love – One Foot In, One Foot Back

Skin and Bones

June 2, 2019 by yankeefran, posted in Uncategorized

This song’s title and the opening stanza paint a stark picture for me of an addict who has wasted away and can see the physical damage he has inflicted upon himself. The beginning of this song haunts me and makes me reflect sadly on people from my past. Since I have experienced a number of relationships with addicts at different stages of their journeys, I may be projecting my memories onto this song (Hello! Welcome to my blog!) so take what I say with a grain of salt. However, I think addiction has played a major role in the lives of the AB.

It’s the skin and bones that keep me on the road
The shoulder blades of a beast that haunts my soul
Wandering lonely and scared
I live the tragedy I shared

It’s quick to drag you in but hard to shake
A kiss that doesn’t match how much it takes
Growing stronger and loud
I lived it but now I’m wanting out

The first stanza alludes to addiction as “…a beast that haunts my soul” and the “tragedy” that the band sings about night after night in their concerts. The courage it must take for a songwriter to put his worst moments in a song is hard enough to muster. But to get on stage every night and relive it by singing about it? That is mind-blowing to me. You are standing there naked with all of your flaws on display. You relive the darkest days of your life with thousands of strangers who can recite every word of your songs even though their emotional investment is greatly overshadowed by yours. The second stanza is a clear depiction of addiction and how quickly it lures you in while destroying everything else in your life. I’ve seen addicts so caught up in the ecstasy of their high that they don’t realize they are being arrested or are sitting on a dirty bathroom floor. As someone who has never experimented with drugs but went through a period of heavy drinking, I can honestly say I was scared straight the first time I realized that I drove home and with no recollection of how I got there. Right then and there, I promised myself I wouldn’t ever be in that scary position again. Unfortunately, addicts in the throes of addiction just wake up and take up the “tin and board” like nothing ever happened even as their lives and the lives of their loved ones are being blown apart.

While this beginning portion of the song makes me think about addiction, the rest of the song resonates with me because of how it alludes to building a barrier between your heart and the rest of the world.

I built the fence, I hung the sign
Blood red letters said ‘Keep in mind
Where I been so don’t come in’
But how long can you live in shame
And drop a life long curse on your own last name
The trouble is, I’m used to it

Shame over past actions can affect you in so many ways. It can make you scared to try new things for fear of embarrassment. Shame can lead you to self-hatred and self-loathing which works like a vicious circle. “I feel ashamed so I hate myself which makes me feel more ashamed”. As the AB sing, you just get used to feeling bad about yourself. One thing shame doesn’t usually engender is an open heart. Even when someone has made it clear that he/she doesn’t care about the past, people who are mired in shame will do everything in their power to reject any kindness or notion of forgiveness. Isolation begets further confirmation that one is worthless. It’s not a great logical leap to addiction when one is constantly spinning his wheels in the grime and mud of past actions.

Trying to hide behind the “fence” can be seen as self-preservation. We all have been there, our hearts so broken by either the acts of another or by our own “stupid” actions. Most fences are temporary, with time and healing or someone else’s persevering love eventually honing a way through. But I wonder if people living in the past and feeling overwhelming regret think about the effect cutting themselves off can have on the people who love them. Having had some experience in being on the other side of a fence which was as strong as a cement wall (that I admittedly tried to knock down for too long) I thought I would shed some light on the consequences for others.

Your loved ones feel like they have done something wrong. Even when you insist that “It’s not you, it’s me” that shame you are running away from can be transferred easily to a person trying to reach you. Now instead of just you hurting, someone else in the world is being hurt by your presumed shortcoming.
Your loved ones can make things worse by trying to “fix” whatever is wrong with you. While a codependent person starts off with good intentions, that quickly escalates to a dysfunctional relationship that can ruin not only any chance you have of healing but also the self-esteem of the other person.
Your loved one simply gives up one day and moves on with his/her life. While you may think, “Good! I’m not good enough”, please know that this effect reverberates long after the person is “gone”. He/She who moves on only does so with unanswered questions, soul-crushing regrets, and more self-blame for getting involved with someone whose heart is locked away.

Now, reading over this list I realize that pointing out these effects sounds like I’m trying to “guilt” people into not putting up the fence. That is not my intention. Fence-builders don’t need more guilt because they usually cut themselves off out of concern for others. “She’s better off” is his motto. But I do want the fence-builders to realize that you are not sparing anyone by hiding your bad decisions or actions. Whereas you may think you are only hurting yourself, the opposite is true. The people that I have known who built those fences were much harder on themselves than I ever would be. One of those fence builders was my father, and even after he’s been gone for 6 years I still get sad over the way he couldn’t ever let me completely in. It was fear of rejection that made fence-builders want to hide in the first place. So if you ever find yourself feeling afraid to admit the truth about your past to someone, don’t let the fear lead you to cutting yourself off from a much brighter future. Give your friends and loved ones the chance to forgive you or just to acknowledge your history. It will not just be healing for you but it has the potential to lighten the emotional load on the other person. And if you are dealing with a fence-builder, try to send them prayers, good vibes, or other support that doesn’t tie your self-esteem to their healing. While we can love the fence-builders in our lives, we can not save them from their worst enemies: self-condemnation. Hopefully, one day soon he/she will take down that fence and let the light in.

Salina

May 25, 2019 by yankeefran, posted in Uncategorized

Some mornings I wake up hearing songs for no particular reason. I know there’s always a message in these songs, and it eats away at me until I can find the connection. Salina by the Avett Brothers is another one of those songs. But unlike other songs, the connection came to me fairly quickly this morning. I remember when I first heard this song I didn’t think too much of it. Maybe it was because it was clearly not a love song or a spiritually enlightened song like so many of the other AB tunes that I loved. But the more it came up on my iPhone shuffle, the more the simple melody and lyrics called out to me. Out of all the songs I’ve written about, the meaning of this one is the most straight forward: it is about places that the band has travelled to on its many tours:

From town to town and state to state
There’s people everywhere that try to capture us
We stole the cash and left our names
And almost slipped in Indianapolis
The rain it fell, the story went on
The rain it fell, and we got gone

Poughkeepsie hang up the telephone
I won’t answer your phone calls no more
New York, quit calling, New York leave me be

Salina, Kansas and Cleveland, Ohio are also mentioned as places to which the band has travelled.There doesn’t seem to be a particular reason why these places are mentioned. I think the randomness was purposeful; the places didn’t matter but the reason for the visits did. Upon listening to the whole song, we are left feeling like touring is the part of their career that is the most challenging. This seems to be a common complaint from musicians. The constant travel is the hard part of being a musician. I have read that artists like Keith Richards, Bruce Springsteen, and Bono live for the the 2+ hours on stage but hate the other 22 hours of the touring day. It certainly would make sense that Scott and Seth’s longing for North Carolina (which is their home state) is tied to the amount of time they have to spend away from family and friends.

Carolina, one day I’ll, someday I’ll come home
Carolina, one day I’ll, someday I’ll come home
Home
Home

This need to travel for their music to get out there and their personal need for the calmness and support of home life reminded me of the constant tensions felt whenever you try to follow a dream. There is the positivity of doing what you feel like you are born to do grating up against the hard work that you have to do to become successful. I think any career or pursuit involves things you hate to do in order to become successful. For instance, one part of teaching that I hate to deal with is the seemingly never-ending line of assessments that are required by either my state or my district. While some assessments can give me information I need to make my next moves in designing my instruction, there are too many others that are done mainly to check a box. I would rather spend the hour giving those kinds of assessments doing what I was born to do: working with children. I’m sure you can find a list of things that you “have” to do in your job that take away time from what drew you to this particular job in the first place. This seems to be part of the message of “Salina”. There are some hard things you have to do in order to get to the benefits,

This song also led me to think about the challenges that can be found in expressing your feelings for another person. In order to be in a fulfilling relationship you have to be open and honest about how you are feeling. I have had several instances in the past where telling someone how I felt about him placed me in the precarious spot of having to confront some difficult truths about love. Just as touring is the downside to being a musician, these byproducts of admitting your true feelings for someone are the downside to being authentic.

Vulnerability– Once you take the plunge and tell someone how you feel about them there is no turning back. You have exposed your heart to another which requires you to drop your defenses. You give that person the power to either elate you or destroy you with just a few words or even an unconscious facial expression. The time it takes for the other person to respond may only be seconds but your vulnerable state makes it feel like hours. The opposite can also be true. I remember telling a boy over the phone how I felt, and his first words were “Let me tell you a story…” . This was all it took for me to know that the feeling wasn’t reciprocated. As he droned on minute after minute about another friend who was dating a younger girl (at the time he was in college and I was in high school), the meaning instantly pierced my young heart. I immediately felt the keen pain and regret felt by someone who has set themselves up for a fall. Being vulnerable is an unavoidable side effect of telling someone the truth about your feelings.

Judgment- Even when your feelings are reciprocated by the other person, there are painful experiences just waiting to pounce. When you make your feelings for another person known to others, you lay yourself open for judgment from the peanut gallery (i.e. his friends, your friends, complete strangers). You may find yourself having to justify your love. The reasons behind the judgment are varied: you’re too young, too old, not his type, not good enough for him, too good for him, the wrong color, the wrong religion, not wealthy enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough and on and on. Judgment can come from people who care for you, people who care for him, and especially from yourself. Your own judgments can be the most damaging. Unless you are at a point in your life where you are confident enough to disregard the opinions of others, these self-doubts and verdicts of others can destroy the potential of any relationship.

Threat of abandonment– If you put your heart on the line and are honest with the one you love, then you face the very real threat of losing that person all together. Once you let the cat out of the bag, it is hard to get it back in (anyone who has tried to get a cat to do anything can attest to that!). You risk the person not only rejecting your love but also ending your friendship altogether. This can be due to his own uncomfortable feelings or because he already has someone that he feels the need to be loyal to. Continuing the friendship with you can be seen as being disloyal so you not only don’t get a partner but you also lose a friend. I don’t know if there is a feeling more devastating than abandonment. Perhaps it is because it is a rejection of such a basic need, the need to be loved. But when you feel the rejection of abandonment, it can trigger all sorts of fears and anxieties of not being lovable at all. This side effect can reverberate in your life for years.

Powerlessness- I wasn’t quite sure this was a word before looking it up, but it is truly descriptive of a negative side effect of expressing love to another person. You are literally giving that person the power to break your heart. Once you express your feelings, you have given up any pretense or any possibility of having the upper hand. This sounds so conniving but let me explain. When you are falling in love with someone, you try to do things to show your love and hope that he/she gets the message. You also try to protect yourself from giving away too much for fear of being rejected. But once you actually take the courageous step of saying how you feel out loud to your partner, your power is gone. Now he/she has command of the relationship. Your partner is now the one who will determine what happens next. Will you hear the words you hope to hear? Will you be feeling regret and self-recriminations? Will your relationship move forward? It is all out of your hands. When you say those words for the first time, you give up any control you may have had and must wait for the reaction of the other person.

With all of these drawbacks, it is incredible that anyone ever says those 3 little words to anyone else. So why do we do it at all? We do it because love can be a miracle in your life. When you say those words to the right person, they have the potential to change your life completely. Just as the Avett Brothers were born to write, compose, and sing their incredible music and lyrics, we were all created to feel the magic of love. Romantic love can be a risky venture, but the benefits far outweigh the pitfalls. And that’s a trade-off I’m willing to take.

Winter In My Heart

March 9, 2019March 9, 2019 by yankeefran, posted in Uncategorized

Melancholy is defined as pensive sadness, and so many of the Avett Brothers’ songs are lyrical embodiments of that definition. This song in particular is speaking to me on this cold day in March. It is as if the Brothers have totally invaded my heart space and interpreted my feelings perfectly, as wonderful writers tend to do.

It must be winter in my heart
There’s nothing warm in there at all
I missed the summer and the spring
The floating yellow leaves of fall

These words accurately describe how it feels when someone you love is gone from your life. The vitality, excitement, and passion you felt when your person was around helped stoke the fires of your heart and soul. In addition to the physical sensation of warmth, love helps make you a warmer person to others as well. When you are around people who are newly formed couples (i.e. having Spring in a heart), you can get away with a lot because they often are so focused on each other that they wouldn’t notice if you walked around with a frying pan on your head. I love to notice the hand-holding, the whispered comments, or the shared laughter of newly formed couples because it is often so pure and hopeful. Realizing you are attracted to someone is a highly intoxicating feeling that can blind you to any pesky negative realities that you may face as a couple. The only problem with this kind of heat is that it can cool off as quickly as it began if the circumstances aren’t right. Spring is also when people can mistaken infatuation with love or physical attraction with true compatibility.

As a couple matures into their Summer stage, things get more real. Emotional and physical intimacy begin to knock down the polite walls of privacy and definitely heat things up. I don’t have any proof to back this claim up, but I do feel the Summer of the relationship is when couples either sink or swim. If there is balance, communication, and respect being cultivated, then the relationship flourishes. The lack of those qualities (plus a number of many other deal-breakers) result in short-lived unions. Knock-down fights or passion-filled nights can be the found scattered throughout the summertime of a relationship. Some couples spend years in this stage while others hop the seasons of the heart quickly.

If a couple makes it beyond the Summer, the more relaxed and stable period of Fall is experienced. Even though it doesn’t have the excitement of Spring or the passion of Summer, Fall has its own heat too. Commitment is more like a slow-burn type of heat. This is the comforting feeling of a down blanket wrapped around you on the first night it falls below 50 degrees. It’s the difference between having central heating and having a space heater, It is dependable and all encompassing. The Fall stage of being a couple is when you know that no matter how big or little the argument is, there always will be a reconciliation at the end because both of you have made that commitment to each other.

All of this, of course, leads us to the Winter of the heart.

The air in there is frigid cold
I don’t know what the reasons are
The calendar says August 1
But it’s still winter in my heart

Some couples reach the Winter at different times. One person “falls out of love” with the other. Some couples may both decide they are too incompatible to continue as a couple even though they still have love for the other person. There are probably as many scenarios for Winter coming as there are couples. The frigidity is due to the loss of someone who was so essential in their life from day to day. The healthiest thing people can do at this point is to take care of themselves, wish their partner well, and look forward to their next Spring.

But there is another kind of Winter of the heart that so many people, including myself, experience. This can happen when you are still stuck in a particular season because the other person is unable or unwilling to give a relationship a chance

They say flowers bloom in spring
Red and golden, blue and pink
They say seasons turn in time
Theirs are changing, why won’t mine?

Sometimes it gets very hard when you see so many other people, people who maybe aren’t the nicest people in the world, enjoying their Springs, Summers, or Falls. I have absolute faith in the belief that you have to give love to get love. But what’s hard to accept is that the love you give will not only not be returned, but actually ignored or thrown back in your face. When you and another person have great rapport, shared interests, mutual respect, and physical attraction, it is only natural to expect it to move to the next stage unless…

-the other person runs away

-the other person denies the attraction

-the other person is married or in a committed relationship.

-one of both of you is afraid of commitment

Maybe it’s the expectation that brings on the Winter. There are so many reasons why people are walking around with Winter in their hearts. And I have no great words of advice because my Winter feels like it has been ongoing for as long as I can remember. At one time I thought it was loneliness, but there are too many people who love me for that to be it. My life is full, and I’m usually very content with what I have built so far. No, this latest “polar vortex” has less to do with what is wrong with my life and more to do what with who I’m missing from my past. I don’t want a new Spring unless it’s with him because we never had the chance to see if things could work. He is keeping what he wants hidden from view and as long as he does that, I’m stuck.

The music and lyrics of the Avett Brothers have transfixed me because of the words of wisdom that I have been able to use as seeds for my blog writing. But I’ve searched the lyrics for a solution to this Winter problem and haven’t been able to come up with anything. Chances are this blast of coldness won’t last long, and I’ll go back to being hopeful and optimistic about love. Life is too short to be frozen in time.