Land of Hope and Dreams

This morning in Madison, Bruce Springsteen warmed up the crowd for one last rally from President Obama preceding tomorrow's election. I thought about making my way downtown to see if I could at least hear the boss's voice fill the air outside the Capitol building in which I expend so much of my time and energy, but I decided not to go.

You see, I woke up this morning feeling drained, and I realized that the best thing for me to do was to take the morning to care for myself so that I could regain the energy to care for my loved ones. Probably the right decision, though a part of me would have liked to be there.

I've always loved Bruce Springsteen, but I gained a new appreciation of him recently when I read this article in the New Yorker. It seems that the Boss, like so many of the rest of us, had a difficult relationship with his father. He didn't feel seen, or acknowledged, or appreciated by him, and that left a gaping hole that he's been dealing with all of his life. I have to give him a lot of credit for not turning to the things so many of us turn to for filling such holes -- alcohol and drugs. Instead, he channels it into his music and takes a great amount of pride in his physical body, practicing self love -- the kind I practiced by going to yoga this morning.

But the article also points out that he's done more than that to deal with this hole -- seeing that it kept him from being able to fully surrender in love relationships, he got himself a good therapist, and has been in analysis of varying intensity much of his adult life. He said that he wanted to have a wife and a family, and he knew that he needed help to open himself up to all that entails.

I read about Bruce's performance in Madison this morning and learned that the Boss closed his set with this powerful number:

Grab your ticket and your suitcase, thunder's rolling down this track
Well you don't know where you're going now, but you know you won't be back
Well, darling, if you're weary, lay your head upon my chest
We'll take what we can carry, yeah, and we'll leave the rest

And with my new appreciation for what he is about, I see his lyrics operating on multiple levels. When you've been mistreated, you often make promises to yourself about what you won't put up with in the future. We humans have very powerful self-preservation skills. But sometimes, we have to be willing to look at the mechanisms that we used to protect ourselves and see if they are still needed. Loving someone and allowing yourself to be loved by someone gives us that place to rest our weary heads, and it helps us decide what we want and need to carry forward and what we can leave behind, and it can also lighten the load that we do decide to take with us.

I know this is true in my own relationship, and maybe the hardest part for me is remembering not to carry too much for my beloved. If I can manage to focus more on getting on the train myself, I have faith that we'll find this land of hope and dreams of which Bruce sings:

I will provide for you and I'll stand by your side
You'll need a good companion now for this part of the ride
Yeah, leave behind your sorrows, let this day be the last
Well, tomorrow there'll be sunshine and all this darkness past

Well, Big Wheels roll through fields where sunlight streams
Oh, meet me in a land of hope and dreams

Well, this train carries saints and sinners
This train carries losers and winners
This train carries whores and gamblers
This train carries lost souls
I said, this train, dreams will not be thwarted
This train, faith will be rewarded
This train, hear the steel wheels singing
This train, bells of freedom ringing
[Sax solo]

You don't need no ticket
Oh, you gotta do this
Just get onboard...