August 18, 2010: Buck 65 - Corrugated Tin Facade

Buck 65 - Corrugated Tin Facade: youtube.com/watch?v=MXQehR_0_Jc

I want to be an outsider. I want to move and gather and discard and move. I want the lonely rooms and the longing and the frustrations and the eyes on forms of revolution. Why is this? Is it for the challenge? I recall going into French Immersion when I was 13 years old, having such trouble with learning French but drawn to the idea of being in a room where I knew nothing of what was being said, what was happening. Challenge, chaos, the unpredictable, they all draw.

But why is this? What is it that compels one to draw a path for themselves alone? So many have come before and done all of these things for us to follow, for us all to take, for to make our lives easier, better, more convenient, less painful. But some say fuck it and go alone, draw a path their own, take everything in life and hold it. But why especially those most difficult held most close? Is it a romantic ideal? Is it an intellectual pursuit? Is it the way one is made?

Maybe there was a moment in my life when I realized I was among but quite apart. I am the youngest of 3 boys, one of the youngest of my generation in my extended family. I remember being in a preschool years younger than the rest because my mother was the teacher and let me sit in and participate in class. I did exercises my peers wouldn't do for a few years. How conscious was I that I didn't quite belong among the rest of that class? Did that early experience set a certain tone? Is my youth among so many older that sets me apart fully? But I don't know that any of those things provide me an answer. Where did I see something that told me I was set meant to be set apart?

Maybe this has nothing to do with anything at all but it just came to mind: I remember being very young when my grandfather died; young enough to know what had happened and its weight but too young to be fully affected. I remember standing at my grandfathers grave when he was buried. I remember the size of the stone and the solemnity of the event. I remember being drawn to this piece of land, this concept that something exists here beyond me that will always understand. And I remember being too terrified to visit regularly. Or maybe I feared it would lose its importance with routine visits.

And I admired most those who raged against life and authority. And still, more so maybe.