Imagine That

The ipod dialed up this song this morning:

Imagine that I'm on the stage
Under a watchtower of punishing light
And in the haze is your face bathed in shadow
And what's beyond you is hidden from sight

And it struck me for a couple of reasons:

1) Ani usually sounds much angrier in her songs than she does in this one, which made me listen more closely than I otherwise would have:

And somebody right now is yawning
And watching me like a TV
And I've been frantically piling up sandbags
Against the flood waters of fatigue and insecurity

There's definitely vulnerability in her oft-displayed anger, but it was pretty cool listening/watching her lay it out there without the guise of anger. It inspires me to get beyond my anger, too -- I mean I've tried -- but it inspires me to really deal with what's preventing me from moving beyond it.

Unfortunately, unlike Ani, I don't have guitar playing and singing as an outlet, though I wish I did:

Then suddenly I hear my guitar singing
And so I just start singing along
And somewhere in my chest all the noise
Just gets crushed by the song

Imagine that I'm at your mercy
Imagine that you are at mine
Oh, pretend that I've been standing here
Watching you watching me all this time

Now imagine that you are the weather
In the tiny snow globe of this song
And I am a statue of liberty, one inch long

And here I am at my most hungry
And here I am at my most full
And here I am waving a red cape
Locking eyes with a bull

Just imagine that I'm on stage
Under a watchtower of punishing light
And in the haze is your face bathed in shadow
And what's beyond you is hidden from sight

2) The title and subject of this song, as it turns out, is also dead on, because it seems that me moving beyond my anger has everything to do with me facing up to what's actually in front of me and what I'm just imagining.

You see, yesterday I went to see my zero balancer/rolpher, whom I hadn't seen in a number of months. When I caught him up with what's going on with me, he really laid it out there for me. He said that for me to continue to hope for something that the evidence does not support is a fantasy, and that I'd be better off working out what it is that continues to draw me to men that leave me feeling, on some level, empty. Ouch. Looks like I'm gonna need that inspiration noted in #1 and then some.

He also noted that the left side of my body -- the feminine side -- appears to have taken a beating (my words not his) and encouraged me to send love to the feminine side and acknowledge myself for taking a risk and giving it everything I had. And then he said: "It doesn't always work out, but it is important to acknowledge yourself for trying."

I cried when he said that, and the tears were both the kind of tears you cry when someone touches something in you and the kind of tears you cry when you realize that Bambi's mother is dead or that Thelma and Louise don't manage a Dukes-of-Hazard style landing and come out without a scratch after flying over a canyon.

I know that it probably sounds incredibly naive but honestly, it is just very difficult for me to believe that it's true that it doesn't always work out when you have all the feelings that I had for my moved-away-again man. I guess when I think about it, it kinda makes sense. I am about three or four years old when it comes to the amount of time I feel like I've been able to really live and love from my heart, which maybe just isn't long enough to have learned the hard lessons that life eventually forces on us. But here I am now, with this opportunity to learn it now, whether I like it or not.

Imagine that...