I Can See Clearly Now
It's funny how sometimes you won't hear a song, really truly hear it, until days or months or years after that first time. I mean this musically and lyrically; maybe it's the back harmonies you never noticed, the way a fiddle swings lazily into melody, or the verse that for whatever reason suddenly socks you in the gut in the best possible manner.
You sit there listening, struck dumb, wondering how the hell you missed it the first time, the first fifty times. You wonder what changed. But mostly once you really hear it you can never go back. It'll never be background noise again.
Dear Wilco,
Thank you for writing and recording pretty much every song on A Ghost is Born. I'm sorry it took me so many years to truly hear them. I'm making up for lost time.
Love,
Sarah
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I think it was just about a year ago that somebody gave me some good advice. It was: Sarah, you need to give yourself more credit. I bristled upon hearing it. I have this memory of puffing uphill on a cold afternoon shortly afterward, preparing an arsenal of snippy, defensive replies that I would never use. What the hell is that supposed to mean? I give myself plenty of goddamn credit! It's you and everyone else who needs to give me more credit! And then I forgot about it and proceeded with a rather dissatisfying Life as Usual.
A few months later, I moved out West and started over. Sans friends, family, and familiar territory, I found myself flailing. I mean, I had new friends and I liked my new location and I was doing great at my new job. But it was still a rather dissatisfying Life as Usual, just without all of my old comforts.
It was just about 2 months ago that somebody else gave me some more good advice, given in a rather less... pedantic tone, as the closing to an email: be good to your heart.
Something prickled in the back of my mind, but I brushed it aside and kept on walking. I am good to my heart! See how open and willing to love am I, even in the face of gigantic red warning flags? Now that's treating your heart right, that's love.
As should be obvious, I paid big. Don't really need to go into details, but it involved a month of irrational expectations, impulsive behavior, and piss-poor decisions. It sucked. And, well, something changed.
I can't think of a way to say this without being heavy-handed, so rather than that, I'm gonna go a little oblique - in the immortal words of Jimmy Cliff, I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW. *
There's some real progress being made over here at Sarita Inc., folks. I'm doing well - better than I have been in a real long time. Knowing something and living something aren't nearly one and the same, but you've got to start somewhere. It's about damn time.
* Yes, I know he wasn't the original artist. But the Jimmy Cliff version is the one they used to play on 94.9 FM every Monday morning when I was a kid and by God I love it.