven't seen much of a workout lately.

My memories of last week’s hospital visit are already fading. They faded as they happened, my brain fuzzy with Morphine, my body limp with pain.

These things have slowed but not stopped me. My last hospitalization had me in bed for a month but this time I am moving slowly, trying to catch the slow winter light as it tumbles from the back of my building into our front courtyard.

In four weeks, I have gone to my appointments, filled my medicines, slept, drank margaritas, took notes, bought a car, and decorated my new bedroom with empty photo frames.
--
A few days before I flew back to California, my lovely cousin Liz had a baby boy named William.


When Liz was pregnant, her doctors noticed a mass on the baby's lungs. No one was sure what would happen at birth, so we sighed and cried, wrung our hands, drank our whiskey and whispered silent Hail Marys. I wrote his birthdate on the beach like a prayer, and although he waited until the next day to appear, rendering me incorrect, I think he was readying himself for us, for our love.

And he came out screaming like a champ. Next month he will have a CAT scan and a meeting with a pediatric surgeon. He'll have to be sedated, this blonde gem of a boy, while he undergoes his first tests. He won't remember, or be traumatized.


He will not know another normal.


On Friday, I was asked to be William's godmother. It's possible that three years of having "Whatever Gets Me Godmother" as my religious affiliation on Facebook has finally pulled through, but I think I was asked for a different reason than that.

I think baby William is going to kick ass at this and any other medical test, and I think he will be stronger for it. I think he will impress doctors and knock out ladies with his blonde hair, and I think he will be fine.

He will be fine.

Because that's just how my godson and I roll.
--
My dad told me recently that I sounded happier out here, happier than I've been in a long time. This is where I am meant to be, as I leave twenty five behind and inch closer to twenty six, fully embracing what my gut has told me.

Go where the light is, it says. Follow that light.

This year, I learned to listen. To get better without getting better. To allow change.

And to find that brightness and to keep it with me, wherever I go. 


(Let's do this, 26.)