The first chords of Lost Horizons from The Gin Blossoms hits the air, I inhale and before the first verse starts I exhale and I’m back in Phoenix. I’m seeing I17 at the Dunlap exit, we turn right towards Metro Center. It was the early 90’s and this mall hadn’t become a ghost town yet. It was full of young people taking their first taste of adulthood, that first taste of freedom. It was a freedom that can only be found on a Friday night when you’re a teenager.
Anything could happen, you could get in a fight, you could have your first beer, hell you might even find a gal to fall in love with. I inhale again and I’m 22 on Mill Ave.
I’m seeing the future of America cat call and cry every night starting at 11 pm. I remember feeling so lonely back then, too blind from my own angst to see the friends around me, so stubborn to notice the distance I had put between my sorrow and my creativity. For a while I convinced myself that my sorrow was my art. I exhale again and I’m back in my apartment just off 5th.
One of the gals I had been seeing had just left at 4 am and I lay on a futon wondering if I’m doing the right thing with myself. Too bad I had no idea what the right thing for me was so I stayed the course and kept trying to find the next high, the next gal…maybe the next one will be the one? I’ll probably cry myself to sleep tomorrow but for the moment I felt something close to happy.
I inhale and I’m on 12th St in Tempe with my roomates. They are more creative than I am, at least with visual art, they also know how to play the guitar , I feel so small. I pick up a brush and some paints and put oil to canvass. It was the first time I had spent anytime with my creativity. It’s like a whole other person that refuses to talk to me because I’ve ignored them for so long. They whisper when I’m not looking, I turn my head and see shapes forming on the canvass. I feel like an artist for the first time.
I exhale and I’m in my car driving home to a wife and step child. I don’t feel like I fit in with their family. I try to remind myself that I am part of the family but deep down I know I’m not. I pull into the parking spot and remind myself that I should be happy and grateful for everything I have. I put on a mask before I walk inside, I’m getting better at this. Soon I won’t think about this mask at all, it’ll become second nature. Just like every other lie I’ve told myself up to this point. The wife says I love you and I say it in return. If I had been the person I am now, I could’ve saved everyone a lot of grief and never gotten involved, I would have stayed in the studio painting. Instead I took a torch to everything in my life as well as to the people who loved me. This was the dark time.
I inhale and I’m in a room with other men who have the same problem I have, we share our feelings, we cry, we wish we could have been someone else, anyone else than the men we are. I think about my bedroom in the house I grew up in, it no longer exists in this world, only in my memories, much like the person I was.
I exhale as my wife hands me back my rings. For a moment I wonder why I went through all the pain of therapy to be a better man, then it hits me. The person you’re growing to be and who she wanted will never be the same person. I have failed. A voice in my head says,”You still got me.”
I inhale and take my guitar out of the trunk of my car. I’m on the roof of Terminal 4 in Sky Harbor, it’s 11 PM and no one is around to hear me play my guitar. I stay there for an hour every night because I don’t want to go home to a house that I’m hated in. So I stay by myself as much as I can. Soon lyrics will form, I’ll put chords together and I’ll make music. The artist in me smiles.
I exhale as I bring the last of my things to my new apartment. Everything I own fits into a Toyota but I know I’m on the right path. I have my painting and I have my music. I hear about an open mic for comedy, I wonder if it’s something that I could do. I write a few jokes and go to watch a mic before I sign up. I see that most of the other comics aren’t funny either but now I know where the bar is.
I inhale as the MC says my name, I step on stage, I look into the crowd but all I can see is the light. I start to speak and wait…nothing. Set up/punchline…nothing. I set up another joke and I hear a few people laugh. I get off stage and for the first time in a long time, I feel at home.
I exhale as I sit down at an IHOP on Central, across from me is this young gal I met on Plenty of Fish. We chat, we flirt, we go home in our separate cars. The next day we spend the night together. I spend the next few months trying so hard not to fall in love. I don’t want this feeling to end and I don’t want to ruin it either. We tell each other how we feel, that we love each other, once again I feel at home.
I inhale as I stil at my computer writing this blog, the album is drawing to a close. I think about my time in Arizona, all the mistakes, and the anguish and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I know that if I ever get sentimental that all I have to do is hit play on The Gin Blossoms’s New Miserable Experience and I’ll be right back in Phoenix driving on I17.
I love that some memories are kept in storage and the only way to access their true power is to unlock them with music.