Etta Love

It’s been a whirl-wind of emotions the past few days and the ironic part is it occurred from nothing I did since yours truly was doing nothing more than minding his own business going about my day much like every other and yet life still decided to come knocking upon my door. And speaking of irony if I’m to be completely honest with myself and you dear reader I suppose the other side of that ironic coin would be this occurred because of everything I have done. Perhaps that’s what they mean when they say, “the past catches up with you”, because nothing explains what happened more than that.

Imagine if you would waking up one day, a day like any other, you begin to get ready for the things you have to do, the places you need to go, mentally checking off the errands you have to run, bills to pay, work to accomplish, stuff like that. Outside the sun is shinning brightly and as you go about getting ready (why does it always have to be when you’re in the bathroom) the phone rings. You see it’s a friend so you think ‘well I’ll call them back in a moment’, as you finish what you were doing. It’s ten minutes later now, your still in there reading that Harry has just drawn his wand against ‘he who shan’t be named’ and there’s a knock upon your door so you call out, “hang on I’ll be there in a second”. A quick finish and your heading to the door figuring out something clever to bust their chops with for not waiting a few minutes until you could call them back. Opening it you begin, “I was….”, and stop short, your breath caught, you try to breath and you can’t, there’s nothing to do in those few seconds but try to adjust to the situation at hand which has quickly become one where you need to place your seat back into the sitting position and put your head between your legs because standing in front of you is someone you haven’t seen in many years, someone you dearly love.

Now maybe this doesn’t happen to most people and I don’t know what the odds are on this unique lottery but I do know that a great love sometimes never heals. It never goes away like the one you had for the girl up the street that kissed you when you were ten and the best you can do with that kind of love is try to move on and forget it but, that’s easier said than done, remember were talking great love here. Maybe I’m not as wise as I should be or as shallow as I need to be because for me I couldn’t forget it so in my infinite lack of wisdom I decided to just jam it into a heavily locked up little room and stick it in the back of my mind with a big sign on the door that said, “Warning, do not open”. You’ve hidden and secured the key to the room so well that after a time you can’t even remember where it was put but every once in a while as your wandering around in your mind alone you come across that door and a sigh escapes as you remember what was in there. You then get on with whatever it was you were doing before you accidentally stumbled into that region of your mind and you try to have faith in those old wives and their silly tales of ‘time heals all wounds’ but you know deep down that’s bullshit and isn’t true because some times some things just can’t be healed.

And so we find ourselves back at the door, mouth slightly agape, your mind racing, your brain temporarily way past overload and all you can say is, “Hi, come in” because in truth inside you’re holding back the force of combined tornados, avalanches, hurricanes, flash floods and a serious fracture in the Hoover dam because that secure locked up little room you had the warning sign on just blew to smithereens letting all that was inside out and Beyonce’ has begun singing Etta James “All I could do was cry”. Something has to give at that moment so swallow hard, man up and say, “Hi, come in” and ask how they’re doing because for you inside the circus has come to town and it’s full of Disney characters again, fucking Roger Rabbit has given Toontown a handful of triple stack euros and everything is right, spring has come and love is in the air again. Maybe this is where we fool ourselves, where we lose all sense of logic and forethought, and I think as wonderful as a great love is, it often to the outsider makes you look like a drunken seriously challenged mental retard and I’m not even getting into the shit it has you doing like writing humorous tales on very serious subjects or spray painting I love you on the side of a 30 story building You know what I’m talking about because every couple does it, making google eyes, cooing, calling each other pet names like little monkey, snookums, and other gaga things like that which challenge all those around such a couple to fight internally just to keep their food down. Ever see 99% of the people around a new baby, well that’s how couples are with each other when they are in love, revolting to others, bliss to but two.

I mean what the fuck life, I accepted (not willingly) that you gave a taste of something wonderful (I didn’t ask for nor was looking for when it happened), something so much like dancing with my missing piece that Disney endings danced around in my head raining sugar plums down upon us but what was the reason after all these years for destroying my little room if that’s not the way it was going to be? I mean I did was I was suppose to, I acted true to myself and those I cared for and regardless of how I felt I moved forward hard as that was so I demand an explanation you cruel fuck. So what if I (not willingly once more) traded the Disney ending for one involving the end of days where I have to run around scared shitless blowing away zombies with a double barrel shotgun just to survive because everything I cared for was gone isn’t that my right on this grand pick a path to adventure highway were on if I can’t have butter on my biscuits? I’m even more appreciative of a good ironic joke than most but irony like the one before me the other day does catch me off guard. The worst part is watching her go again once more as our dear gal Beyonce’ belts out Etta James “I’d rather go blind” in my head, outside I’m smiling and waving good-bye like I just saw her this morning. (Please nominate me for the idiot of the year award).

And to get off the subject and onto music for one second as I’m bitching to life’s ironic and twisted sense of humor, WTF; now you’re even screwing around with my music because few singers have ever had the emotional impact on me that Etta James does. She’s the queen of R&B, the first of the females, the first crossover artist who blew up the airwaves and united music not by color but by the songs. Those songs speak to your soul, songs like, “All I could do was cry”, “I’ve been loving you way too long”, and her masterpiece “At Last”, just to name a few. If you’ve never sat down and just listened to her, really listen to the words in her songs and the emotion she puts behind them well then you’re missing out on one of life’s wonders. So where does life get off messing around with one of my favorite artists?

Which leaves me here, having not gotten this out of my system but instead just working through it once again brick by brick listening to Etta while building another room deciding to use wisdom instead of acting out blaming someone who may or may not of known what she was doing or the impact that it would have had even after all these years. Instead of reeling from my own emotions why not try to at least imagine what hers must have been going through all these years to bring her to knock upon my door, wow that’s heavy shit to deal with but they say likes attract so I’m not too far off base I think. The Nordic race used to believe that the mark of the spiritual warrior was not in acting but in non-action because it is through non-action that all comes into being that should be. Even though life may have played it’s little joke on me and will continue to from time to time I’m reminded now to be the leaf on the proverbial river, to go with the flow because no one knows where the journey might end and if you screw with that you may just end up missing something you were suppose to see or experience along the way. And what would be my advice to you dear reader if something like this should ever happen to you, well that’s simple buy a extra box of shotgun shells because the zombies are coming and Disneyland has been overrun.

Cue: Etta