Last night I had a fairly murky dream, and can’t really remember most of what happened. But the one thing I do remember was that I spent the entire adventure wearing a trenchcoat that was lined with about $20,000 in cash that I kept feeling for as I ran from various criminals.
Other areas of vague rememberence:
- Looting a Walmart-esque superstore for VHS players
- Occupy Bananna Republic
- Wanting to spend the money on bribes for Hot and Sour soup
- Writing a screenplay about the inventor of the didgeridoo, starring Leonardo DiCaprio
- Panini monsters
I think there is something wrong with me.
THIS YEAR MORE THAN EVER, I GET “THE SUBURBS”
When I first heard Arcade Fire’s “The Suburbs,” it was early July of 2010, a year and change after I’d graduated college and smack in the middle of my post-grad struggle to find permanent employment. Although I felt that burning discomfort of adult life nudging me on the shoulders, I think I was distracted by the tail-end of the binge drinking, globetrotting freedom of being closer to twenty than thirty with no earthly responsibilities. Arcade Fire’s record spoke to a part of me that was mostly nostalgia, but still attainable as status quo– perhaps it was the subtle fear of returning to my childhood home (a monetary failure) that kept me from fully feeling its power, its poignancy. As far as The Suburbs goes, I felt the most emotional while grappling with the loss of old friends (“Suburban Warefare”) and when viewing the Chris Milk interactive music video for “We Used To Wait,” an HTML 5 adventure which utilizes Google Maps to project images of the place you grew up as Win Butler croons about the wilderness. Those are the songs for the young young adult. “Sprawl” feels a bit older to me, looking back at some abandoned piece of property you used to be familiar with, unable to connect in the darkness. I’m certain I’m not at the “Spawl” stage of my life yet.
But right now, at the ripe age of 24 and a half, gainfully employed with bills and problems and plans to do more than get wasted on Friday on night, I get it. I get “The Suburbs” more than ever before. Returning to my parent’s house (the only “home” I’ve ever known other than a few apartments in New York City), facing the streets as they fade from my memory, the walls of my former bedroom as barren as my checking account, thinking in terms of the fiscal year, my tax returns, what is my five year plan– cruising around town in my sister’s car, unable to drive my own because it doesn’t exist anymore. We used to just cruise for the sake of cruising, because we didn’t have any worries bigger than how to get away with skipping school or eating six meals a day without telling mom. Sometimes I can’t believe I’m moving past that feeling, but I am–definitively, I feel like I’ve moved on from longing for this place. Given the option to be a little kid again, and erase what I’ve done with my life, I wouldn’t do it. It’s an amazing feeling, but also terrifying to take a step back and realize you no longer yearn for bliss through ignorance, instead wanting to obtain it through your own cleverness.
My parent’s house was built in the 70s. A couple of times they’ve thought about moving out, and pieces of the house certainly aren’t what they were twenty years ago. But it still holds a certain power over me, like the walls recognize my mistakes, no matter how far away they were executed.
When Win remarks that he wants a daughter while he’s still young, I empathize with his mortality in this specific feeling, I feel it too. Maybe not right now, or even in the next ten years, but goddammit my chest seizes a little every time I hear it.
Now more than ever, after “The Suburbs” come and go, and “Ready To Start” blazes, I feel taller than ever before. Perhaps I get “Ready To Start” more than I ever did before, because it’s about beginning to really love yourself, the beast you’ve become, like somebody you used to dream about becoming when you were a kid. Now it’s real, and I intend to live in it for as long as possible.