What You Lean On

And so, follow me low/ You are what you lean on. --Trey Anastasio

I've been waking up in the mornings with T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alred Prufrock" in my head like a song, the words streaming like lyrics monotonously read in the voice I've fabricated for Eliot, having accidentally memorized the lines from my old Norton anthology. And indeed there will be time/ To wonder Do I dare? And do I dare? floating sleepily through my own vacant expression as I straighten my unruly brown hair. It's abundantly clear to me that I am not ready to face this day. The murky post-Thanksgiving semi-Seasonal depression has set in, the way it does every year for me and nearly everyone else at this latitude. The warm, sleepy sense of nostalgia faded with the cooking-smells from the corn-yellow kitchens of Michigan and we're left with nothing but the sullen pressure of The Holidays. I grow old, I grow old...

Last weekend, after the last of the leftovers were wrapped I had long since had my fill of my family's signature Thanksgiving dish (read: double Kahlua and Coffee), I headed West to Chicago to catch two nights of my favorite band, Umphrey's McGee. The epic two-night run loosely replaced a New Years tradition, which, this year, is being held in St. Louis. While I love my boys more than life, the trek to ol' St. Louie is a long one and I, alas, will not make it-- not to mention Umphrey's in Chicago is always must-see anyway, so this weekend was a no-brainer. Meeting up with fellow Umphreak Steph, who I happened to meet in the bathroom at this show, I hit I94 running, and we rocked into the Central Time Zone at about seven on Friday, ready to rage. And rage we did, hitting the run like a 2-woman storm of musical bliss and nerdery. From classic Umphrey's staples to soaring jams backed by the Chicago Mass Choir, the two nights of music left stars in my eyes and I can still feel the resounding amazement in my soul...

Still, as I sped back toward home on Sunday morning, wolfing down my requisite hangover Sausage McMuffin, the warm, fuzzy memories of the shows faded with every mile past the Windy City. The memories echoing through my head from the weekend-- the smooth bump of "Booth Love," the sought-after ecstasy of "All in Time's" climactic end, and the kaleidoscopic swirl of the stagelights melted into the horizon of the putty-gray Indiana turnpike, and it was increasingly hard to deny that we were truly headed back to real life.

So, increasingly clear to me was something I hadn't bothered to tell Stephanie, or anyone else, all weekend: on the following day was my first appointment with a therapist. Having stubbornly fought therapy my whole life, I had decided it was time to reckon with some issues I had noticed lurking from my dad's passing when I was a child. The only thing stronger than my stubbornness to talk to anyone about what had been on my mind for years was my staunch vow of secrecy I had taken towards the whole thing; I lived under a strong facade I had created over the years to convince everyone that I had somehow escaped the pain altogether (There will be time, there will be time/ To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.). I was determined to have triumphed over my dad's death, and the rest of my past, without a single scar; like the Blues Brothers in that scene where they survive Carrie Fischer's flamethrower, standing up and merely brushing the dust from the wreckage off of their shoulders.

But the truth is, I didn't. And I've spent every year since filling the void created by my father's absence with everything I could find that brought me the smallest amount of happiness or joy. Most of all: music. I'm coming to the strange conclusion that maybe every song I've ever liked, every band I've ever loved, was-- at least in part-- replacing a small part of what I lost when I lost my dad. Maybe that relief I felt from that soothing shelter of the most amazing pieces of music was a replacement of those times I wasn't able to curl up in my dad's lap as a little girl, and let him tell me everything would be ok. Maybe those gentle words of wisdom from my favorite rock stars and poets replaced the lessons I knew I should have learned from my father.

I guess that's what I'm trying to reconcile. And I guess getting a little older, and a little wiser (ideally) is going to help me sort out all of this... because I guess sixteen years isn't long enough to reconcile the excruciating pain of losing someone you love. Regardless, I'm back in the real world (post-therapy sesh, and by the way, it went great!) and the view from here isn't so bad.

Hope is an amazing thing.


There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.