Something about Night

There is something about the quiet of night that is soothing and settling. Tonight, not last night obviously, but most nights.

I feel a little homesick tonight. I don’t even know for what. It’s a weird kind of homesick feeling. For a time and for people. The friends I hung out with. The times we stayed up late and made unhinged parody videos, or wrote songs, or just talked and played guitar and sang. It will never be like that again. All of my friends have moved far away or passed away.

At one point in my life, like within a one-year-time frame several friends of mine I loved died. One, Ricky, died in a car accident. He apparently fell asleep at the wheel and went off the road and into a tree. The last night we hung out, my sister and I helped him escape from his job at a surf-n-turf diner and we ran away into the night amid an August meteor shower, laughing and making wishes on falling stars. A week or so later he died.

When I was a teenager I always thought I was ugly. A lot of my self-image was based on my older sister’s bullying (in the last three entries you can get a glimpse of her antics). So, it was shocking to me when I was 17, when a guy I’d had a crush on told me I was pretty. It was the first time I thought maybe I wasn’t so bad after all. A few years later he committed suicide.

I had a great group of friends in my early 20s. We played guitar, stayed up all night watching old movies from the 1950s. Put up a Christmas tree in March just because we wanted to. One by one, they moved away. Far away. I got married and divorced (to a cheater), then married and divorced (to an abuser), then married and divorced (to a conman). That last marriage lasted three weeks. I was naive and optimistic, but not stupid. (Did I mention that I never give up??)

Anyway, this is what I’m homesick for (not the bad marriages) , the old friends. The way it used to be. When music was important. When we were young and hopeful and I didn’t feel so isolated. It will never be that way again. I’m very selective about friendships. I always have been. I’ve been very fortunate to have had such great friends. There was so much laughter. So much resilience. So much ahead of us.

Perhaps lack of sleep last night has made me emotional. And plus I’m listening to some old songs. I blame Dan Hill as the one that started it. This song is like a time machine, and it is so beautiful. I would have to say that Dan Hill was the first man I fell in love with when I was a teenager. I remember falling asleep listening to an oldies radio station and hearing this song.

I rarely feel alone or lonely, but when I do, music helps.