Desire and grief

Learning to grieve for things lost, and then to move on.

I've been listening to a lot of Morphine lately. I had put it away. The kids don't like it, and it can sink me into depression. I loved this band, and it was the soundtrack to many good times (and bad ones). When Mark Sandman passed away, I grieved his loss like he was a best friend or loved one even though we had never met. I'd followed him and the band around a bit, and I'd ended up at a few of the same clubs where they were hanging out on a couple of occasions, but we never met.

I have, in the time since, met Dana Colley a few times. He works around the corner from my house, and I briefly entertained the thought of putting my youngest son in the preschool that one of his kids attends. At the open house for that preschool, somebody left a baby crying unconsolably in a carseat near the cheese and crackers and puzzles table. Dana Colley went over to it and whistled for a few seconds and had the baby cooing calmly and softly. Every time I see Dana out and about, I hear Mark Sandman's deep, mesmerizing voice introducing him at shows, "Dana Colley on saxophone, everybody..."

Morphine is about longing, for me. Listen to Mark's slide infinitely approaching the desired note, sliding slowly up and up, and you feel desire. Let the bass reverberate through your rib cage and feel passion.

I read this book about birds. The author described the cassowaries in New Zealand. They have a resonator atop their heads like some of the dinosaurs did. They can use that space to make sounds deeper and more powerful. You feel the sound rather than hearing it, because it is at a frequency that is too low for humans to hear. But you feel a thunder in your chest before this giant bird appears. They have a dagger on each foot. They can slice an adult human from throat to pubic bone in the time it takes them to jump up.

The thrumming deep sound of morphine is like that, too.

It's ok to grieve for people you have never known. It is good for you to just let yourself feel whatever you have to feel without judging it. A few years of therapy and mindfulness training have me realizing this finally. I no longer have to feel silly for mourning the loss of a beloved performer. I feel sad, I feel loss, I sit with it and experience it and it, too, will pass. Then maybe I can listen to Morphine again without crying.