I’ve made it a habit to watch music videos on Friday. It’s kind of a way to unwind and celebrate another week survived. Call it a nice little treat to look forward to as I plaud through the workweek.
I often find myself drawn to the music that defined my adolescence. For me, that would be most of the 90s (I was born in 1981.) Just like my writing, my musical tastes cross any number of genres. Think jumping from Bush to Jewel to Red Hot Chili Peppers to En Vogue to Three Doors Down to Busta Rhymes to… well, you get the idea. I could go on.
One notable thing is that when I slip into that mode, I get wistful about the past. I yearn for that time in my life again. The very definition of bittersweet. I still very much enjoy the music from that time, but I get sad thinking how all of it’s in the past now. How all of the people in these videos are middle-aged or even nearing geriatric status. Some of them are dead…
How wonderful would it be to step back in time just for a day? Our local record store in Barre was Exile on Main Street. What a treat to walk in there and see Sixteen Stone presented as a new release, or perhaps Four by Blues Traveler. To get in a car and catch “Building a Mystery” by Sarah McLachlan presented as a new release.
That’s where the sweet becomes the bitter. I realize that will never happen. What I’m reaching for are rapidly fading memories that, statistically, are sweeter than they actually were when they were formed. Yet I keep reaching out for them, because there’s still a strong sense of peace and contentment that comes out of the experience. It’s why I keep doing it to myself most Fridays.
That led me to thinking about other bittersweet experiences. A prime example is The Crow. A classic by any measure, it follows the story of Eric Draven, a man murdered after being forced to watch his fiancée gang raped. A higher source returns him to walk among the living to avenge himself and his beloved before being able to find eternal peace.
It’s one hell of a downer. Anyone with empathy will watch this movie and feel physically ill by the end of it. I know I do, but it’s also kind of why I like it.
The Crow taps into a part of our psyche that craves justice, justified retribution, that kind of thing. It shows us incredibly dark things, yet encourages us to find the jagged, silver linings that dance in the periphery of the movie’s vision. Bob Ross nailed it; you have to have dark in order to find the light.
Throughout the film, Eric finds triggers in his environment. A picture, a news clipping, his fiancée’s engagement ring. Each one replays happier moments in his life, emphasizing why he is reborn, why the perpetrators of his doom must be repaid in kind. Happiness dipped in the blood of inevitability.
The sting of happier times lost forever, but you must never let go. You don’t want to let go. The sting of loss will always tinge the warmth of the memory. It’s a beautiful type of pain.
The Crow, incidentally, was the inspiration behind Ascension. It is by far the darkest book I’ve ever written, but also one of the books that I am the proudest of. Everyone shies away from what hurts us the most. Lucas has to face that pain in order to grow after years of stagnation following his death. It’s a raw, visceral tale that doesn’t pull punches.
It was very difficult to write that book, emotionally. I’ve personally grappled with depression for years, and writing Ascension put me in dark places more than once. But it was also a panacea for those feelings. In all things, find hope. And that’s what I would try to do as I wrote it. Where was Lucas’ silver linings? How could this pain better him? Where was his peace?
He starts the book thinking he can be indifferent to the suffering of those around him. Hell, he almost takes pride in it. But by the end of the book, he realizes he cares a lot more than he thinks, and it’s through the pain of his past that he finds stability and understanding in the present. No light without dark. No pleasure without pain.
But seriously, how good was “Steal My Sunshine”?
