Changing Tastes

Last night, at Chez Henri, the song He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother was playing. It made me think about how my understanding and appreciation of certain songs has shifted over time.

The Police were one of the first bands I really loved. When I was fourteen, the song Every Breath You Take was just amazing to me--so romantic, so thrilling, so sexy. King of Pain, on the other hand, was just okay. I mean, it's got a wonderfully eerie sound and Sting's voice is so poignant and powerful, but there was no resonance. By the time I reached my thirties, I had "stood here before inside the pouring rain, with the world turning circles running round my brain" and King of Pain had become a great song, while Every Breath You Take is a song about stalking, which is not romantic, not sexy and is, as a great man once said, "creepy as fuck," albeit still pretty catchy.

When I was introduced to The Indigo Girls, my junior year of college, Closer to Fine was a heartfelt cry of meaning and truth, while Love's Recovery seemed pretty, but sort of maudlin. Washing dishes in London more than ten years later, having just heard the news of a friend's divorce, I cried to hear Love's Recovery--such a beautiful song of the sad, yet hopeful, side of love--while Closer to Fine still has a lovely lilt, but its sophmoric surety has come to grate a bit.

And I wonder if the time will ever come that I don't really hate He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother.

Changing Tastes

Last night, at Chez Henri, the song He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother was playing. It made me think about how my understanding and appreciation of certain songs has shifted over time.

The Police were one of the first bands I really loved. When I was fourteen, the song Every Breath You Take was just amazing to me--so romantic, so thrilling, so sexy. King of Pain, on the other hand, was just okay. I mean, it's got a wonderfully eerie sound and Sting's voice is so poignant and powerful, but there was no resonance. By the time I reached my thirties, I had "stood here before inside the pouring rain, with the world turning circles running round my brain" and King of Pain had become a great song, while Every Breath You Take is a song about stalking, which is not romantic, not sexy and is, as a great man once said, "creepy as fuck," albeit still pretty catchy.

When I was introduced to The Indigo Girls, my junior year of college, Closer to Fine was a heartfelt cry of meaning and truth, while Love's Recovery seemed pretty, but sort of maudlin. Washing dishes in London more than ten years later, having just heard the news of a friend's divorce, I cried to hear Love's Recovery--such a beautiful song of the sad, yet hopeful, side of love--while Closer to Fine still has a lovely lilt, but its sophmoric surety has come to grate a bit.

And I wonder if the time will ever come that I don't really hate He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother.

Balancing Act

A couple of days ago, a friend posted a link to an amazing story about a man who responded to a mugger by not only giving up his wallet, but offering his coat. The story of where his radical love led is a powerful one. I do not often have that greatness of spirit toward strangers, though I have received its grace, and I struggle toward it in fits and starts.

Another friend recently posted about the suicide of a former acquaintance, a man of talent, wit and intelligence who had shone at Harvard Med, Stanford and Northwestern, becoming a surgeon before killing himself at the age of 33. As she commented, "The world of medicine can be a grueling one, and though you care for a stream of patients, it is no one's job to care for you."

Last summer I finally got to see Timon of Athens, one of Shakespeare's worst scripts, about a man who glories in generosity and finds no reciprocal support when his own fortunes fail.

And so I'm thinking about balance, about the need to put yourself first, but not only; about the need to care for others without thought of recompense, and the immeasurable rewards that come from pouring out your self into the world; and about the ways that self can be exhausted without attention to its own nourishment.

On and on, the rain will say, how fragile we are, how fragile we are.

Balancing Act

A couple of days ago, a friend posted a link to an amazing story about a man who responded to a mugger by not only giving up his wallet, but offering his coat. The story of where his radical love led is a powerful one. I do not often have that greatness of spirit toward strangers, though I have received its grace, and I struggle toward it in fits and starts.

Another friend recently posted about the suicide of a former acquaintance, a man of talent, wit and intelligence who had shone at Harvard Med, Stanford and Northwestern, becoming a surgeon before killing himself at the age of 33. As she commented, "The world of medicine can be a grueling one, and though you care for a stream of patients, it is no one's job to care for you."

Last summer I finally got to see Timon of Athens, one of Shakespeare's worst scripts, about a man who glories in generosity and finds no reciprocal support when his own fortunes fail.

And so I'm thinking about balance, about the need to put yourself first, but not only; about the need to care for others without thought of recompense, and the immeasurable rewards that come from pouring out your self into the world; and about the ways that self can be exhausted without attention to its own nourishment.

On and on, the rain will say, how fragile we are, how fragile we are.