you may now listen to this chapter, streaming on YouTube: pick your poisons
I want to tell you a little bit then, about how things are going right this minute. It’s raining outside. Tennis, my outlet for the day has been cancelled. I, on the other hand, am not. My son is suffering away in his Air Bnb across town.
As far as we know.
A moment of discovery happened for me about four years ago. I was dating the solo mom and we attended a carnival or after-school holiday celebration of some sort at the nearby elementary school, legend for Austin wealth. Oh, that’s where I went to Kindergarten.
Anyway, we were there, the older parents with their single progeny. Well, hers anyway. Father unknown genius, tall, blonde, sperm donor. And we’re walking around doing ticketed activities and shepherding the boy between us. I looked around at all the Tarrytown parents, wealthy, mostly couples, all of them holding large Yeti tumblers. What? I get it. But it’s 5 pm on a Thursday night. I guess anytime is a good time for a toddy. All, or most of, these parents were walking around getting sloshed on the beverage of their choice. Shit, they are all partying in a different way then their lucky-ass rich kids. I’m certain, my dad and mom would’ve followed protocol, but Yeti’s are pretty new. I guess it wouldv’e been a flask and quick hit into plastic cup of fruit punch.
We’re all getting high. In some form, we are all seeking peak moments, peak adventures, peak highs. I too have suffered from peak lows. The higher you go, the bigger and more firey the crater you’ll make when you hit bottom.
In my cup these days are usualy one of two substances. Coffee or electrolytes. Simulation or hydration. Sure, I pick my pleasures too, but… Not at my kid’s Fall Carnival.
Some days, like today, the coffee doesn’t do the trick. I seek some other “pleasure.” I’m unclear on all the options. Some I won’t ever admit to. Others, more acceptable, like tennis cardio workouts on M-W-F. Rained out today. And bank account temporarily empty. And I’m back here, in my comfy chair, with “Stranger In a Strange Land” warping my mind and emotional body. It was my dead brother’s favorite song. Leon Russell and the Shelter People is warming the engines of my large language model, my neurochemical recall system is replaying my love, my loss, my immediate sadness, and the ghost of my brother and his Cutlass RS in white and gold with the 8-track jams.
He would drum his fingers on the dash. “I can play this,” he’d say, grinning at me. I believed him. Not sure he ever played piano. I did recall him having a Gibson 335 back at the lake house. Boy, how I’d like that instrument about now. Don’t think he ever played it. Sort of how my mom gave me a bass guitar in 7th grade. For me it was a gateway drug. For my brother, more of an idea of stardom and rockstar fame.
While my favorite sister was still in town, our summers were filled with the Beatles, Beach Boys, and The Moody Blues. When she left in September to the Dallas girls school, the house became quiet. I’m sure my other sister, the one still alive, would recycle the stacks of 45s in the back “girl’s bedroom” but it was reruns and redos. She wasn’t a hippie or a music collector.
Back in those days 45s were the only way you got music as a kid. At 3 bucks a piece, you had to pick your hits. And my sister shared–hell,gifted me with–a collector mentality. I would save money to buy music just a few years after she escaped the glass castle. My mom halved the house and I moved into my dad’s study/wet bar. I discovered the huge Marantz speakers hidden under the built-in bookshelf. I bought Peter Frampton Comes Alive and my life would never be the same.
The song, however, that transports me more powerfully as it relates to this time is “More Than a Feeling” by Boston. That summer before I left for Exeter, I had a friend, Jim. He was renting the boat house of the glass house. He had a crush on my favorite sister, but he was too damaged. A PTS victim of the Vietnam War. He was handsome, fit, and weathly, like “brand name” wealthy. And he had a boat.
That summer, we skied. From the kid that was scared of the water to an acceptable slalom in two months. We would ski in the morning, boat over to the country club and play tennis. And he would tell me how great my sister was. I was sad for him on that one, but delighted to have a brother-like figure who wanted to spend time with me. Emotionally he was about my age. Fourteen.
i looked out my window and the sun was gone
turned on some music to start my day
and lost myself in a familiar song
I closed my eyes and I slipped away
The moment that comes back now, is driving with Jim, windows down, heat of the summer breaking in August, and those lines blasting in his car.
yet i still recall as I walk along
as clear as the sun in the summer sky
Again, at that moment, as I ask my memory, I can verify my kid was thinking, “I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.” It’s still my go to celebration. My dad was my devil. I was getting away.
when i was high and thinking cold
i hide in my music forget the day
and dream of a girl I used to know
i closed my eyes, and she slipped away
All that I knew I was leaving behind. All the girls I was fond of, courted, had dreams about, were going to vanish into my mom’s rearview mirror as she drove me to the airport to begin the Great Escape. She too, would follow shortly, escaping to New York City. Massive relocation therapy.
And that’s exactly what I need right now. Massive. Relocation. And self-soothing “therapy” of pine trees, cool evenings, and clear nights filled with more stars than were possible for me to contemplate then as a young teen heading to prep school. Today, I know exactly what to expect from a solo-climb.
My poison, if I’m honest, might be this obsessive recall and capture of emotions and math. My craft requires alone time. Maybe more than an insecure relationship can survive. But that’s their responsibility. You started a relationship with a writer, what did you think was going to happen? And why aren’t you planning any of the weekend activities?
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