A Photograph of Yesteryear

The Photograph

Some of my earliest memories garner emotions that are both elusive and dreamlike as if only to exist in my imagination, resulting from some sincere desire to possess contented moments that somehow lay a seemingly illusionary foundation to my otherwise shoddy childhood. Those early years were beautiful in so many ways I’m still discovering how vital they are albeit scarce and short lived. I still yearn for those moments from time to time when I was a free spirited child with few worries to call my own save those that come along with being the youngest of three boys, raised primarily by our mother during a time when life was uncertain and filled with more life lessons than I could have ever expected since so much was going on during that time in history, both in the world as well as in the microcosm of my Korean-American immigrant family living in the pre-gangster rap era of Inglewood, California. The year of my birth and unknowingness was 1976…

There’s an old photograph that I’ve burned into my mind of my parents happily sitting around a fake plastic Christmas tree covered in silver tinsel and long forgotten trinkets, of the fragile sort, gathered over the years before I was even born. I must’ve only been a few years old but for some reason I remember… or perhaps the photograph itself represents a time and place that I long for so much so that I feel I was there to bear witness to it. In the image they sit amidst scattered wrapping paper and on their faces, rare expressions of genuine warmth & joy, perhaps even love, are shared between them. I don’t know who took that photograph but it was most certainly one of my two older brothers that had the foresight to capture a moment in time that would seldom occur between our parents ever again. I owe a great deal of thanks to the photographer since that image has been a saving grace for me during the times when I needed to recall some happy memory between my folks who otherwise spent most of their lives together fighting about things that have still not been resolved and more than likely never will. I cherish that special moment more than any material possession that I’ve ever received since more often those compensatory gifts represented the deficiencies of our family as a whole since my parents separated and divorced while I was still quite young. But even then I had a sense of what was going on though I didn’t have the capacity to understand the repercussions it would eventually inflict upon our family and the next generation to come I knew it as the reality of my life and it never felt right. It still doesn’t feel right but I understand it better now… even if it’s only a little bit more it’s more than before. Enough for me to find a solemn sense of pleasure in a photograph that is tucked away, stored in some box along with other mementos that contain yesteryear’s happiness.

Imogen Heap, will you marry me?

Just the other day I was shuffling songs about in thoughtful order to create a playlist on my Ipod. I was making a mix cd for a friend that tells the story of a girl and a guy in the sunset of their relationship, followed by the onset of a new encounter between the girl and another guy while also reflecting the scarring/healing process of her previously failed relationship. The mix was supposed to be a dialogue of some sort, where a girl sings and then a guy responds. I started the mix with a short instrumental called “A Beginning” by the Beatles just for the namesake of cuing the listener that indeed this was the beginning of the mix. A bit contrived but it sets the tone for the first few tracks. I followed it with Imogen Heap’s “Hide and Seek” which happens to be one of my favorite songs of all time or at the very least, an iconic song during this season of my life. I’ve know this song for some time but since I’ve recently encountered relationship struggles of my own I’ve come to appreciate her lyrics much deeper and I’ve concluded that Heap is not only an extraordinary vocalist but a captivating and witty lyricist. Intrigued by the seemingly elusive meaning behind some of the phrases in the song I did a little research and came upon a stellar description/interpretation that I cannot take credit for. So, I offer my sincere thanks to whoever posted this on www.lyricinterpretations.com .

 

Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap

[Interpretation in parenthesis]

where are we?
What the hell is going on?…
Dust has only just begun to fall,

 

 

(a big fight recently happened between wife and husband
and the dust is just settling and she has no idea of whats coming next)

crop circles in the carpet
sinking, feeling…
Spin me around again and rub my eyes
this can’t be happening…

(she just came home and the devastating realization hits so very hard;
some furniture is gone (carpet crop circles),
and unable to accept being left, the world is falling apart)

when busy streets amess with people
would stop to hold their heads heavy

(if the whole world felt what she felt,
this is what it might look like. Everything, everybody stops
to hold their heads heavy because, nothing else matters. It looks as if all that is precious is lost
and things will never be the same again…)

hide and seek
(the “game” of finding love, seeking and hoping to find it)

trains and sewing machines
(the trains of a wedding dress and the work it takes to make the dress and as well, a marriage)

all those years, they were here first..
(the breakup is happening, but our marriage, our time together happened too. It was here first before the other, and it was real and it meant something.)

oily marks appear on walls
where pleasure moments hung before…
(the place where pictures and happy memories hung before, but no longer. The absents of the pictures are as painfull as if they were still hung… The poor womans life is now a sad and lonely void)

the takeover, the sweeping insensitivity of this still life.

(the takeover meaning being pushed aside by the other?
The harsh cold and gray of loneliness after having known love and the loss of it.)

hide and seek
trains and sewing machines …Oh, won’t catch me around here…
(i’ll not play the “game” of finding love…
I will never marry again…..)

(and this is why… Her past experience was so brutally painful and damaging
(can’t forget, can’t heal??))
blood and tears…. They were here first

ohm, what’d you say, mmm, that you only meant well?
Well of course you did
(meant well? Doesn’t meaning well mean trying to fix it. We vowed to each other for better or worse.)

ohm, what’d you say, mmm, that it’s all for the best
’cause it is
(for the best? You’re just going to throw it all away?)

ohm, what’d you say, mmm, that it’s just what we need…You decided this?
(…. You decided this? Shouldn’t we talk and both decide??

Ohm, what’d you say, mmm, what did she say?
(the third party… The reason all this happened)

ransom notes keep falling out your mouth
(love being held hostage, dangled in front with hollow words and no
intention of trying to go back to what we had)

mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut-outs
speak no feeling, no I don’t believe you
you can bet you don’t care a bit…
(saying things, words you know I want to hear but no feeling in them
… I know you don’t care anymore. I don’t believe you)

ransom notes keep falling out your mouth
mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut-outs
speak no feeling, no I don’t believe you…

You don’t care a bit
you don’t care a bit
you don’t care a bit
you don’t care a bit

 

 

 

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It was a challenge for me to choose a song out of my collection that would flow, not only in tone/timbre but in content as well since her song has such presence. I won’t list the rest of the songs I ended up choosing since that’s not really the purpose of this blog (unless some of you are curious, in which case I’ll list the rest of the songs along with their lyrics). It is in fact just a little thank you note paying tribute to Imogen Heap.

Music is in many ways a life saver for so many of us. I’m not a musician but I appreciate music of all sorts… especially when a song’s lyrics deeply empathizes with one’s life experiences coupled with a tonality and rhythm that reflects the emotional intensities of human interaction… sometimes a great song can relate with you even better than a friend…but if they’re a really good friend they’ll share the pleasure/pain all the same. Indeed, music is the gift that keeps on giving, for us the living. What a profoundly beautiful symbiotic relationship…

If you’ve ever felt that way about a song, be it melancholy or uplifting, I’d love to hear about it.

And if by slim happenstance that Miss Heap might ever stumble upon this… Thank You.

So here we go…

So with a bit of uncertainty and trepidation I’ve decided to bare my soul here, under a pseudonym no less, in the hopes of cathartically purging these seemingly random thoughts that have taken residence in this thing I call my mind.  I hope to simply express my thoughts and ideas and perhaps in doing so may at one point find something meaningful to say along the way. So here goes…

This year has been none other than, well, challenging to say the least. Last winter I found out that my wife of only a year and a half cheated on me with an ex-boyfriend of hers and now we’re in the process of getting a divorce. As a result, I ended up diving head first into my work and got burnt out in the process and ultimately quit my job. I’ve been searching for another since and have only managed to secure odd jobs here and there… and the present state of our economy obviously hasn’t helped. In any case, I’ve often thought how I should’ve handled this whole situation since a part of me kept thinking it was my fault that it happened to begin with. I kept thinking that if I had been a better this or that she would’ve never done what she did. Which by the way, was simply rendezvous and kiss her ex on several occasions for the course of a month’s time… which is also the dilemma I’ve had to face this past year since according to divorce laws isn’t considered cheating. Can you believe that? Maybe I’m old fashioned or something, though I don’t really know nor even care to classify myself in terms as such. All I know is that when the story unfolded of her and her ex several things became apparent. Much of which I had an idea existed but was perhaps too blind to admit. In any case, I’ve had to digest all of this as best I could and all the while I’ve felt a heavy burden of guilt and shame since as a man I keep wondering where I went wrong. I worked my ass off and never went out partying with friends. I tried the best I could to my knowledge to be a good husband since after all it was my first attempt at being a husband to begin with. According to her though I didn’t take care of her enough and what really pained me was that she never told me or even expressed her needs to me until AFTER she had gone out with her ex. That’s been the struggle I’ve had to face because under different circumstances I might understand her actions if she and I had gone back and forth exchanging our grievances but because out of the blue she went ahead and became intimate with someone else without even trying to talk to me I’ve felt a great deal of pain and regret, not to mention a deep sense of doubt, namely in myself for my judgment altogether.. after all, I picked her to be my wife. Indeed I said that it’s been a challenging year but the reality is that it could always be worse. So, I’m holding on to each day as if it were my last… now all I have to do is shake this feeling that resembles depression and get my ass in gear to find another job so I can make enough money to find someone else and do this all over again… or something like that. And yet such is life.

Here we go again…