It’s all really okay

Posted January 21st, 2005 by Michelle

I left for a run at quarter to five or so, to catch the last forty-five minutes of sunlight, now that the days are getting even the smallest bit longer. I ran towards toward the fields of vines that surround my road, heading east. I felt good enough to run more than walk, but when I turned around, my pulled right calf made me walk home. The sun setting in the west was highlighting the mountains and shading the vines and hills and trees and the light was so thick and gorgeous it looked as though I was surrounded by a movie rather than real life. My iPod was playing music at random, and as I crested the small hill and walked under the canopy of maple trees, stark and beautiful against the evening sky, a live Indigo Girls song stopped my feet as I tried to breathe and not start bawling two miles from home. I kept walking, watching the movie around me, thinking about dinner with my friends tonight. I almost turned off my iPod after the song, but couldn’t in time, and then the Gods of Music started playing “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle”. This was the Smiths song that got me through adolescence. When I was fifteen years old, just having moved to hell on earth, otherwise known as Arcadia, California, I used to put The Smiths’ first album on my turntable every night at bedtime. I’d turn out the lights and put the needle on the last song on the first side.

“Please don’t cry, for the ghost and storm outside will not invade this sacred shrine, nor infiltrate your mind… my life down I shall lie…”

I would try to fall asleep by the end of the song, but if I didn’t, I’d get out of bed (or rather, “off” of bed, as it was just a mattress on the floor) and put the needle back to the beginning of the song, and try again. Sometimes I did this six or seven times before falling asleep.

I kept walking as dusk was falling over the vines and the road, thinking that I had a good day, and that I’d be seeing my friends soon.

“There never need be longing in your eyes as long as the hand that rocks the cradle is mine…”