Sixth Sense

Paul Simon singing El Condor Passa, Click and Watch to Get the My Story Here. 
(and by the way, this is one hell of a song to be singing to five year olds on Sesame Street)

“Away, I'd rather sail away. Like a swan, that's here and gone.”

I was talking to a friend about a particular recording of this song, on Paul Simon's Live Rhymn'. In this version, Paul thoroughly belts out the line, “Away...I'd rather sail away. Like a swan that's here and gone.” There are such subtle variations, wavers and changes he puts into just singing that one line that hit me when I first heard it and still does. He sings it so plaintively that it sounds terribly sincere. I've wondered why I was so struck by it.

There are two reasons, both personal and one of them was so personal that I resonated to it. The first was that I was savoring the then younger Paul's ability to sing like that. When you're young (and well trained), your vocal chords and everything else works smoothly without any breaks, misses or mistakes. I was admiring his capability and sophistication at singing. I then came to realize I was luxuriating in the youthfulness of his singing. To distill it down even further, youth with it's promise, enthusiasm and fire.

“To tell the truth” I said to my friend “I'm just plain adoring the fresh and just ripening skill. I know why now older guys in the stands go nuts for young football, soccer or basketball players. Their skills remind them of what they could once do, and can relive it, if just for a few moments. There's no difference between that and me cheering on a young Paul Simon.”

Here's the second reason and this will be a confession.

I had bought the “Live Rhymn'” CD back in 1996 and played it quite a bit but wasn't stuck with any epiphanies. To me then, it was just good music and well sung. That until about a week after my mother had died when that line I mention above, hit me like a brick.

It was a Sunday in February 1996, about a week after the funeral and all the bustle of that had finally ended. It was time to go back to my regular life of working full time and school full time. Since I had been so busy, I had very little time to myself and any hour I could grab for myself, I did. It was a grey overcast early morning, probably around 5:30 AM and I was listening to this song on my favorite stereo of all time, a Sony STR-AV 560, with the Simon cd playing before it was time to head to school.

This was my favorite stereo to date. The components I have now beats it into the ground but like cars, there is always one you fell in love with, even though a later model you own is faster, tighter and better all around. Still, it doesn't beat the way you fell in LOVE with that ONE car you once owned years ago. I married this stereo.

“Away, I'd rather sail away. Like a swan, that's here and gone.”

Like most insights, they strike like lightning. The speed, clarity and accuracy of a new realization cannot be denied. The sprouting new idea is TRUE.

The song had brought forth a dusty, unkempt thought from my unconscious. That I wanted MY life to live, MY hopes and dreams, MY efforts for MY future, not someone else's. For years, I had been propping up my own mother as her health waned. I became that pillar of strength when her's faltered. I spent my vitality on someone else...and I was pissed off about it. I hated it. I had put on hold, in many instances, my own life for hers. My investment into keeping her up and alive, was huge...probably so huge I didn't realize at the moment of the currency I was paying out. 

I never glorified in some fact that I was a selfless Mother Theresa. It was just a another job a family member does for another. You do it because it was needed.

One week after her death, one week, that song was calling me out, making me realize my own damn true self.  I learned and accepted that I was now free finally. Christ...I was free! The chains were gone!

To me, the way Paul sang the song, encompassed his and my longing desire for an affirmation of a future was indeed possible.

There now may be a guarantee, a goal that's attainable. I now can live MY life.

I had just turned 30 and was still young enough yet to do it. I was finishing up a degree from J&W and in the summer of '96, I was crawling through lava tubes of Mt St Helen's volcano. I found a girlfriend quick and was having a summer fling. (I had rarely dated for those last couple of years when I was too busy keeping my mom alive and giving her hope, any damn hope, that and full time work/school). That summer I was naked on a private beach on the south shore of Block Island with Nicole, who thought the sun revolved around me. I was ripping this house apart, updating it, throwing out damn near everything that spoke of illness or the past. I made it MY house.

Hell, I even bought a leather jacket for the first time in my life.

All in one summer. I got my life back.

That's what a song can do, tap deep inside you to wake you up.  After all these years, this simple song still strikes me.