Well, it happened, and it had been such a long time since it had happened.
A couple of weeks ago, our current malaise brought me out into Google street views to walk around old neighborhoods I’d lived in and visited—including Australia, where I once took a fateful trip. Although there was a lot of nostalgia in the air during all of those virtual street visits, the feeling didn’t come to me with full force at that time.
The other day, though, I put on Temple of Low Men by Crowded House, and lay down to stretch, or was I standing to play air guitar? “I could feel you underneath my skin / as the wind rushed in, / sent the kitchen table crashing / she said nobody move.”
But it happened. “I Feel Possessed” came on, its pulsing, quavering opening. And by the time I got to the third song, “Into Temptation,” the feeling had settled in and stayed with me for the whole album. Images from my trip to Oz, with my special welcoming committee of one “crazy Aussie/Indo rep” waiting the other side of the customs gauntlet. I’ve never felt that way before or since; no poems written since the aftermath of that era played itself out.
It might have been, “You opened up your door / I couldn’t believe my luck / you in your new blue dress / taking away my breath” that really drove it home, zapped me from above and within. “Into your wide open arms / no way to break this spell.” The warmth I felt then from her, and the warmth I gave her.
Lying back listening, standing up singing along, my mind drifting during the lesser songs that make the excellence of the album even greater sometimes. As it played, there were a bunch of thoughts and feelings, but what predominates is love—it was a pure feeling of love for this person and that time, all happening to me at that moment, and that’s not a bad thing. “Not asking for anything / I just want to be there when it happens again.”
“As I turn to go / you looked at me for half a second.”
More photos here.
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