From the Archives | A Morning Thought

I found this in my drafts, I forgot I wrote it. It was after I just met someone. I thought it was terribly redundant and try hard, so I never published it. Reading back, I think it’s okay. Not great, but okay.

What is 1979, by the Smashing Pumpkins. What is a word, some words, that could encapsulate the meaning here. Well, in 1979 Billy Corgan would have been 12 years old. In my eyes, the song is about coming of age, but not your average coming of age story. Rather, the type that can manifest itself only within the deepest, most sensitive souls. It is known that Corgan spent ample time looking after his half-brother who suffered from various disabilities, a responsibility taken on by one too young to fully understand the present moment in general, let alone with that of a struggling family member. As a child, until the teenage years, we are junebugs skipping like a stone, headlights pointed at the dawn. No dwelling or consideration of the past, for there is very little of it, just moving forward, joyful progression forward.

The concept of mortality doesn’t linger, or necessarily exist for most at this age, unless there is the occurrence of tragedy near by, and even then it is chalked up to the unknown. I remember vividly when my grandmother, Rose, past away. I remember every single moment from that night, not just the sights, but the feelings, and most starkly the sounds, but I did not know what it was, I did not know what it meant, I just did not know. I think I was 8 years old. Life is just life. There is little thought about tomorrow, and in Corgan’s own lyrics, We were sure we’d never see an end to it all. And I don’t even care. He goes on, and I paraphrase, that we also don’t know where our bones will rest to dust, he guesses. The freedom in the unknown, the liberty in guessing without certainty, no failure because there is no success.

Substances and drugs are present as well, as morphine city slippin dues pull even these young kids, but they are too restless to care, too intrigued by the newness of this young life with so much to see. And time moves fast, faster than the speed of sound. Few things can do this, break the sound barrier, there was one plane, the concord, and it got shut down. Life, when fully immersed and enthralled in it, is the fastest of all, nothing speeding it more than the disassociation from thereof with a loved one. She, the loved one, (or he), defies everything known. You live in a dream, and you dream while you live. You never forget the moments with your love, because they never cease, and never will. When apart, you replay the scenes of time spent together, and when together, you film everything with your eyes, balancing your stature in the present, saving momentos for the future. You can do this, save these films, because for your love, the mind has no limit to its capacity.