I thought by moving there I was taking the highway through the great divide, but I think I was really just cutting my head off so I could weigh it.
I don't remember the actual figure, but it was heavy.
In fact, I'm not even sure, twenty-four years later, what the great divide is.
"We could have come so very far in at least as many years..."
"We could have come so very far in at least as many years..."
Yeah, no idea.
Anyway, the album was Phish's "Rift," and most of us in the crowded little wannabe commune I lived in were very into it. No one there was a true Phish-head, so no one minded that it was a studio album rather than a live set, and many of us dug the conceptual vibe. At one point, though, one roommate said, while looking directly at me, "That Phish album gets played... so much..."
Yes, it did, because I loved the album and I owned both it and the best sound system in the house. So, yes. I played that Phish album. So much. The music was excellent, seemingly perfect. And the lyrics... oh, the lyrics. Intricate, clever, crazed, confusing... They got inside my head. I knew them all, or thought I did.
And they certainly seemed to know me.
I mean, I DID struggle with destiny up on the ledge, as the title song suggested. After all, I had made the choice to move from home to a place that had always seemed mysterious and magical. How brave, I convinced myself, to step away from the comfortable and into the unknown. It wasn't easy, but I was doing it!
Of course, I chose to ignore the truth: that destiny was "glaring" at me, that I hurt myself and others by struggling with my destiny until, "defeated, she slipped off the edge." I mean, I mostly believe that we make our own destinies. So, looking back on that summer, I steered myself into what I thought was a garden, what turned out to be a maze.
And when winter came, "it's ice... An icy clump that lies beneath the ground."
I can admit now how scary the lyrics were to me. Not ghost-and-monster scary, but into-my-psyche scary. Even at the time, I knew the words felt ominous, even the funny ones. And they seemed to mirror the confusion I was hiding after moving there, living in a world where I didn't truly belong, pretending not to miss the world where I did.
My friends did have knives. The skin did peel back slowly from my knee. Don't even get me started on the prickly hairs. I laughed outwardly, and laughing, I inwardly fell apart.
Then, "silence contagious in moments like these..."
That's kind of what it came to. I became too introspective over the course of that year I lived there. Confused, I said, "This isn't me." I hovered in the unity of the others, never belonging. Ashamed, I slowly lost my grasp on myself, my own destiny. I labeled myself a failure for never truly fitting in this magical garden and for only getting out of that maze by climbing under a wall and escaping.
As far as I know, I'm the only one who saw it this way. Most everyone else probably thought I was just quiet, or maybe a bitch. There might have been one or two to whom I tried to explain how lost I was, or who recognized it on their own.
Anyway, after a year, my horse was overburdened and I needed to set a different course. I could no longer avoid the self-created obstacles that terrorized my view. Divine creation had seemingly heard me, and had squashed me with fear. I had gone astray from myself, my true destiny.
And so I moved back home.
It has taken me a long time to get over that year. Parts of me probably still hang on to parts of it I shouldn't. And while "Rift" still has a solid spot among my most-played and most-loved, there's still a twinge, still a tingle when I consider it. Even as I play it loud and dance and inevitably sing along, I still think about that year, that fear.
As I chose the album today, I thought about it again, about that rift I created in myself, in my destiny.
But I also recognized something.
I realized how very far I have come in the many years since. While those years have been a maze of their own, and have involved plenty of lengthwise and diagonal sleeping, I think maybe I finally may have made it over the rift, out of the mazes, and maybe even through the great divide.
I'm no longer struggling with destiny. I'm finding my voice. It's certainly no pyramid with limestone blocks dragged from the mountaintop. There's no two-car garage. And my voice surely isn't bringing anyone to their knees.
But all things reconsidered, that's not really what I want anyway.
And they certainly seemed to know me.
I mean, I DID struggle with destiny up on the ledge, as the title song suggested. After all, I had made the choice to move from home to a place that had always seemed mysterious and magical. How brave, I convinced myself, to step away from the comfortable and into the unknown. It wasn't easy, but I was doing it!
Of course, I chose to ignore the truth: that destiny was "glaring" at me, that I hurt myself and others by struggling with my destiny until, "defeated, she slipped off the edge." I mean, I mostly believe that we make our own destinies. So, looking back on that summer, I steered myself into what I thought was a garden, what turned out to be a maze.
And when winter came, "it's ice... An icy clump that lies beneath the ground."
I can admit now how scary the lyrics were to me. Not ghost-and-monster scary, but into-my-psyche scary. Even at the time, I knew the words felt ominous, even the funny ones. And they seemed to mirror the confusion I was hiding after moving there, living in a world where I didn't truly belong, pretending not to miss the world where I did.
My friends did have knives. The skin did peel back slowly from my knee. Don't even get me started on the prickly hairs. I laughed outwardly, and laughing, I inwardly fell apart.
Then, "silence contagious in moments like these..."
That's kind of what it came to. I became too introspective over the course of that year I lived there. Confused, I said, "This isn't me." I hovered in the unity of the others, never belonging. Ashamed, I slowly lost my grasp on myself, my own destiny. I labeled myself a failure for never truly fitting in this magical garden and for only getting out of that maze by climbing under a wall and escaping.
As far as I know, I'm the only one who saw it this way. Most everyone else probably thought I was just quiet, or maybe a bitch. There might have been one or two to whom I tried to explain how lost I was, or who recognized it on their own.
Anyway, after a year, my horse was overburdened and I needed to set a different course. I could no longer avoid the self-created obstacles that terrorized my view. Divine creation had seemingly heard me, and had squashed me with fear. I had gone astray from myself, my true destiny.
And so I moved back home.
It has taken me a long time to get over that year. Parts of me probably still hang on to parts of it I shouldn't. And while "Rift" still has a solid spot among my most-played and most-loved, there's still a twinge, still a tingle when I consider it. Even as I play it loud and dance and inevitably sing along, I still think about that year, that fear.
As I chose the album today, I thought about it again, about that rift I created in myself, in my destiny.
But I also recognized something.
I realized how very far I have come in the many years since. While those years have been a maze of their own, and have involved plenty of lengthwise and diagonal sleeping, I think maybe I finally may have made it over the rift, out of the mazes, and maybe even through the great divide.
I'm no longer struggling with destiny. I'm finding my voice. It's certainly no pyramid with limestone blocks dragged from the mountaintop. There's no two-car garage. And my voice surely isn't bringing anyone to their knees.
But all things reconsidered, that's not really what I want anyway.
