Cincinnati Windstorm (or My Life in the Dark) part 1

The storm had come on Sunday, in huge whipping bursts of wind through our fair city. By the end of it over half a million homes and businesses were without power.

As we sat on our balcony in the silence of the evening, staring out at the pitch black horizon of our new city, James smiled at me, a little weary, a little drained by the excitement of the day. I squeezed his hand and returned an encouraging grin and then got up from my chair and walked inside. In the darkness, in this cavernous room I walked and turned and slowly sat down. I lit a candle and picked up my guitar and began to play, singing light and airy versions of dark and worry-laden songs. It's all I could do. The quiet was unbearable. The silence and darkness and stifled air of this day had to be overcome. I brought but little sheet music with me when we moved and was bored with what lingered in my memory (mostly Red House Painters songs) so I turned to a book of songs by REM, the piano book for Automatic For The People. "Find the River" became a waltz, "Try Not To Breathe" a quiet bossa nova, "Nightswimming" a climbing clumsy jumper, and "Everybody Hurts" (a song I'd never had much use for) turned into a loud and lovely twist of blues. James walked in, pulling his beard with a twinkle in his eye. "I think the whole city is feeling this song right now. Nice."

I love our apartment, with it's huge fireplaces and dark woodwork. I love having my things about me, all of my family heirlooms, the cream and gold of french provincial, the straight lines and dark stain of my grandfather's craftsmanship. Illuminated by candlelight that first evening, they became ever more so dear to me. Our apartment became a home, a refuge, and it was beautiful.

We were afraid to open the fridge. I called my brother for consult and text messaged Morgan "How long will it stay cool if we don't open it?" No one quite knew the answer. What we did know was that reports thus far had said that it may take a week to restore power. I sat in the kitchen and stared at the refrigerator, thinking of the incredible amount of produce just on the other side of that insulated door. I thought of the bright colors, the red of the radishes, the yellow of the spaghetti squash, the green of the serrano chili peppers. I thought of their brilliance slowly diminishing. Ice. I needed ice. Then I could save my poor produce from a terrible fate, if that could be the fate at all, for in truth we had no idea. The state of things inside of our fridge could only be guessed at, theorized with furrowed brows and the forceful wringing of hands. The next morning, James went on to school (UC had power) and I ventured across the east side of city in search of Ice.

"WE HAVE POWER. WE ARE OPEN." declared the handwritten sign on the glass door of the Meier's General store. I parked my car and walked inside to find but little light coming from an occasional security lamp and the Check-out Area. Otherwise, the store was completely dark. And it was comparatively busy for early morning. People were walking swiftly past me. I followed, scanning the aisles as I headed towards the back. Little glimmers of light lit the shelves. I stopped and stared. Every person around me held up a flashlight. They were all shopping with mag-lights in hand and it wasn't as if they were foraging for supplies. I turned to my right and up the aisle in Womens Clothing, a woman stood perusing a rack of shirts, holding her flashlight up with one hand, checking the size and price tag with the other. Maybe she had run out of clean clothes. But she sauntered down past a shelf of jeans and a display of dresses and touched them almost whimsically as she walked by, as if it was a normal day and she was just getting out of the house, as if the stoplights down the street and across the entire city worked just fine (and people weren't driving absentmindedly and dangerously straight through every one), as if every grocery store within a 20 mile radius hadn't yellow-taped their rapidly defrosting frozen foods section, as if every gas station on every corner had a huge refrigerated room full of ice. No one had ice. Not even dry ice. Nothing. I went home to play my guitar.

Revelation at the Comet on a Friday Evening

Sometime last Summer:

"I'm sorry 'bout the bad reviews, man."

He looked at me with this surprised and suddenly hurt expression. He hadn't expected it from my lips and neither had I as a matter of fact. But I had been looking for a topic to converse about and that seemed as natural as any. Everything I had heard lately, about any album, not just his, had been a little bit tear-apart...as if everyone in the industry was jaded, tired of the next big thing, sitting back, taking a drag off of their American Spirit and waving their hand in front of their face. "Too rock. Too hard. Too much bass. Meandering lyrics." What does it matter who it was about. It became all the same over and over and over. And when I said it to Josh as a topic of conversation, on a warm Summer night on the porch of the Bottletree...it hurt. And it made me sad that the world was so jaded...in just one moment.

To tell the truth, all of those things that I read and heard were nothing. The album was rocking and was hard and had amazing bass and the lyrics were searching and beautiful.

I don't know. When I sat at home the next day, listening to the record and condemning myself for the comments I had made, suddenly I understood everything about this business to which I had latched myself and I didn't love it so much anymore.

Tonight, ages later, as I sat in the Comet next to a new group of friends around a small table in a dark dismal corner, we got into an argument about a particular band and their inner workings. Who was better than whom. What made the best songwriting. The overall creativity level of a man's work. I thought to myself that it didn't matter so much one way or the other. The extraordinary beauty of the work was that it made an impression on one individual, one quiet socially awkward individual who would probably never take a chance to voice his opinion ever again. But it was there in the glaringly beautiful wide open...if for just a moment and definitely under the influence. This is what matters. Not the reviews. Not the published critique of a particular piece. It is what one little lovely person brings home and cherishes about a piece of music, how they connect with the arrangement, how they can read into the lyrics with just one listen. This is what matters.

limitation

Gold and cream floral bedspread, darkened to a light brown by low blinds. The stiff and fuzzy arm of Theodore Ethan Bear across my face and the scent of Dreft detergent. The smell of soapy warm water and the clank of pots and the clink of dishes and the shadowed leaves peeking in, then waving from the window across the apartment. My gaze rests for a moment upon the leaves' dark forms, a grayish green with strangely bright edges. I lay on the bed with intentions to rest, turning, wanting to read, wanting to get up, wanting to...

"I don't want to have any limitations." I look up, pouting.

Jim the James smiles down at me, a warm smile, a momentary mocking grin passing quickly across his handsome face, warm again. "You spoiled brat. Everyone has limitations."

I thought, I once thought, I believed that I was superhuman. This is the thought of youth, unending emotion, unending energy, never ending life. As we walked up the steps from the park today and I gripped the railing for support, for balance and strength underneath my heavy feet, my heart dropped remembering a day when I could have skipped up those stairs with a smile and without a care.

"You must have patience. It's been a really tough summer. When it gets a little cooler, you can exercise, build up your strength again. Be patient. You'll be okay."

We spend the evening on the porch, then on the futon, listening to Grant Lee Buffalo and Will Johnson, being patient, being quiet, sharing space and love and warmth.