The past couple of months have been chaotic, to say the least. Chaotic good? Maybe, but we won’t know until the next few weeks play out. We sold our second car, which required a lot of trips and phone calls to many different offices. We got our first vaccine shots, but my paperwork is lost in the county health system. We seem to have finally sorted out the aftershocks of refinancing our house last fall. We have not been told that we definitely don’t have a puppy, but we have not received any firm confirmation about the puppy we have been told we might have. I finally did some medical testing for my doctor, part of which got lost by FedEx. Every single meeting and appointment got rescheduled at least once for weeks on end. You get the idea.
Today the sun came out, it warmed up, and it might be spring. (It might not. Like I said: chaotic.) I had a telehealth appointment with my doctor, which was both bad (enduring health problem endures) and good (we are not out of treatment options and my doctor is a stubborn mule in the way you want in a doctor treating your chronic health condition). We received a package from our friends in Germany that took 3 1/2 months to arrive, but we didn’t know it was coming so were able to be wholly and pleasantly surprised and delighted when it arrived. I found myself feeling weirdly optimistic. Like, in a few weeks, things could be very different. We could both of be fully vaccinated. We could have a puppy. I could be through another round of treatment for what ails me. Of course, none of that could come to pass; Mercury retrograde during February in a pandemic really lets you know that nothing can be relied on beyond right this very minute.
When I am in a good mood, my mental radio gets turned up to 11. All day this tune has been blasting through my brain. If you were to try to characterize my wide-ranging taste in music under one sweeping label, it would be peppy morose. It has to all be there: lyrics, guitars, beat. Usually the weirder the better. (Yes New Order, no Depeche Mode. Yes REM, no U2. Yes Cure, no Smiths. Yes Modest Mouse, no National. Yes Pink Floyd, no other 70s bands. Yes punk rock.) I recently tried to read Peter Hook’s book about New Order. I couldn’t, but from skimming 700 pages, I learned that they all did an excessive amount of coke and Peter and Barney couldn’t stand each other. You can see that in their live performances, but they still made all this amazing music together. “Temptation,” which wasn’t originally on an album but has so many versions and releases you could mail order vinyl for your whole entire life and not collect them all, is possibly my favorite New Order song. As a bridge out of Joy Division and from the pain of losing Ian, it’s all there. I’m devastated and alone, I’m upbeat. I’m obsessed with you, I don’t know what color your eyes are. I miss you, I don’t need you. It’s the first time, it’s the last time.
As we emerge from the hostage situation that was 2020 and continue to grieve our innumerable losses, let’s remember together how to live.