Melancholy

Dear reader,


Today's music has no soul. I mean, sure, musical instruments and the musicians who play them are getting better and better each year, but it's like they focus so much on getting the song to sound cool that they've forgotten to add a little soul in it. That's why I love oldies and indie music so much. With old music, they didn't have the technology we had, so they focused on their lyrics and their voices, and the emotions their songs conveyed; they focused on the message. As for indie music, well...it's the simplicity of their songs, you know. They manage to keep it real; they create good, honest music without all the unnecessary bells and whistles (pun totally intended).

I've been feeling melancholy all day. You know the word 'melancholy' is defined as 'a feeling of thoughtful sadness'. Funny how something as prosaic and dry as a dictionary can manage to sound downright poetic. Anyway. I thought I'd spread the thoughtful sadness around, while simultaneously sharing some soulful music for a change. Oh, don't worry, dear reader. Just because I'm thoughtfully sad, it doesn't mean I'll go all emo on you. Incidentally, am I the only one who finds Simple Plan whiny? Poor me, poor me, I'm so sad and lonely cause nobody understands me or sees me for who I really am. Seriously. Switch to decaf and shut up already.

Yeah. Sorry about the rambling, I'm in a rambling kind of mood. So, let's get down to the music.

I love this song. I just go all starry-eyed and quiet when I listen to it. It just gets to me, you know? I know, I know, I know, I know, I know...

Ah, yes. My sister doesn't get why I like this song so much, she says it's boring. But I think it's quaint and innocent and heartfelt. And I'm just digging the folksy vibe, man.

Okay, so that last one is neither oldie nor indie. Indian, yeah, but not indie. I just thought I'd include it because it's so simple and so beautiful: beautifully simple, or simply beautiful. Take your pick.

So, um, yeah. That's all I got. I'm gonna go now. Okay? Okay.

Bye.

Yours,

Figgy the Thoughfully Sad

Cry Baby

Dear Reader,

I have a shocking confession to make. I am a cry baby.

No, but seriously. I cry over the silliest things. And the funny thing is I don't cry when I'm sad, not usually. I cry when I'm...touched. Or whatever. I cry over certain movies, but only when I'm alone. Or in a movie theatre, because then it's dark and nobody can see me. I cry over songs, not necessarily sad ones. Honest, well-written songs, or songs about love; family love, love love, love for a pet. You know, love. I cry over concepts. Abstract, wishy-washy stuff that can't really be explained in words. I cry when I realize something deeply shattering and true. I cry over photographs or pictures. Thought-provoking paintings and stuff like that. I cry over books. Oh man, do I cry over books. I balled my eyes out when Beth in 'Little Women' died, and then again over Jo's poem about the three sisters. I didn't just sniffle or tear up or anything. I sobbed. I practically wept.

Anyway, the list goes on and on. I even cry when I'm embarrassed. Well, not cry cry. I just get a little teary-eyed. Then I have to avoid eye contact so that nobody sees the tears. Reminds me of that line in that Harry Potter movie (don't ask me which, after the second one they've all blurred together in my mind) when that sleazy reporter interviewed Harry and printed something atrociously untrue about him. Something like 'his eyes swimming with the ghosts of his past'.


Wow. Having a blog is really emboldening. I'd never say something like this to anyone, not even my mother. I'd probably start to, but then inevitably chicken out at the last minute and perform an Abrupt Topic Change to cover my tracks.

So yeah. My point is, I cry way too much. As in, above average. Why is that? I hardly ever get emotional. I think I might appear cold or detached to other people because I never really react the way any normal person in that situation would. Like at my grandfather's funeral: I didn't cry (not really anyway), but I wrote a blog post about him. It's like my emotions quota is lopsided. Like I have more than the average amount of resources set aside for 'Cry Over Silly Things', and because of that, I don't have enough left over for 'Cry Over Things That Actually Make Sense'.

I stumbled across a song recently--a friend posted it up on Facebook, I think. It's an oldie, but new at the same time. It's a cover of Don McLean's 'Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)' by Joanna Wang. I wish people paid as much attention to the lyrics as they do to the music these days. They just don't write songs like these anymore.




Starry, starry night
Paint your palette blue and grey
Look out on a summer's day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul.
Shadows on the hills
Sketch the trees and the daffodils
Catch the breeze and the winter chills
In colours on the snowy linen land.

And now I understand what you tried to say to me
How you suffered for your sanity
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen
They did not know how
Perhaps they'll listen now.

Starry, starry night
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze
Swirling clouds in violet haze reflect in
Vincent's eyes of China blue.
Colours changing hue
Morning fields of amber grain
Weathered faces lined in pain
Are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand.

And now I understand what you tried to say to me
How you suffered for your sanity
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen
They did not know how
Perhaps they'll listen now.

For they could not love you
But still your love was true
And when no hope was left in sight
On that starry, starry night.
You took your life as lovers often do;
But I could have told you, Vincent
This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.

Starry, starry night
Portraits hung in empty halls
Frameless heads on nameless walls
With eyes that watch the world and can't forget.
Like the strangers that you've met
The ragged men in ragged clothes
The silver thorn of bloody rose
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow.

And now I think I know what you tried to say to me
How you suffered for your sanity
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen
They're not listening still
Perhaps they never will.

This song almost made me cry. Almost. There were other people in the room, so I contented myself with just staring intensely at the computer screen while the song played. I usually look down on covers--lack of originality and all that--but, I have to say, I think I prefer Joanna's version to the real one by Don McLean. Don't get me wrong, I love McLean's music. He's an amazingly skilled songwriter and singer. But Joanna managed to capture more of that sadness and tragedy in her voice and in the music than McLean did. Her voice suits the mood of the song perfectly, and slowing down the tempo made a huge difference.

Anyway, this song just touches me so much. Hopelessness, despair, insanity, beauty. All in one song. Can you imagine what Van Gogh had to go through? How would he be treated if he were born in this era? He'd probably be prescribed all sorts of antidepressants and things, and spend the rest of his days in a doped-up, diluted state of existence. If he were 'cured', would he still manage to create such great works of art? Do you think he was talented because of or despite his mental disorder? Sometimes the ones we deem insane are actually more in tune with reality than we are. It's like they got too close to the truth, and it scared them so much that they just broke down. Are we the crazy ones, and are they the sane ones?

So, yeah. I think I've nattered on quite enough for one day. I'll be leaving now, I've got an English report to write. Til next time, dear reader, I remain...

Yours,

Figgy the Cry Baby

Touched

Dear reader,




It's not often you read or see something (on the Internet, no less) that touches you so deeply you tear up, trying to swallow the lump of emotions in your throat--and would have cried if your sister weren't in the room with you. That's what this story did to me.

To Write Love On Her Arms

Pedro the Lion is loud in the speakers, and the city waits just outside our open windows. She sits and sings, legs crossed in the passenger seat, her pretty voice hiding in the volume. Music is a safe place and Pedro is her favorite. It hits me that she won't see this skyline for several weeks, and we will be without her. I lean forward, knowing this will be written, and I ask what she'd say if her story had an audience. She smiles. "Tell them to look up. Tell them to remember the stars."

I would rather write her a song, because songs don't wait to resolve, and because songs mean so much to her. Stories wait for endings, but songs are brave things bold enough to sing when all they know is darkness. These words, like most words, will be written next to midnight, between hurricane and harbor, as both claim to save her.

Renee is 19. When I meet her, cocaine is fresh in her system. She hasn't slept in 36 hours and she won't for another 24. It is a familiar blur of coke, pot, pills and alcohol. She has agreed to meet us, to listen and to let us pray. We ask Renee to come with us, to leave this broken night. She says she'll go to rehab tomorrow, but she isn't ready now. It is too great a change. We pray and say goodbye and it is hard to leave without her.

She has known such great pain; haunted dreams as a child, the near-constant presence of evil ever since. She has felt the touch of awful naked men, battled depression and addiction, and attempted suicide. Her arms remember razor blades, fifty scars that speak of self-inflicted wounds. Six hours after I meet her, she is feeling trapped, two groups of "friends" offering opposite ideas. Everyone is asleep. The sun is rising. She drinks long from a bottle of liquor, takes a razor blade from the table and locks herself in the bathroom. She cuts herself, using the blade to write "FUCK UP" large across her left forearm.

The nurse at the treatment center finds the wound several hours later. The center has no detox, names her too great a risk, and does not accept her. For the next five days, she is ours to love. We become her hospital and the possibility of healing fills our living room with life. It is unspoken and there are only a few of us, but we will be her church, the body of Christ coming alive to meet her needs, to write love on her arms.

She is full of contrast, more alive and closer to death than anyone I've known, like a Johnny Cash song or some theatre star. She owns attitude and humor beyond her 19 years, and when she tells me her story, she is humble and quiet and kind, shaped by the pain of a hundred lifetimes. I sit privileged but breaking as she shares. Her life has been so dark yet there is some soft hope in her words, and on consecutive evenings, I watch the prettiest girls in the room tell her that she's beautiful. I think it's God reminding her.

I've never walked this road, but I decide that if we're going to run a five-day rehab, it is going to be the coolest in the country. It is going to be rock and roll. We start with the basics; lots of fun, too much Starbucks and way too many cigarettes.

Thursday night she is in the balcony for Band Marino, Orlando's finest. They are indie-folk-fabulous, a movement disguised as a circus. She loves them and she smiles when I point out the A&R man from Atlantic Europe, in town from London just to catch this show. 

She is in good seats when the Magic beat the Sonics the next night, screaming like a lifelong fan with every Dwight Howard dunk. On the way home, we stop for more coffee and books, Blue Like Jazz and (Anne Lamott's) Travelling Mercies. 

On Saturday, the Taste of Chaos tour is in town and I'm not even sure we can get in, but doors do open and minutes after parking, we are on stage for Thrice, one of her favorite bands. She stands ten feet from the drummer, smiling constantly. It is a bright moment there in the music, as light and rain collide above the stage. It feels like healing. It is certainly hope. 

Sunday night is church and many gather after the service to pray for Renee, this her last night before entering rehab. Some are strangers but all are friends tonight. The prayers move from broken to bold, all encouraging. We're talking to God but I think as much, we're talking to her, telling her she's loved, saying she does not go alone. One among us knows her best. Ryan sits in the corner strumming an acoustic guitar, singing songs she's inspired. 

After church our house fills with friends, there for a few more moments before goodbye. Everyone has some gift for her, some note or hug or piece of encouragement. She pulls me aside and tells me she would like to give me something. I smile surprised, wondering what it could be. We walk through the crowded living room, to the garage and her stuff. 

She hands me her last razor blade, tells me it is the one she used to cut her arm and her last lines of cocaine five nights before. She's had it with her ever since, shares that tonight will be the hardest night and she shouldn't have it. I hold it carefully, thank her and know instantly that this moment, this gift, will stay with me. It hits me to wonder if this great feeling is what Christ knows when we surrender our broken hearts, when we trade death for life. 

As we arrive at the treatment center, she finishes: "The stars are always there but we miss them in the dirt and clouds. We miss them in the storms. Tell them to remember hope. We have hope." 

I have watched life come back to her, and it has been a privilege. When our time with her began, someone suggested shifts but that is the language of business. Love is something better. I have been challenged and changed, reminded that love is that simple answer to so many of our hardest questions. Don Miller says we're called to hold our hands against the wounds of a broken world, to stop the bleeding. I agree so greatly. 

We often ask God to show up. We pray prayers of rescue. Perhaps God would ask us to be that rescue, to be His body, to move for things that matter. He is not invisible when we come alive. I might be simple but more and more, I believe God works in love, speaks in love, is revealed in our love. I have seen that this week and honestly, it has been simple: Take a broken girl, treat her like a famous princess, give her the best seats in the house. Buy her coffee and cigarettes for the coming down, books and bathroom things for the days ahead. Tell her something true when all she's known are lies. Tell her God loves her. Tell her about forgiveness, the possibility of freedom, tell her she was made to dance in white dresses. All these things are true. 

We are only asked to love, to offer hope to the many hopeless. We don't get to choose all the endings, but we are asked to play the rescuers. We won't solve all mysteries and our hearts will certainly break in such a vulnerable life, but it is the best way. We were made to be lovers bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out again and again until we're called home. 

I have learned so much in one week with one brave girl. She is alive now, in the patience and safety of rehab, covered in marks of madness but choosing to believe that God makes things new, that He meant hope and healing in the stars. She would ask you to remember.




Well-written, painfully honest, poignant, and ending with hope. I wonder who wrote it. To whoever it was, you're my new hero. I love this story. And I love it all the more because it's true. My favourite lines are:

Stories wait for endings, but songs are brave things bold enough to sing when all they know is darkness.

She is full of contrast, more alive and closer to death than anyone I've known, like a Johnny Cash song or some theatre star.

I sit privileged but breaking as she shares.

...tell her she was made to dance in white dresses.

I've never walked this road, but I decide that if we're going to run a five-day rehab, it is going to be the coolest in the country. It is going to be rock and roll. We start with the basics; lots of fun, too much Starbucks and way too many cigarettes.

So anyway. Just wanted to share that with you, dear reader. After I read it, all I could think was: 'wow'. That's it, just one word...'wow'. Well, I'd better be going now. It's past midnight here and I need to get up [relatively] early tomorrow. See you next time.




Love,

Figgy