Crib
Notes
PAUL
by Paul S Rowlston
... or you could love
I'm a huge music fan, by which I mean I really like music rather
than I like really big music.
I'll be the first to admit my range is not particularly wide - if it's
not got a guitar in it, it's probably not on my playlist. But I've
had a playlist quite literally as long as I can remember.
Now, the one thing I tend to respond to most consistently is
lyrics. Indeed, if you're dumb enough to follow me on
facespace then you'll get a pretty good idea about what I'm
listening to and, more importantly, how I'm feeling from the
lyrics I post in my status updates.
But, more than just acting as my own personal mood ring,
lyrics pepper my conversation and my writing. I have no idea if
this is a common human experience or unique to just me, but
if you say something with a certain word combination or
cadence, or perhaps even just a particular word, my
synapses will fire and 'the incredible lyric boy'™ will spit out a
lyric - be it relevant or simply tangentially connected via a
shared word or idea.
To quote a particular favourite lyric of mine (it's astonishing
I've held out for so long), when conversation 'stirs up the bed
of the river' what will tend to stir up is a song lyric.
without conscious thought I was out of my car, dropping my
earphones like a hockey player drops his gloves as prelude to
battle and bearing down on the man behind the finger and the
wheel.
His window went up almost as fast as I moved and his doors
quickly locked. As I stood there looming over the impatient
man and – as it turned out – his terrified wife, he gripped the
wheel and looked straight ahead while I vented spleen about
his raised finger, the smallness of his mind and soul and his
general attitude apropos his middle digit.
But then, tiring quickly of my own tantrum I actually saw his
wife and her terror at my terrible tirade. And I turned away,
spent. As I walked back to my car the lyric that I quote on the
bottom of every e-mail, the line of the song that I try to live by,
the one tattoo I ever seriously considered as permanent
statement of intent for my life, percolated up from that calmer,
less shouty place in my soul:
… or you could love.
The universal answer to every evil, every ill thought, every
ugly attitude and assumption.
… or you could love.
I suspect that the grand gestures and hyper real emotionality
of song lyrics has significantly affected by view of life and
love,and my writing, and my story-telling. Indeed, it seems to
inform my attitudes to life at every level - mostly, I hope, for the
better.
A few months ago I was on the road during rush hour - always
a high risk proposition. Stopped at a red light I found myself
eye to hand - the all too familiar intersection of rich and poor
found at a depressingly large number of urban traffic
intersections. Trying to live up to my previous 'Note', I was still
rummaging in my pocket for change when the light changed.
It was then that the situation went from depressing to dire.
In what another lyric might describe as 'a New York minute'
the guy in the car behind me was hard on his horn. Still
aspiring to reasonable I indicted that I was in the process of
'sharing the wealth', asking for just a little patience from the
man in an expensive car on his way to a roof and a hot meal
for the man standing there with neither.
His reply? A single raised digit, the Jo'burg salute, a clear
indication of precisely what I should do with myself.
The alternative to war, to anger, to violence, to every manner
of 'bad' in the world.
… or you could love.
A song written about the war in Bosnia, applicable in every
place where humans gather.
… or you could love.
A credo, a battle-cry, an aspiration and an inspiration … my
own personal code.
I failed myself that day and I was ashamed. I answered a
mean spirit with anger and the threat of violence. I introduced
real fear into another human's life. And, even if he had earned
it with that finger, he was not worth it. Because that's not who I
am.
I failed myself that day. And I shall never forget. I failed then, I
will try not to fail again … Because failure is not the end of the
story, it's the beginning.
Now, I'm not actually a man much given to violence, but
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