The Wild, Wild West...Indies
I complain a lot about things I don't like about living on this island, but something I've always liked is that it's still a place where you can reinvent yourself. It's a place where, if you like, you can still sort of live under the radar. There's a touch of lawlessness here, but in a good way. You just have to figure out how things work.
No matter how much you might have screwed up somewhere else, you can come here and start over. People do it all the time. Of course, it might also mean that we end up with a higher concentration of eccentric kooks, but that's okay.
This all came to mind because I was thinking about a good friend of ours who has, well, sort of disappeared. We don't exactly know where he is, although we'd heard quite some time ago that he'd gone back to the States. He was one of those people who came here to start over...but couldn't quite do it. Someone blessed with equal parts talent and demons. A huge talent...who couldn't keep his shit together.
You care about someone and want to be a good friend and help him...and then it reaches a point where you feel you have no other option than to start exerting some "tough love." You start to lose patience. The talent's always there, but it's getting more and more obscured by all the screwy shit he does...until finally you tell him to stay away. And then one day you try to reconnect...and you hear he's gone.
So this is for our dear friend, whose talent we've been missing. Tonight I pulled out a CD of our friend and my boyfriend playing live. You know how sometimes you think something's not all that great at the time...and then later you pine away for it and only WISH you had those times back? That's how I feel when I hear our friend's singing and playing...and how I feel when I think about how much my boyfriend misses playing with his friend.
This one's for you, Peoples.
No matter how much you might have screwed up somewhere else, you can come here and start over. People do it all the time. Of course, it might also mean that we end up with a higher concentration of eccentric kooks, but that's okay.
This all came to mind because I was thinking about a good friend of ours who has, well, sort of disappeared. We don't exactly know where he is, although we'd heard quite some time ago that he'd gone back to the States. He was one of those people who came here to start over...but couldn't quite do it. Someone blessed with equal parts talent and demons. A huge talent...who couldn't keep his shit together.
You care about someone and want to be a good friend and help him...and then it reaches a point where you feel you have no other option than to start exerting some "tough love." You start to lose patience. The talent's always there, but it's getting more and more obscured by all the screwy shit he does...until finally you tell him to stay away. And then one day you try to reconnect...and you hear he's gone.
So this is for our dear friend, whose talent we've been missing. Tonight I pulled out a CD of our friend and my boyfriend playing live. You know how sometimes you think something's not all that great at the time...and then later you pine away for it and only WISH you had those times back? That's how I feel when I hear our friend's singing and playing...and how I feel when I think about how much my boyfriend misses playing with his friend.
This one's for you, Peoples.
posted by Marilyn at 11:37 PM
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