Here
I am, newly moved into the first house we've ever bought, nearing the
end of what has been a miserable 7 months of pregnancy with our first
child, and this is what keeps coming back to me:
Neil
Young got a hot new girlfriend, and Gord Downie got brain cancer.
The
significance of these juxtaposed Ontario-born and bred singers comes
from the fact that they are creative minds behind the music my spouse
and I cherish the most. For him, songs of Cinnamon Girls, Southern
Men and Hearts of Gold have put him the most as ease. For me, The
Tragically Hip has never been far from my side. And now their lead
singer has a death sentence that numbers in perhaps months.
Which
is to say there is no significance to the fates of these two Canucks
– the one who left Canada to become a big name in music in the
United States, and the other who never quite penetrated the northern
border, but became a symbol of what it means to be Canadian. But I
am the daughter of a very long line of devout Roman Catholics.
Pattern recognition and finding meaning where coincidence masquerades
as divine is a part of my DNA.
I
don't find myself often moved by the lives of celebrities. When
David Bowie died, I heard the wailing and gnashing of teeth among
friends and family, and the world. But his music still exists. I
can still watch the Labyrinth at any time and the summation of my
relationship with David Bowie is alive as ever. Alan Rickman died,
and in some small way, that is sad to me, but I still get a chuckle
out of Dogma, or appreciate his dour Professor Snape. Nothing has
changed. I never knew these men past their works.
And
in many ways, the way I have interacted with The Tragically Hip will
remain the same when Gord Downie is gone. The same Silver Jet,
way overhead, exists as it did
when it punctuated the bittersweet feelings I had as I prepared to
leave my life in Japan and return to the United States. It
takes all your
power to prove that
you don't care, but I didn't
even try. Even in that awkward state between the blanket of
childhood and the declaration of adulthood, the gift of Cordelia from
the blonde afro wielding Toronto classmate, along with the shrugged
off sentiment of “Yeah, you kind of aren't allowed to be Canadian
if you don't like them” had me instantly hooked.
And
in the days at the height of my own transient life, the voice of Gord
Downie validated my cabin fever, and onward I went, to the next
country, the next state, singing “And change yourself
into something you love when you leave, when you leave, when you
leave?” The quality of my
departures differed, yet those lyrics seemed to apply as much to an
exciting start to life in rural Japan as it did fleeing deep
Appalachia.
Like
as with the other close men and women of my life, surely I have sewn
my wild oats among other purveyors of song. Perhaps that is even too
trite a description, as like with those men and women, my interaction
with the movement of words to music were significant to the past
lives of younger days. But much like with my spouse, there has
always been one set of songs I find myself coming back to, each time,
infusing my life with new meaning.
And
that's what it means to live a relationship, doesn't it? To
continually grow, to constantly see with new eyes what has been
before them for years. To change, while staying the same. To live
and grow up in synchronicity.
Although
perhaps impact has been largely one way. A conversation with back-up
singer Paul Langlois about the Canadian Mockumentary Trailer Park
Boys in the quiet back parking lot of the Vogue in Indianapolis is a
memory only I keep, likely, and Gord extending his hand to mine
mid-song in New York City was a product his musical compulsion, I
suspect. But with my hand, I wanted to help you lift
enormous things, a pinch a sting I don't feel a thing, as the earth
revolves around the sun.
On
the flipside of this meaninglessly significant contrast of singers,
lies another relationship with the music of one Mr. Neil Young. The
man who, after 38 years of quintessential love bound in marriage,
left his wife and found another woman in short order. Suddenly, the
cheerleading I had gotten from him in his ode to old love, that I had
grappled onto as I jumped into the unknown world of sticking around
instead of running off to the next adventure, seemed to have been
disingenuous. Because I'm still in love with you, I want
to see you dance again, because I'm still in love with you, on this
harvest moon. Once rock solid
and supportive, they've become cheap.
Neil
Young got a hot new girlfriend, and Gord Downie got brain cancer.
Gord, I thought you beat death of inevitability to death
just a little bit. I thought you beat the inevitability of death to
death just a little bit.
