there's thunder in the sky now, pt. II

I am reminiscing here. That is, if recalling events from less than 24 hours ago could be considered reminiscent. I guess there are three ways it could go down: Memories plucked from obscurity and displayed like shiny museum objects feel saved, like souls floating upward to Memory Heaven. The things we forget, I suppose, go crashing into Memory Hell. But those memories that happened recently, those which have yet to be saved or condemned, eddy in a sort of forever Purgatory. This is one of those moments that I would like to recall when I am old and senile, and my memory has left me for greener pastures.

Al died on Friday, July 21, and the following Friday I was 950 miles from Long Beach and three feet from the ink-blot form of my family's snoozing black lab.

"I put the salad and the cookies and the card in the fridge so you won't forget them. I'm dropping Jamie off, I'll see you at the church..." My Mother's voice faded down the hall and out the front door.

Twenty minutes later, we were rushing out the same door, my Dad dressed like he was going to work; my sister and I dressed like we were going to the mall. The salad, cookies, and card remained untouched in the refrigerator. Blinking in the brightness of the sun, I felt vaguely that all of life seems like a series of assimilating behaviors. For example, in the case of the Olympics, I wonder if I am obligated to care--and which sport do I cheer for, when both luging and speed skating hold the same lack of appeal? In the case of watching the evening news, I weigh the balance of appropriation: do I eat more chips or run screaming for the hills? In the case of a funeral, I turned and asked my sister, "Is it bad that this morning I ate one of the cookies meant for the after-funeral-potluck?"

"No, I took one last night."

"Good, because I actually ate two."

"I did too."

"Okay, it was three."

It was blindingly sunny today, though not hot, even for July. Inside the car felt like being burrowed under a blanket. With the key in the ignition we set ourselves in motion, driving to a funeral, wondering whether anyone would notice--or be bothered--that we weren't wearing black. Creedence Clearwater Revival boomed over the speakers, strong and clear. In perfect pitch and in perfect unison, my dad, sister and I bleated toward the bright altar of the dashboard:

"Ayyyyy wanna know, have you ever seen the rain coming down on a sunny day?"

The sun felt so warm, it seemed impossible to see any rain at all. The neighborhood rolled by on a conveyor belt of sand-colored two-stories. I wondered then if I was allowed to feel deeply contented and painfully, inexcusably, joyfully alive while on my way to a funeral. It didn't matter. We couldn't stop the aliveness from shimmering off the asphalt, from smudging on the windows, from tumbling out of the speakers in 4/4 time.

At the church there was no casket. No gaudy flowers. No oppressive organ or depressing dirges. But there was music playing during the obligatory slideshow. And for the second time that day, Creedence Clearwater Revival pleaded, this time with Al's nearest and dearest, "Have you ever seen the rain coming down on a sunny day?"

It was at that moment that I stopped asking myself if it was okay to feel a certain way.

After the funeral, my sister and I, alone in the car, chose to take the long way home. I feel that in this case, the Long Way Home deserves capitalization, because the Long Way Home was the difference between a sleepy main drag (punctuated by the bloated growing pains of gentrification) or a wild, untraveled highway through the countryside. When that light turned green, we gunned it through the intersection, choosing the sad, sweet heart of the hay field to lead us home.

The fields were draped like tablecloths over soil and worms and life we couldn't see with our eyes. The crops bore table settings of sprinklers and of irrigation ditches and of orchards. We cut across them like renegades; two-bit criminals on the lam, beat-up bandits stealing sunshine and oxygen and outrunning death with a whooping holler.

We rumbled over train tracks and as the traction of our rubber souls resonated off the asphalt, we were ambushed. Like the crashing crescendo of a fatally magnificent symphony, hundreds of black birds filled the air, unearthed from beneath the crops. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. It was a black curtain swinging across the staged highway. For a moment all we could see was a flurry of wings and motion, as though someone had pressed fast fwd and couldn't find the play button. Hundreds and hundreds, they rose in unison a full octave and descended back into the baseline, quarter rest.

I saw the shining roundness of my sister's eyes, my own eyelids disappeared into my skull. Looking behind us, there were no birds to be found, and I would be tempted to disbelieve such an occurrence had actually happened. But we turned the car around, ground our tires into the shoulder and stared straight ahead.

Creedence was playing again and Jody jammed her foot into the gas pedal.

"This one's for Al."

And again we punched through the veil of time, where everything was fast forwarded, a flurry of light and shadow and sound. Those birds leapt again in unison, the gentle refrain to a brilliant chorus. We were crossing that Red Sea in search of the Promised Land, and as the mighty wall of feathers lifted gracefully around us, we didn't cast our gaze to heaven, or even the sky. We stared straight down the highway corridor, knowing full well what it meant to be renegades, and as the wave of beaks and wings disintegrated behind us, we said,

"Al, this one's for you."

Let the Sunshine in

Nearly 5pm on a thursday afternoon. It's 88 degrees out but it feels like 150. This is the time where I decide to blubber and coo all over Electrelane, a band who, much to my chagrin, hasn't released anything new since May of last year. Last year, people. I know I'm not one to be on the crest of the musical tsunami (such a bad analogy, and for it I apologize, but it's just too hot to think of anything better). I'll eschew the obvious slobbering all over The Eraser (even though Yorke's been sitting pretty in my itunes library far before the actual release of said album) in favor of a band everyone has already heard of and probably listened to death. I mean, for all intents and purposes, I could kick myself into shape and start caring about new music, but I'd rather not willingly throw myself into that lion's den (again, SUCH. BAD. ANALOGIES. TODAY. I'm sorry). I mean, I'm as excited as you are about The Avalanche or whatever Bjork's cooking up, but let's face facts: Electrelane has been hoarding every free second of listening space during my workday, so I figure I should give the gals their due.

Having said that, I'm only going to reference two albums today: The Power Out and Axes. In reverse chronological order. 'Cause I'm difficult like that.

Axes.
The first part of 2005's shimmering, simmering Axes could very well be called Hand the Mic Off to Someone Else, wherein the warped and honeyed vocals that set The Power Out apart in my mind are conspicuously absent. Instead, sonic soundscapes are carefully constructed--note for scrape for creepy, woozie, gueee-tar--into something vaguely reminiscent of the Santa Monica pier: roiling oceanic piano, nostalgic scratches and dents in a looming infrastructure, lackluster carnival rides, all of it melting nobly in the sun.

Far and away the standout grouping here is "Bells," "If Not Now When?" and "Eight Steps" (the former two are disappointingly punctuated by the which-of-these-is-not-like-the-other "Two For Joy"), a trio of tunes that could be dissected into Parts 1, 2 & 3: Where Verity Susman Goes Cawh-raaaazy on Those Ivories. No really, I mean that it is a breathless, fist-pounding, rawk-hair-shaking, black key explosion--POW! BAM! ZAM! BELLS!--that leads so nicely into "If Not Now When?" I'm tempted to forgive Electrelane of their iniquities in track order (and perhaps also of "Business or Otherwise," by far my least favorite track on Axes).

"I Keep Losing Heart" begins slowly, with a plodding pick-picking banjo, a sighing horn section, and contemplative percussion. Soon enough, though, it picks up where "The [indescribably awesome] Valley" left off on The Power Out--swooning, other-era vocals busting at the seams of the temporary cathedral constructed in my head--only to knock it to pieces and soar straight into realm of Thank Yuh, Jeeeeezus!

"Suitcase," like so much of Electrelane's oeuvre, takes it's sweet time to quietly explore the landscape before burgeoning the capacity of my cheap-arse ipod headphones at the 2:32 mark--a point where most bands are wrapping up their bridge and funneling straight into chorus-chorus-refrain-aaaaaaaand-done. In fact, Susman's cooooing and ahhhhing doesn't even make an appearance until the 3:40 mark. Those Hail Mary's make their final plea toward heaven at the tail end of "Suitcase," and like the Wally World at the end of a road trip, it really is worth the wait.

The Power Out.
There are moments when I'm idly listening to my itunes, and I'm somewhere in the 'D' section (notable culprits are the Dirty Projectors or Danielson), and the songs are sort of mashing into one another like plate o' food at Hometown Buffet. Suddenly my head jerks to attention. Joy Division? In the D-E section? Has the world gone mad?

Sadly, Ian Curtis has not been miraculously resurrected at my place of employment. Rather, track one of The Power Out has fooled me, once again, into thinking that we're all gonna party like it's 1979.

All obvious comparisons to Stereolab aside, Electrelane dons a coat of many colors on The Power Out. Borrowing eras, influences, and sonic auras the world over, the album comprises itself of alternately pulsing, droaning, punching, and plodding sounds. The result is so diverse that I could commute all the way from Long Beach to LA (25.3 miles, people!) without once frantically skipping around.

Verity Susman's wobbling vocals are nowhere better showcased than on "Birds," a song that creeps along like traffic on the 101 before (inexplicably) picking up pace and coasting through the finish line. The track preceding it, "the Valleys," is nothing short of a feat of late 60's reconnaissance--extracting the precise woozy, otherwordly glow of "The Age of Aquarius" and plopping it squarely in a distinctly modern instrumental framework. I'm not going out on a limb here when I say that the moments between 3:40 and 4:39 are the most hair-raising, goose-bumping, SING IT, SISTER! moments I've had all summer (the only exception perhaps being 3:40 on Neko Case's "Star Witness," a moment which gives me chills every time I hear it).

The rest of the album hurtles face first into the kind of anthemic late-sunset driving-in-the-summer territory that few bands pull off successfully. Its final farewell, "You Make Me Weak at the Knees," is a shuffling ode to the oft-neglected black key, swirling and twirling around a melody that's hard not to buckle under. It also serves as a precursor to the piano-heavy Axes to come.

All this to say, The Power Out demands that you listen, and you listen well. Because this isn't music to drone you through your work day--it forces itself into your consciousness and demands to be an equal companion to every moment getting you from Point A to Point B. Not too shabby of a request, I'd say. Even if it's no longer 1979.

there's thunder in the sky now

A correspondance. Part A is he. Part B is me.

L-

today was saturday, and it was a lazy, droning day. it was apathetic, and made me feel as though every small feeling of apathy during the summer is really it's defining point. This made me lazier and feeling more apathetic. You know the feeling, and you just can't shake it. If anyone would get it, it'd be you.

I was in lazy long beach and had to go to work. As I drove on the 22, a strange thing caught my eye- there was a thunderhead directly ahead of me. A great gray mass was exploding white out it's top. The further i drove, the less the sun had any say. It was a midwest invasion of california; a storm ditching the plains for the ocean. I just got this feeling, a feeling i had right before summer- the feeling that something big was on the horizon, like things were about to hit hyperspeed. In my head i wanted to see the storm explode all over LA and her dirty innards. I wanted the storm to come and explode all over me- literal rain that i usually hope works dually as metaphor. I wanted it bad and it was strange and now after a damn long night of work, the genuine thoughts and feelings have mostly dissappeared, and i can no longer tell what i was right on the edge of, and i can't quite feel what i might have been on the edge of. I thought about that great sunset in oregon you told us about once, the one with the violent pink. i want that too.

-J

....

J-

I saw that storm, too. I saw the sky and felt that damn oppressive heat--112! The horror! I could see Orange County plastic melting right off Orange County's emotionless face. I saw the sky shifting, moaning, groaning under the weight of all that heat. I saw the mercury falling, creeping downward in an ominous--yet welcome--response to the looming cloud cover. I saw that searing pink sunset as we were driving away from it.

Why does it always seem like I'm driving away from something spectacular?

I wanted that thunder and lightning to be inside of myself. Obliterate my insides. Make way for something new, something different. All I really wanted this weekend was a hug, but instead I got a thunderstorm that refused to manifest its core in my belly; refused to wipe the slate clean.

Damn you, California. Damn you, hugless, emotionless, painless society. Damn you, thunderhead for withholding your fury. Damn anyone who has ever withheld anything for reasons they can't explain.

On Friday morning I was getting gas, almost pulled away from the pump with the nozzle still in my car, and my phone rang.  It was my mom.  I picked up and there was static, something in the air; it wasn't right. The mercury was falling.

"Are you on your way to work?"  Her voice sounded strained.  It wasn't right.  She was testing, testing to see where I was, what I was doing, who I was with.  The first thing I thought was that this was the equivalent of the dreaded, "Are you sitting down?"

Well yes.  I'm driving.  "Yeah...just left the gas station. What's up?"

"I have some bad news..."  I remember that tone in her voice.  That tone was there when my great grandmother died and cried spontaneously, though not out of grief.  That was the first person close to me who had died, but I remember the sound of her voice.  It recorded itself in my memory like an alarm ready to sound.  I only needed to hear it once to remember it forever.

And she had that tone today.

"What's wrong?" I ask, because that's what you ask.  You can't say to someone, "Stop right there.  Don't go any further! I don't want to know."  You ask because you do want to know, but everything in your body seizes simultaneously as if to say, "YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW."

You can't just say, "Abort."  You have to ask, "What?"  You have to know what comes next.  I didn't want to know what came next.

There was a deep breath.  My mom was gathering her strength.  "Al died this morning."

Sometimes I imagine how I might react the next time something tragic happens, the next time I hear that tone, and press the question, "What happened?" even though I don't want to know.  I imagine that it takes a while to sink in, that I sit down, that I hold my shit together and keep myself composed because I've got it so f*cking together.  

But I sucked for air and before I could even exhale the tears had traced a messy path down my face.  It was an instantaneous reaction both baffling and marvelous--how could I have felt so much, so quickly?  I'll never understand.  But I cried.  And my mom heard me choke and I could hear through miles and miles of telephone lines that her body reacts that way, too, and as we cried together on the phone, I realized we shared the same blood and I don't think I'll ever feel so close to someone, while so far away.  

We fought through the formalities while our faces contorted and our voices broke.  The cancer was worse than they thought.  He was doing so well, I said, the last I heard.  He went off the treatment and everything fell apart, she replied.  When's the funeral i don't know but Steven flew home last night and was going to visit him today and now it's too late are you okay? I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know.  

My car crested the sloping curve of the 710 freeway.  But I was in the backyard in Oregon, the sun shining so brightly it bleached the light places white and stained the dark places black.  There were people everywhere, eating, laughing, talking.  I drifted inside to drop my purse off, and saw Al for the first time since the diagnosis.  My mom had that tone then, too, but there was hope in her voice and I stupidly held onto that hope, as though hoping keeps people alive forever.  

I didn't understand how cancer could eat away at someone, but I understood full well when I saw Al.  Frail.  Gaunt.  So thin, so little hair, his polo shirt--a size small, down from his previously robust XXL--blousing around his torso.  His skin sagged, created craters and rivets along his frame.  It was as if he were being eaten from the inside out by termites.  He recognized me and I pretended not to notice the physical shell that was betraying him right before my eyes.  I acted like everything was normal.  I acted like I didn't notice.  I acted happy to see him, but I was secretly terrified and shaken to the core.  

I said hello but what I wanted to say was, I love you. I love you. I love you.  You are part of what makes me who I am, part of what allows me to love. When I met you I was a child and you taught me how to grow up.  You told me, "God don't make no junk," and I believed you.  I believed you every time I thought maybe God had made a mistake or that perhaps there was an oversight.  I believed you when you said, every sunday, as we were bustling out the door of your classroom, "Hey!  I love you!"

No, I love you.

But I didn't say that.  I kept up with formalities, with picnic and backyard and cancer-free formalities.  I said my "hello's" and went in search of the Jell-O salad.  But I wanted to write to you and tell you how much you have meant to me over the years, and how I glowed from within every time you told me you were proud of me.

But I never did. 

God, why didn't I?

You knew, right? I mean you knew I loved you back, and that you were important to me, and that you impacted my life far more than I had ever told you.  Please tell me you knew that...

And I thought to myself, the treatment is working.  He's been spared.  We've all been spared. 

But not everyone is spared.

Not Al.  Not me.  Not today.

I was not myself on Friday. I still thought of sarcastic comments, of jokes, of laughing and of life carrying on in a normal way, although a switch has flipped inside and I was painfully aware of my ability to compartmentalize emotion so easily. I could see myself, as if the day were continuing normally, as though I hadn't picked up my phone. Normalcy and Reality were at war with each other on friday.  I'm didn't pick sides, and I can't tell you who is winning now.  But sometimes today feels Normal.  And other times it is reality.  And every time it switches back and forth I feel as though I'm being smacked in the face.  

That rain never came. The lightning never erupted inside of me. The violent pink never materialized. I am listening to that Innocence Mission song, "Rowing on the Lakes of Canada," and I think I understand it now.


Look for me another time
Give me another day
I feel that I could change
Beneath the silver sky I need another day
I feel that I could change...
-Innocence Mission


-Laurel

oh, and...

...because I'm a photographer, I photograph things. Here's a few.

A letter written to a friend, which also serves as an update for the summer:


Three people missed you yesterday.

Although I'm sure the number was far higher than that, the only people I can vouch for are us three: Bonnie, Josh, Myself.

Yesterday I missed you. I thought about you and how it had been awhile since we talked, and how there was so much to say...but how do I say it? It's all the details, the minutiae, anyway. But there's just so much...

Josh wished you were there last night as he was (are you ready for this?) making fajitas. He's growing up, I tell you. Hunched over the cutting board, slicing vegetables and chicken, rotating between the sizzling pan and the countertop, sipping a mimosa and explaining the art of fajita-making. This is our Josh, the one who, just two short months ago, didn't know how to use an oven. Maybe living in the Rat House causes boys to grow up.

I myself was vacillating between the effects of champagne and the effects of it being so bloody hot in the kitchen. Plop. More vegetables fell to their doom in the pan. Jon was getting antsy; "How can I help? Kitchen helper here!" (bouncing slightly in the way that makes his hair pouf up and down). Josh, en route from the counter to the skillet, caught my eye above his glasses, which, lubricated by sweat and steam, had slipped down the bridge of his nose.

"I wish Ryan were here."

I took a long, slow drink of that champagne in agreement; a silent toast to you. Bonnie echoed the sentiment, adding that she had missed you earlier in the day, as I had.

I know you can't smell those spices as they marinated in the pan, the metaphor of a friend growing up. I know you can't feel the heady, breathless swirl of the champagne and the heat and the hunger, a vicious trifecta that creeps in so innocently. I know you'll never hear the conversation that floated from room to room; Jessica's impassioned yarble, Emily's agreeable Mmm's and Ahhh's, Jon's plucky comments, Brie's endless spew of innuendo. Or even my own woozy contributions.

But last night you were missed. And even though not present, your presence was felt to some small degree.


Life is moving, as ever. This summer has been the best of my life, and I say that with confidence. I want to call you this weekend and tell you about everything; about seeing The Shins and Belle & Sebastian (and Radiohead. And Damien Rice. And Fiona Apple. And the Flaming Lips. And. And!) About going to Santa Barbara to witness (and document) one of my closest friends marrying the girl of his dreams. About staying at Jessica's house and watching Jon and Mrs. Nelson squabble about brownies shaped as prisms ("It is not a prism. It is a mound." -Jon Crosswhite). About Disneyland and the best place to see fireworks. About riding bikes with Adam. About music and about mini-crisis's (I'm no good at what i do! Blaarrrghhh!). About feeling like a kid again.

I miss you.

I missed you yesterday.

I miss you even still.

-Laurel

...

Here are some photos from this summer:

Hawaii






The Salton Sea






The Time InBetween






Tom & Brit's Wedding