Musicians

I'm interposing another musician here before I move on with the transcription of the interview I did with my dad because as I wrote that last post - I was reminded of Elliot Smith.

I recalled when I found out my dad had cancer - I was renovating my basement at the time - doing it myself - spending longs hours down there working and listening principally to XO but I eventually moved on to the rest of his albums.

The reno took about 8 months - working evenings and weekends - and it was a melancholy time not just because my dad was dying - but also because the summer before that I had lost one of my best friends to suicide.

XO is such a sweet and sad album and Elliot smith was such a brilliant songwriter - that album and his voice, always sounding like it was shattered - like he was crushed and broken from loss - got me through my own sadness. I felt like some else knew the secret joy of being terribly, terribly sad and admitting it and letting it out.

I was able to let it out because of his songs. Funny - those 8 months went by excruciatingly slow but thanks to those songs - they were bearable - R.I.P. ES and dad.

Meaning

There are large meanings and small meanings. I have so many small meanings in my life to keep me endlessly fascinated - work, my friends, my band, watching my daughter dance, watching my other daughter play guitar, sharing a glass of wine with my wife and dreaming about our future together. But when I think on the larger meanings - life, death, the planet, the species - I'm dumbfounded sometimes, at a loss to find any.

Carl Sagan said that we are a way for the cosmos to know itself. I've lost friends and family... and it can be trying to scrape out meaning from life sometimes - especially in the face of loss. But I keep coming back to that Sagan quote. It makes me feel good. It makes me feel like I am part of something so much bigger than anything I can imagine or have imagined thus far. This notion generates in me the possibility of meaning - and that is enough I find... and it may be all I'll ever be able to honestly admit to extracting from life - if not meaning itself. But it is enough. Thank you Carl Sagan.