Pie

For some reason, as I wrack my brain for something new to write to appease the bloGods, this song lyric popped into my head:

"I met a girl who sang the blues
and I asked her for some happy news
but she just smiled and turned away."

I wanted to write a bit about my sister, but this is plaguing me. It's from the sad, slow part at the end of "American Pie" by Don Maclean. Now, I know the song is all about rock and roll and America and this bit I assume is about Janis Joplin, but it makes me think of Pattie Boyd. Not because she sang the blues, but the lyric just seems to invoke some sort of mysterious, aloof, gorgeous woman, who answers you by smiling and turning away. That just feels like Layla to me. And I look at pictures of this woman, arguably rock and roll's greatest muse, with her husbands. And I think I've seen one picture where she really looked like she loved George Harrison. And though it seemed like she and Eric Clapton had a great deal of fun, they never looked "in love" like you'd think they would.

There's no denying her allure, especially if you've heard "Something" or "Wonderful Tonight". I mean, this woman inspired some of the greatest love songs of all time. And there's no questioning the love that was felt towards her. Combining the potentially ruinous nature of "Layla"'s lyric (a rock star proclaiming his love for his rock star best friend's wife; it was no huge secret) with that gorgeous instrumental refrain at the end. It's what music and art are about.

Why? is my question. Why do they love her, this veiled creature with the face of a girl and the eyes and demeanor of a woman? Why, when she never risks anything, even in a candid photograph, do they sing her praises so strongly to the world? And it calls to mind another lyric...this one specifically about Mrs. Dark Horse-Slow Hand:

"Somewhere in her smile she knows
That I don't need no other lover"

Note to self: Know that other people love you, and they will.

Loneliness is...

In my elementary years I went to so many schools I don't even remember their names. 3rd grade was a the first year I ever went to one school from day first to day last without changing midway through. Fifth grade was the first year in full at my last elementary school. There were a number of reasons behind every move, but the main one always was that rent was cheaper in the part of town to which we were about to migrate.

We lived in a "garden" apartment, a singlewide trailer, a shared home, a duplex, a fourplex, all manner of inexpensive housing. The worst was a two bedroom house in the only slummy part of the rich side of town. We were surrounded on all sides by trailers, and (horror of all horrors) I had to share a room with my sister, six years my junior. (A lot of my worst memories are from this house and if I had millions of dollars, I'd seriously contemplate burning it down. Then I'd buy a plane ticket to London and a house there.) When my mom finally saved up enough money to buy a house for us, it was the oldest house in a neighborhood.

In Junior High I had a fried who offered to drive me home one day, and when I pointed to my house she laughed at the boarded up windows (my mother and I had to hang sheeting on them to keep energy costs low). She thought I was joking, that no one could possibly live there. We didn't remodel the kitchen or bathroom until my junior year of high school, so from the time I was ten 'til I was sixteen there was a whole between the two rooms that you could crawl through in an emergency. I never had friends over.

Until I was in high school I never had friends, period. It took my sudden epiphany in eighth grade - I didn't have to be rich or attractive to like myself, so what did I care if other people liked me? - to even get me to a level of self esteem at which it was no longer fun for bullies to make fun of me. I don't generally think about those times. It was hard for me.

For some reason I thought of that today as I was getting a ride to work from my mom. Just they way that people react to different situations. A different person may have tried for the rest of their lives to fit into that elite group of people with enough confidence and charm to keep the whole world in orbit around them. I've met adults like them, and I could have been one. As Kurt Elling said, "It's rare in life you come this close to losing all your skin".

Also, another person may have been upset that her serpentine belt was broken. But I'm not one of those adults either.