I'm thinking about my buddy JP Scofield this Christmas morning. He wrote my favorite Christmas song ever, I think, entitled 'Kick for Christmas'. It's a gritty rhythm and blues number about a couple of kids' truest wish for Christmas, that their mom stop using heroin and come home. I was wanting to hear it this morning and I found it online. Please check it out as you're reading this post. Here's the link:
vimeo.com/11832078
JP was the bass player, vocalist and one of the songwriters of the Eugene based Whopner County Country Allstars (that's not a typo, just a strange quirky name and he was a quirky songwriter) He just had a sense about him that was slightly askew; he'd throw in these lyrical surprises that would often make me smile. And oh my God, could the man sing! Every time I'd see him, not that often, we'd smile, exchange a greeting, chat a bit, and we clearly had respect and good feeling for one another. JP killed himself a few months ago, he battled depression, he was a regular at AA, he tried all kinds of ways to overcome his problem, and then blew his brains out when he had had enough. I miss him today, Christmas.
And I'm like a character in a Christmas blues this morning, heart kinda broken, back at the internet cafe trying to once again tell the truth, write the truth as my survival mechanism. I'm talking about emotional survival, nothing physical or scary, don't get me wrong. But I had a miserable time between the hours of 3am and 6am (the alcohol abuse hours), not my alcohol abuse of course, but that of a certain woman who I care about a lot, and this morning was a huge step in the wrong direction. And now I'm in that zone of 'I was a fool to care', or 'how naive can I be?' or 'what was I thinking?'. But the good news is that these feelings, these heartaches are temporary (though powerful), and I feel like I have a really reliable way of working the feelings through... by writing about them and watching them evolve (hopefully). Hey it's a theory....
And in fact, there's so much to be said for keeping the rhythm going, stopping in for my heartbreak cappuccino, could hardly speak, N asked what's wrong? Melly Kissmess, why you sad? She feels like a friend, it's nice, especially on the other side of the world from my community. And then head over to the internet place like I do every day, and there's a little lightness of being in the knowledge that whatever is going on in my mind is somehow transformed by the act of writing about it. There's a certain amount of comfort in that knowledge. I'm not going to spend the day helplessly brooding, crying, wondering... I'd rather spend it uncovering. This process seems to disempower the feelings, trump them, if you will, as if no matter what is going on, I have the opportunity to describe it, approach it, transform it.
The specifics aren't that important, and I'd just as soon not cast M in a bad light. Christmas Eve was a big night in the bar, they stayed open real late, til like 5 am, she has an ex recently back in town, he's an alcoholic, so naturally they went for a drink after work, and she was gonna come over after that... (drunk at 6am or so). Not what I'm looking for, especially in light of our recent promises... mine to trust and accept, hers to cut down on tobacco and alcohol. How long did that last? 2 and a half days? like I say, naive on my part, but I did my best. I was ready to leave the bar after playing music until 1:30 and I could see what was developing. The ex is hanging around, they haven't really had a chance to talk, the handwriting was on the walls. It was really hard for me to leave. A big part of me wanted to have a little chat with him along the lines of 'I'm really attached to this woman... she's trying to not be drinking a lot... can you respect that? But that would have been 'not trusting' and my promise and my agreement was to trust, so I fought the urge to 'do the jealous guy thing' and I exited the scene. M is like, 'Don't worry about Dennis, I'll see you later'. She usually gets to my place around 3, but I figured it might be later due to Xmas on a Saturday night and a day off for the bar on Sunday. I know they tend to stay open later in that situation.
But I was extremely anxious back in my room, tried to read, tried to sleep, my heart was going a mile a minute. At around 5am, I figured what the hell, maybe the bar is still open? Walked over there to see Jeff and Dau just locking up. They lookied at me with something like pity and concern, told me M and Dennis had walked around the corner for a drink. (no big surprise) I had to decide which way to go... back home or to the bar. Hell, let's get this over with, I walked around the corner... saw one of M's friends put her hand to her mouth when she realized that I had shown up, uh oh, this could be interesting. They had just arrived, she was surprised to see me.. the three of us went out into the street for a conversation. They were both fairly drunk, not staggering but not too far away from that. And then I get to see the drunk M and it's just not appealing. She gets back into that 'I'm a bad girl' mode, isn't able to listen, isn't able to cop to the fact that she didn't do what she agreed on. It just sucks to see someone you care about go down that road. I have no problem with the guy, he was honest and we would get along. But it was one of those Thailand triangles that you hear about a lot, and I was an unwitting and unwilling participant. One of the funniest moments (OK the only funny moment) was when this European guy was driving slowly past and he rolls down the window to say, that's how the Thai women are, it's a different culture. Actually, there's nothing funny about it, but it was an apt comment, well timed and delivered in a Swedish accent. All the world's a stage...
She said, I said I was coming to see you...and he corroborated that. I said, if you're coming, come now. She said no, I said, goodnight, don't come. Just another night it Thailand, it happens all the time. I went home, slept a tiny bit, a few hours maybe, and now it's Christmas Day... and so this is Christmas.... I'll see what happens, will give her some space. If she has it in her to contact me and apologize, I will accept and see what happens from there. We were getting really close (he said naively) so it's hard to imagine that she's ready to just cut me loose. I don't feel ready yet to cut her loose... though I probably should. But I'm gonna play out this story, learn what it is I need to learn, maybe write my own Christmas blues (I have that instinct) and vamos a ver. My heart feels good at the moment.... gonna swim, sleep, soldier on. Thinking of you, JP. Thanks for an awesome song...
rich
