I haven't written in a while. In case in my absence you've forgotten how to read dates, I thought I'd point that out. There's a few reasons why I haven't written, one being my lack of internet access. I could say the other reason is lack of time, but there's really no such thing. When it's important enough, you make time.
Truth is, seeing my own words on a page right now fills me alternately with fear and disgust. I haven't been writing fiction, I haven't been writing non-fiction. I haven't been writing emails. Letters. Or post cards. It's like the very site of my handwriting frightens me. I'm not sure what happened but I'm in the middle of writer's block so deep I can't remember the last time I devoted myself to a project.
I have to interupt myself here while I'm thinking about it -- because I'm listening to it -- this band, Thebrotherkite. I don't know what to do with myself over this album. I first heard them in a moment of Zen; perfect and complete, lacking nothing. One of my purple darksky backlit nights, sparkly Seattle reflected in its own mist. Driving, cool August post-sunset. Sunroof open. One of KEXP's DJs has a show on Wednesday and Thursday nights -- Riz. He plays trance and shoegazer and in general slow, heavy music that coaxes you out of your cave to see the stars.
And I had the radio on, driving along Lake Union, and this song started. It was like the first time I heard the Catherine Wheel in 1992. Darkly vibrant and full of longing. Something turned over in the pit of my stomach and I couldn't move. It was pulsing and deep. Music so filled with ache that I was taken hostage by it. And driving over the bridge, water below me, sky shattered in rays of blue above me, barefoot, aching. The city rushing by on either side of me. And the song got bigger and heavier and more, more gorgeous. A wall of sound and vocals like summernights at age 17.
I hear these bands, the ones that make me dream, and sing, and feel, the ones that make me move 3,000 miles to see them play all the time. And then I hear the lifeless, vapid garbage on commercial radio, and I wish I had the power to shake people and give them these albums and just yell, "Don't you see how ALIVE you can be?!"
Now back to your regularly scheduled writer's block.
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