Just Wanted To Say I've Been Thinking......................About You

"No Better Than This" - John Mellencamp

I have been really hammering this CD. Every day for a couple of weeks. I have talked about it in here before. Right now it is really resonating with where my head is at.

Which is stuck at sixty. Ain't too happy to be there, except for the fact that I am still alive.

The album is bare, sparse. Nothing fancy, just a collection of songs that explore life. Deadly. Delicious. Thought provoking.

Got that line I told you about: "I'm sick of life 'cause it's lost it's fun, see you in the next life, if there's really one."

Got that other stuff I told you about: "Could it be that this is all there is, could it be there's nothing more at all, save some time to dream, 'cause your dream might save us all."

And a song called "Thinking About You." This is the one that has been haunting me the most over this obsessive stretch. I listen to it two or three times each way on the commute to The Asylum.

He calls up an old flame, a woman he hasn't talked to in decades. He leaves a message with her daughter. He says :"Your young girl's voice said I'll call you back real soon. I bet that's your daughter, she sounded like you used to."

She sounded like you used to. I'm thinking the girl's voice was filled with energy and enthusiasm, like his old flame's used to. A voice she probably doesn't have any more.

He says: "It's not my nature to be nostalgic at all, I sat by the phone last night waiting for you to call, it's been decades since I spoke to you."

Sitting by the phone with his memories and disappointments, with his life, waiting for this woman to call him back, which ain't no sure thing. But it means something to him.

The chorus: "So long ago, those summer afternoons. I bet they tore that playground down, where I first met you."

Summer afternoons. Two words that contain everything. Paints such an idyllic picture; infinite time, ease, comfort and romance. They probably tore the damn thing down, just like reality tears down dreams.

Every verse ends with "I just wanted to say I've been thinking.......................about you."

Simple. Powerful.

The last verse is the killer.

"Don't mean no trouble, don't want to bother you none, ain't looking for nothing, just wondering about you some. If you ain't got time to return this call, I understand that you're busy and all, but thanks for the memories of when the world didn't seem so small."

You get to a certain point in your life and you look back, because looking forward is frightening. You probably paint a rosier picture in your mind than what was really true.

But maybe not by much.

I've been thinking a lot about when my sons were young and at home. The four of us living together, living a family life together, laughing a lot, being ourselves individually and as a family.

Carol and I are happy. Comfortable together. We've made a bit of peace with whatever life has done to us. We're kind of on cruise control, life-wise. Antsy a bit, thinking about how and where we'll end up. But there is comfort in walking through that door at night.

I don't think this home will ever have the happiness it had then. That was magic, and I don't think I am airbrushing my memories.

That's part of what that song does to me. The rest is just marking a place in life. Realizing that there were simpler things at times, things that seem simple by way of comparison. You never know they are simple pleasures at the time because you never anticipate how difficult life can become.

You never anticipate getting old.

As you look back, what feels important to you may not to someone else. I don't think his old flame is ever going to call him back. That's sad.

I guess I'm talking about reflection. Examining your life. Sifting through it to get to the gold. Recognizing the gold for what it was. Cherishing the memories for keeping some of that in your head.

I didn't get all my feelings into this.

I'll try to do better next time.