Tuesday, May 1, 2012

and all God needs is gravity to hold me down

 Happy May Day!

I'm listening to Alison Krauss's "Gravity." Now, there are a lot of Alison Krauss songs that I love, but I think this one is my favorite. It's a quieter song, less country-ish than a lot of Union Station's other songs. But the lyrics also draw me in:



And all the answers that I started with
Turned out questions in the end

I've found this to be the case in my life--that certainties turn into uncertainties, that answers actually aren't answers at all. If you'd asked me certain questions when I was 18, I would have given you straight-forward, absolute answers. I'm more apt to ramble these days, to circle around questions, to see different points of view. Part of growing up, I think.

There are still things that I am certain of: I think all kids have a right to a good education; we should treat everyone with respect and kindness; "different" does not equal "bad." So on and so forth. But, in general, I ask more questions than I have answers.

Or, if you ask my crankier self:
I have NUANCE, dammit. I will quote Whitman at you!
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself.
I am large, I contain multitudes.

(Most of the time I am not cranky. But I like Whitman. And I like Alison Krauss.)

And the people who love me still ask me
When are you coming back to town?
And I answer, quite frankly,
When they stop building roads
And all God needs is gravity to hold me down


4 comments:

  1. I refer to Fitz.

    "At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide."

    "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."

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  2. Well, I'm between 18 and 45, so I'm not hiding in the caves yet.

    Dylan's "My Back Pages" is what I should really quote: "But I was so much older then/I'm younger than that now."

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  3. I think the key is to simply exert so much gravity that time slows around you.

    Sometimes, in my dreams, I'm a massive neutron star or a black hole, but then I wake up and I remember I'm the world.

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  4. My musical tastes have had too much influence on you!

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