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barisowa:

title: the sum of its parts

photo: things without name

song: the mekons, where were you

“we are all alone, born alone, die alone, and — in spite of True Romance magazines — we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. i do not say lonely — at least, not all the time — but essentially, and finally, alone.” – hunter s. thompson

i remember them all. some are almost lost in a hazy dream of city lights, whiskey, time. they all come back eventually – a sudden memory whirring back to life – only to settle themselves sleepily back into the bookshelves of my life. the engagement ring at the bottom of some glass in a seedy bar in nowhere, tennessee. the determination that this was it. love. the only love i could ever experience. each of them only a spark but together a bouquet of roman candles, spitting and flashing their sparkly, little teeth.

it makes me smile to think of the urgency with which the promises were whispered. shouted. resonating deep in my heart but deeper in my memory – a place where things cannot be so easily untangled. and though some do remain there, coiled in the sinew of my heart, most are a passing laugh. a fond memory. a casual smile on a rainy day.

a winking star.

and, somehow, the insignificance of each makes the collaborative so important. so nuanced and bittersweet. so perfectly melancholic. had i known that it wasn’t one brilliant flash of light but, rather, dozens, hundreds of brilliant flashes, they wouldn’t be so bright. it’s as if their honesty. their sincerity. their desperation shines through rather than whatever fading passion it was that gave birth to them.

and i love the idea of that. the fact that i am composed of these hundreds of thousands of little specks of gold humming around in my body, as if everything is moving and shifting and changing all of the time. and rather than being composed of one thing. one love. one experience. there are many. too many to name. too many to know. so many that some will be lost in a hazy dream of city lights, whiskey, time, just waiting for their time to eventually come back – like a sudden memory whirring back to life – only to settle themselves sleepily back into the bookshelves of my life.

[originally posted in my column [soundscape] on knoxroad.com - music blog and purveyor of fine beards. the madness ensues on their tumblr, too.]