I often mis-read signs ~~ usually it's a Freudian slip, like mistaking "socks" for "sex," or "sale" for "soul" ~ who knows. Last night I was driving home late and was about to enter the on-ramp to Highway 24 off of MLK Way ~ you know how the painted signs on roads and on-ramps are usually laid out for drivers to read from bottom to top? And I misinterpreted this sign:
| ONLY WAY FREE |
And I thought, wait ~~ I did NOT have anything to drink at that cocktail party....did I? Because I could swear God is sayin' something to me and I can't figure her out right now. As I sat there, trying to make sure that I, in fact, was drop-dead sober, I started thinking...wait, is this the Only Way Free? Is this path the only one? In fact, there are several ways for me to get home ~~ surface streets, and the 580 instead of the 24, or the long way around on 980 and through downtown Oakland. Short-cuts, scenic routes, through fancy Piedmont or not-so-fancy West Oakland if I want. But sometimes, changing the path changes the destination. The detours, the speed bumps, the getting-lost and losing time ~ changes the destination...sometimes for better, often for worse, but who can tell. Sometimes, the destination remains the same, but everything inside has changed ~~ like when you take a different route home from a road-trip and it takes you an extra day to reach home, the same home you had when you left; but you get home and realize you left the windows open and it rained, and it wasn't supposed to rain, and if you had gotten home a day earlier, your apartment would not have flooded.
I know, I know...WTF, right? Never mind that a few lines ago I did that thing again where I screw up my American colloquialisms....but keep in mind that lately I have been choking on a lot of hot-air and suffocating on general naysaying, and have been trying to swim out from under a tidal wave of cosmic-negativity....AND, I was blaring my "F*** You World" song, "Harder to Breathe" by Maroon 5. (By the way, I have been keen on M5 for over a year and if you don't have their album, "Songs About Jane," yet, well you need to run out and get it, right now ~ yes, DO IT.) Anyway, at the moment that I saw that sign on the on-ramp, waiting at that stoplight, and at the moment these thoughts popped into my head, this part of the song was blaring:
How dare you say that my behavior is unacceptable
So condescending unnecessarily critical
I have the tendency of getting very physical
So watch your step cause if I do you'll need a miracle
You drain me dry and make me wonder why I'm even here
This Double Vision I was seeing is finally clear
You want to stay but you know very well I want you gone
Not fit to fuckin' tread the ground I'm walking on
When it gets cold outside and you got nobody to love
You'll understand what I mean when I say
There's no way we're gonna give up
And like a little girl cries in the face of a monster that lives in her dreams
Is there anyone out there cause it's getting harder and harder to breathe
Is there anyone out there cause it's getting harder and harder to breathe
What you are doing is screwing things up inside my head
You should know better you never listened to a word I said
Clutching your pillow and writhing in a naked sweat
Hoping somebody someday will do you like I did
Well, you get my drift....And generally, the "you" in this song means, well, YOU/ME ~ your Self, your overblown Ego that needs to get over itself, your Doubt, your Arrogance, your Fear.....and yes, even, that D*** that d**cked you over. This is your Self, singing to You, reminding You that You already kick-ass, that you know better than to listen to that negativity around you ~~ reminding you to reassess, realign, recapture your magic.....and remember how amazing you are. And this song is even keener because Maroon 5 wrote it to spite their record company ~~ when the band was ready to release the album, their record company felt that none of the songs was good enough to be a single, and so the record execs kept pushing the band to write one more song, the one that could be released as a single. And so the band wrote this as a sort of "F*** You" to their bosses. And when you get the album you will note that EVERY DAMN SONG is amazing and you will ask, HOW COULD THE RECORD EXECS NOT SEE THAT? They already had a bounty of hits!
.....and so in life, you will think that what you have is not good enough, that you can do better, that you can find better or bigger or brighter or shinier -- and, yeah, you may get that better, bigger, shinier thing, only to realize that you already had 10 other nuggets of gold.
And so I drove on home....thinking about this.
No more posting for a few days while I go on a little road trip. And think some more.
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