Magic and Loss

When you pass through the fire
you pass through humble
You pass through a maze of self doubt
When you pass through humble
the lights can blind you
Some people never figure that out

I was trying to think of an appropriate song for yesterday's post. It was eluding my thoughts so I skipped it. This morning it came to me like a flash.

Lou Reed. Magic & Loss.

The lyrics throughout this whole album are as powerful as they are frightful and daring. I haven't listened to it in a long while since the topic matter is pretty bleak: cancer, death, reticence, anguish, loss. Not the most upbeat songs. Yet powerfully beautiful in their expression. A bent similar to Beck's Sea Change, just not as languid. Quite fitting for me right now, actually.

I think you need a good downer as a point of perspective, an anchor if you will. Life is full of highs and lows. Physical and spiritual. I've been on top of mountains out west, I've been happier than one man should be. I've been sucked underwater with the cracks of death anonymously close; and now the comforts of my physical world have been destroyed.

You have to be very strong
'cause you'll start from zero
over and over again
And as the smoke clears
there's an all consuming fire
lying straight ahead

I'm not going to say that they were only material things that can be replaced, because not one day goes by that I wish it never happened. I would not care about the indifferent things: books, music, clothes. Buy new things, that's what you do. Except that I still feel like I got raped and left for dead in some dark alleyway. Wounds may heal, but scars last forever.

When you pass through
anger and self deprecation
and have the strength to acknowledge it all
When the past makes you laugh
and you can savor the magic
that let you survive your own war
You find that that fire is passion
and there's a door up ahead not a wall

I need to reconcile these events; and realize that things will get better but they will never be the same. Layer new things and new memories on top of the cracks, fill in the gaps, salvage what you can and reconstruct the rest.

And if the building' burning
move towards that door
but don't put the flames out
There's a bit of magic in everything
and then some loss to even things out

From Lou Reed's Magic and Loss