I have discovered Amazon Prime Music and I am in love and enthralled. The music of my life at my fingertips, for free. Well, for the annual membership which I use for tons of other things so this is just bonus.
I think I may be like many people in my age range. I have albums of my music or as my little nieces say “What big CDs you have:. I have downloaded some of it on my ipod. But…. There are all those albums and memories. I am in Amazon download frenzy.
This weekend I found Badlands. Serendipity. I get through my life with music. When I lose the music I know I am in bad shape. After a long bad time years ago, I knew I was going to be alright when I heard Springsteen on the radio and felt joy again.
But Badlands is more . Years ago I lost the job that I loved. Why do we say lost? I didn’t lose it, they let me go. Eight and a half years of mostly love. I believe the roots of my present condition hark back to that time. I used to work insane hours happily. I didn’t understand why people couldn’t wait till Friday or were upset at Mondays. I travelled all over the world for that company. However, there was one trip. I was really sick before I left. I was going to spend two weeks in Japan and Taiwan and fly back to California to work a trade show. Then I would stay a few days in Los Angeles with my boyfriend’s best friend. Men who did that trip used to spend some days in Hawaii and their wives would fly out to meet them. I was unmarried and wanted to go to the beach in Thailand (bucket list though the term wasn’t used then) . Instead, I had to fly back to California to work. One of the guys gave me advice on how to fly so sick. “Blow Afrin constantly up your nose before landing.” Well it worked. I made it through landing. Who knew half an hour later that the pain would be excruciating . I was really sick. I was the company’s “little girl”. The men I had to meet for business were terrified that George (the president) would be furious if anything happened to me. I was constantly plied with soup. I slurped my way through Japan and Taiwan. There is a reason for everything . I was in the same hotel in Tokyo as Mike Tyson. His posse insisted that I “party with Mike.” I couldn’t even croak. Just nodded “no” numerous times and kept on going. My brush with “destiny”. When stories came out about those girls later, I totally believed. I left Taiwan at 11 a.m. in the morning, landed in Los Angeles at 11 a.m. the same morning (international date line) and worked till 11 p.m. that night. I was so sick I couldn’t think of staying in LA after the show. Back in NY, I collapsed in JC Penney’s. I was diagnosed with pharyngitis. I truly believe that disregard for my health is a source of my ultimate conditions. And ironically enough on my return I found as scared as everyone was of telling George being furious if anything happened to me they were also terrified of telling him that I was too sick to undertake that trip. So, after all that dedication, passion and bad health, I was cut loose in the world. I was gutted. I lost my livelihood and most of my friends. Well, I guess they weren’t my friends. Actually, I do still have some from those days and some have died. In fact, I had a card this week from one of them. But with no money and no job , a disastrous marriage, I felt cut off from everyone including myself. I would wake in the morning feeling as if there was a huge pillow in my face. I left my then husband ( I love that phrase “my then husband”) and moved back with my parents. They couldn’t acknowledge depression. My mother was a pull yourself together type. She said to me at the time I had to learn how to do it myself because she wasn’t always going to be around to do so.
I was back in my childhood bedroom. Me and my record player. I started to play Darkness on the Edge of Town and Nebraska obsessively. Badlands helped me through. “Talk about a dream, try to make it real. Spend your life waiting for a moment that just doesn’t come. I believe in the faith that can save me . Raise me above these badlands. For the one who had the notion, notion deep inside, that it ain’t no sin to be glad you are alive. I’m gonna find one face that ain’t looking through me. I want to spit in the face of these badlands.” And that’s what I did. I made it through the badlands.
And here I am again years later. Another job “lost”. Financially crunchy. Up against those Badlands again. It all came rushing back again. This time I do not have my mother to put me back again. I am starting to crash. One thing I know I can’t and won’t go back to that freefall again. Well, I still feel the joy of the music again. And I still retain my resiliency. Resiliency feels like a curse sometimes. I used to tell my mother I felt like a Joe Palooka punching bag. Every time you hit me I spring back. My spring is getting kind of rusty. This time there’s the extra wrinkles: no parents, my condition, uh, actual wrinkles, a mortgage. We wonder when I go for a job with my outfit coordinated cane/walking stick what the impact is on the hiring decision. I had an interview where I had to get in and out of a van. I would have and have had the same difficulties in the past with heels. I am not the most graceful or coordinated person as numerous airport shuttle drivers can attest.
I see my resources dwindling as I hold onto faith. And yeah, I’m blasting Badlands again
Tresswann Shall Rise Again - Living Life! 