We Were Up In Heaven, And Now We’re In The Mud

I’ve been married for eighteen years.

I still do not understand how it works. I’ve blasted millions of words into the ether, one way or the other, in the last two decades, but in my heart of hearts I know that I’ve never looked at it straight on. I look upon the whole situation using a kind of intellectual peripheral vision. It’s pagan perhaps, or sublime – I don’t know – to be afraid to look right at something for fear it will go away when viewed.

I used to play music for money. I fell in with the best kind of fellows for it. They didn’t care a fig about what we were doing except that we should entertain the audience. We didn’t invest pop songs with superfluous meaning. It meant nothing to us one way or another what you wanted to hear. We avoided what we couldn’t pull off, and ignored the cranky calls for Freebird, but that’s about it.

I noticed when I had to learn a song that I liked, (that was a very rare occurrence, as my tastes varied wildly from our audience almost to the point of unanimity) taking it apart to see how it worked spoiled it for me. It ceased to hold any entertainment value for my use. It was either amusing or challenging to play, and you’d gauge its appeal to the audience, but it wasn’t the same sort of an animal for me any more.

I have absolutely no idea why my wife would descend from her heavens and come and stand with me in my mud. And I have absolutely no intention of asking her.