Drink Deep (download)

There’s a scene in Michel Gondry’s “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” that always punches me in the gut when I see it. As Joel Barrish (played by Jim Carrey) attempts to hide his girlfriend Clementine (Kate Winslet) away in his memories, he ends up taking her on a guided tour through his childhood. They (and us with them) are transported to a scene from Joel’s past that he’d rather forget.

We see five year-old Joel, hunched over a red wagon with a wounded bird in it, surrounded by shouting children. We watch as helpless Joel, goaded by the schoolyard bullies encircling him, smashes the bird with a hammer, killing it. As he commits this act, the children grow silent, now faced with the stillness of death.

His beloved Clementine, who has been watching this memory replayed for her benefit, breaks into the circle and leads Joel (now being portrayed as an adult) away from the wagon and his schoolmates. Joel is mortified at the thought that this person who he loves so much has just witnessed a memory so painful and embarrassing. “I’m so ashamed,” Joel mumbles to the understanding Clementine, who is trying to console him. “It’s OK,” she tells him. “You were a little kid.”

***

There’s something sacred about the people we love, the people who we trust with the intimate, sometimes difficult details of our lives. And, by proxy, there’s something sacred about those moments where we let our guard slip, and let ourselves just be, ugliness and all.

We carry with us long, detailed lists of the things we’ve done and said that we regret. We’ve hid them in our actions, concealed them with how we walk and breathe and dress. The truth, however, is that those things we’re so embarrassed about, those episodes that we squirrel away in the deep recesses of our hearts, are what make us. They are what form our reactions to the world around us, for better or for worse.

When we enter into community with one another, when we begin deep, meaningful relationships that break the surface and hunt out darkness, we leave ourselves open to interpretation. That scares me; it might even scare you.

There is this dark line of thinking that tells us that it is our past that best defines us. Please, never stop fighting this lie. Beat it into submission, and then tell everyone about your struggles with it. You’ll more often than not find that they’re wrestling with it as well.

***

This moment might never pass by here again
We could forget what we look like or forget where we’ve been
We could swap out the truth for some well-thought-out lies
But I will drink deep of Your love tonight

And I struggle with words so I keep my mouth closed
I pretend that I’m deaf so I don’t have to show
Any sign that this all is somehow sinking in
This feeling that I’ll probably be here again

And I cry when I’m driving so I pull off the pass
And the highway patrolmen just tap on my glass
They say “we’re sorry you’re hurting, but you’ll just have to move”
And I spit out between sobs, “where should I move to??”

And this city is burning, but I still feel cold
I forget what it means, when your heart feels this old
Like it’s traveled for centuries to find me right there
In some gas station parking lot, gasping for air

Cause you are not all the things that they say to your face
You’re the parts that they whisper once you’re leaving the place
And you suspect that you’re fading, you’re turning to rust
All that’s left of your rationale is rockets and dust

So leave me the mattress I’ll sleep at Your feet
And toss me the crumbs of the food that You eat
And I will run to you and cleave to your side
And I will drink deep of Your love tonight

***

(this is the part where the writer invites you to the red wagon, asks you to watch him relive painful details and things he doesn’t want to talk about, pleads with you to not judge him)

Remember a few posts back where I told you that I don’t write about myself? That was a lie. I’m constantly writing about myself. Sometimes I pretend it’s about someone else. On those rare moments where I’ve found my nerve, I can admit that this, right here, is me - struggling with jealousy and envy, fighting bitterness and misanthropy, groping blindly for God’s grace.

It’s an unspoken agreement between the songwriter and his/her audience - I’ll bare the dark parts, let you poke around the insides of my anxiety and neuroses, if you’ll just please, please, excuse the occasional lapse into self-loathing and/or self-pity. We may spend the rest of this agreement trying to strike a balance, trying to find an easy shifting point between “too much information” and “purposefully vague”. I’ll stay if you will.

***

I recorded this song tonight. I sat cross-legged on the floor while Amy slept on the bed behind me, and bless her heart, if the noise bothered her, she didn’t let it show, and I thanked God for the warm air and the that I live in California, and the whine and hum of the desktop fan behind me put me to sleep, and for a few minutes, there we were: sleeping, her with the remote control in her hand and me with my guitar at my feet, head nodded forward and pitched at an angle.