“And I would like to cry in the car
The blue violet hills and the voice of Neil Young
I left the flowers outside your door
Your curtains were flying though you were not at home
And I can only say that I have hoped for you
Safety from fears and darkness
Are you feeling better than before?
There’s a hidden life for everyone
Sorrow remains and you can’t tell no-one
The host on your tongue is a perfect moon
It does shine inside you, you shine into the room
And I can only say that I have hoped for you
Safety from fears and darkness
Are you feeling better than before?
Down in the hallways in wintertime
There is your great kindness
And you are the light
And I can only say that I have hoped for you
Safety from fears and darkness
Are you feeling better than before?”
– Innocence Mission “You Are the Light”
This song has been in my head on repeat lately, and “Birds of My Neighborhood” is absolutely one of my all time favorite albums. I’ve loved Innocence Mission since they appeared in the 10,000 Maniacs milleau back in the days of 120 Minutes on MTV, and even though their music evolved into being something less polished for alternative radio and more true to their own creative path, I never stopped being deeply moved by all their songs and lyrics.
They are a deeply Catholic band- I’m not sure if you would recognize it, though, unless you had some experience in that faith because it just sort of passes by in the lyrics and the moods of the songs- not necessarily the dogma (at all) but more the “peace be with you” part of things.
Their music reminds me of that tiny, slim, barely-there crescent of my early childhood before the realities of life set in- growing up in Port Jeff Station, Long Island, living on tree-lined Taylor Street and watching the leaves fall before Halloween when it would be too cold to go trick or treating without a coat, attending ECLC for preschool and summer camp before being introduced to the chaos and volume of the Comsewogue school district and the confusion of Boyle Road elementary school, sporadically attending St. Gerard Majella Catholic church, with the orange stacking plastic chairs and the 19070’s era patchwork tapestries on the wall in lieu of stained glass- the building was pure late 60’s/early 70’s “efficient meeting hall but still a church”.
This was all before I turned maybe seven or eight- before life started to really reveal itself to be less than the quiet small circle of routine in that place. Life was just about moment to moment: the seasons, the trees, days when it was warm enough to open the big kitchen window during dinner, the smell of chlorine in the summer, the taste of the weird technicolor “fruit punch” from the Dairy Barn on Old Town road-(the kind that came in a plastic jug shaped like a tiny barrel with a piece of foil stretched across the top), my uniform of pigtails and Osh Kosh and sturdy navy blue oxford Stride Rite shoes from the store in the Smith Haven mall where they made you slot your foot into that cold metal shoe size apparatus, and while they scrutinized the results and left you sitting with your mom on the long wood bench while they retrieved whatever shoes she picked outfrom the mysterious curtained rear of the store, you would smell the heat transfer smell from the custom t-shirt shop nearby, where you’d pick your design from the wall and they’d use that flat bed iron to seal the vinyl decal onto the color shirt of your choosing.
That felt like luxury- picking out not only a design but the perfect color shirt to match. And then wearing that shirt after your mom ironed it the next day, with the decal rewarmed and rescented from the iron. It wasn’t as fun as the Lisa Frank store, though.
Later on I would feel a tiny bit of that simplicity when I was in the summer before college- working at The Museums at Stony Brook in the education department, Stony Brook School finally in my past and Emory and Atlanta just a few months away. It felt like life might be new again. Potential based on earlier experiences when things were so simple. Of course, you can never go back, but when you get a feel of that potential– a reminder that once life could be simple- you hold on to the hope that you can find it again. Maybe not in custom t-shirts and overalls, but in small routines and being present for the tiny things that still deeply manage to resonate.