VALENTINES

Valentine's Day 2021

(Nick Cave/s “Push the Sky Away” Live in LA is playing)

In February I accidentally randomized my song catalogue for the first time and it resumed a conversation. It took paths through memory and reclaimed moments long lost, as it alighted on eleven years ago and brought its trophy to perch on Valentine’s Day, swirling in on a storm for the ages. On Valentine’s morn I found out how “random” worked, a morning drive began with the title words, “Test Me” (the song wasn’t the point). I hit “shuffle” and the conversation continued. This is its passage, our first Valentine’s, 1st Easter, (firsts for everything). For Valentine’s I thought of a painting I could do, (an expression to give back, and for a certain misapprehended “canvas” contest I thought of a second); -wish I could, but the list is long.

Valentine’s Eve began with the penetrating clarity, “I saw You…”

In 1998 I saw you. 

“And the rain sets in” - “It’s the angel man” (I actually still think this is, “It’s the age of man”) -“a blonde belief” -“so cruise me babe” - David Bowie - “I’m Deranged” - and we have the appearance of Eric Burdon’s “The Madman” - one half of the song “Gemini” - The lion and the lamb go through the dam, “things went OK, and then one day, ‘Pow!’"

It was You I saw, not anyone else. That I saw You was what brought me back. 

And now the capture begins with “Aw, shucks, you got me” - “You don’t get away so easily” - “Stuck Together Pieces” - Atoms for Peace.) 

That was when the storm rolled in, lightning and a hail of thunder over and over again, bearing down the deluge, repatriating and assuming the best moment in its sum of history, a spiral thunderclap heralding the first storm of the monsoon season, consummation nigh nine years ago happened during a violent April storm. (“Ten years ahead of our time” - “wonder what you’re waiting for” - Sloan) Or you can just put it down to biochemistry, it’s how we conceived Zeus, take your pick.

On Valentines 2021, Canada rolled down for a visit. Little did I know what the nonseasonal storm had to do in order to visit (it was unseasonable, and to manage that in a Florida winter it had to seize the whole southwest in a frozen vice grip), -to me it was just repatriating love, the first time I thought, I want to lie with my husband (the realization becoming reality) heralded by a massive storm nine years ago.

With the storm’s arrival I am given sanction and a way, a cause, with Soundgarden’s “Kickstand”. Motherly sanction and a way. The expression is mine, I’m the one who saw. The onus is on me. And this accords to the Will, for it’s His will that wills what’s seen in the music feedback as universal inspiration, not mine. And that will give me a conclusion in accord with His Will, and that will resolve it once and for all. But only if I perform as the kickstand. And that means perform the writ. The time is now or never. 

It can perform as it did twenty years ago, -or not. And that is what will decide. After a night of love the morning arrives with the title of, “Test Me” - and I have my answer. The question is not whether it will prove itself. It’s giving the choice to His Will, and abiding it forever. For His proof has already claimed me for His purpose long ago. And if that’s all it was for, that’s all it was for. Whether that’s even a possibility provided for is up to me and what I write of summer 2020 now. What I make a public archived record. Without that, it’s not even possible.