Feeling Low Down, I’m Blue

The camaraderie of us, the books, the music, the moments, how the songs are capable of holding both memories and move with new life. That beautiful sip of companionship when the sadness, that utter lonely feeling sets in, that at least there is a soundtrack or a poem or a passage to serve as confidant. That’s why I like the melancholy Rolling Stones songs, but not the rockers. I’ve got songs and albums I return to when I’m feeling down. The band Come’s 1992 debut 11:11 is up there, a great friend when the ennui rears its head.

My friend Stephen makes monthly playlists, I listen to them when I cook. I make soup when I feel useless. There’s been some soup lately. Do yourself a favor and get friends who are more obsessive than you with better taste. Why must everyone be such a goddamn expert? Where’s the fun in that? One song was so beautiful, I stopped cooking to check out who the artist was, marveling at the human expression, the desire for connection and how it created this stunning music. It’s been a minute since I felt that way. I like to think that means, maybe just a bit, that the damaging nature of this fucked up economic system is evaporating from my mind. Its hold is rescinding, just a bit, and that feels like progress. I know I’ll write, regardless, because this is how I share. Humans, we’ll just do it anyway—write, dance, paint, play music, sing. That song made me consider music not as a product to consume but as communication and celebration.

I wonder sometimes about what means success, and what garners attention, two things we mistake for one another. It’s because we have a fame problem. Well, actually we have a power problem.

I recently donated a lot of books, telling myself that just because I like it doesn’t mean I have to house it. Some have moved from Maryland, some from Ohio, others from Chicago, because I just might conquer Russian motion verbs one day.1 I just re-read The Secret History by Donna Tartt a few weeks ago and it still worked for me. I’m due to re-read Dorothy Allison’s Bastard out of Carolina, I’ve been revisiting her writing since her death in November. I am located somewhere in-between these books, and while I’ve tried to dissect that statement, I can’t yet. I read both of these debuts in the summer of 1993, when I lived in Oberlin. To live in a college town during summer is to admit it has a life beyond you. I picked up a second job at the senior citizen run thrift store in the basement of the bank. If you want to learn a lot about a town, hang out with the old folks. They know everything, and they like to gossip.

Last month I had jury duty on Queens Boulevard. I read Rust Belt Femme by Raechel Ann Jolie while waiting for my ultimate dismissal. It’s a great memoir. Raechel captures many truths with a remarkable clarity. This book is also a perfect size, 5” x 7”. We all know there are books that stay home and books that can travel, this one can go places.

I started Didion & Babitz by Lili Anolik, but the writer’s voice was a little too present for me. I get it, you’re ambitious. I’ll have to give it another shot. I appreciate Eve Babitz’s spirit and her writing. And yes, I like Joan Didion, but when she become the end all be all? One day, maybe twelve years ago, I woke up and felt like everyone had read her, she was the air we breathed, a requirement, and I was behind. There’s something about social media and the power of the image definitely behind it all.

I just finished an Attica Locke book, Heaven, My Home, the second installment in her Highway 59 series about Darren Matthews, a Black Texas Ranger, and immediately picked up the next one, in a book store that only sells new books and has that new book smell. I also bought a Masha Gessen book and the anthology Black Punk Now. I always feel hope when I buy books, pens, and notebooks. It feels like possibility.

It is time to revisit Roland Barthes.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Spacemen 3 lately, vinyl reissues I traded a stack of singles to my local record store Deep Cuts for, which is also perfectly-sized, about 650 square feet. I still can’t get over that I missed out on Spacemen 3 the first time around, perhaps this confession will release that useless thought into the ether.

I think about Baltimore writer Sandy Castle, whose poetry book The Catholics are Coming I bought when I was sixteen at Louie’s Bookstore Cafe, and how I didn’t know anything about her when I got it, and she ended up being a guiding light to me. Louie’s was in the city, on Charles Street, and it was just that, a bookstore in the front and a cafe in the back. I went there as a treat, to feel arty, to soak in the atmosphere I hoped my future held. She was probably friends with the staff, her book was by the register. Her writing felt like the life I wanted, living in an apartment in the city where the only person I answered to was myself. Her life felt like gritty glamour, she didn’t shy from sharing the exquisite mundane of it all. That’s what I dreamt of then.