Songs For Your Day

Okay, I’m deriving from my list for a special tribute. If you’ve seen “Darjeeling Ltd.” then you’ve heard “Strangers” by the Kinks. It’s hard to hear what Ray Davies is singing sometimes, with his raspy englishman growl into the microphone and all, but it’s a pretty good song even when you don’t know the words.

Most evenings you can find me diligently chopping up garlic and herbs with slightly dull knives over our warped wooden cutting board, prepping a feast. It’s the only time (outside of the shower) that I sing as loud as I can to whatever is playing through the speakers. A lot of nights it’s Chet Baker, or Ella and Louis, whatever my grandmother used to listen to in her jazz singer days. The other night I put on Norah Jones’ latest, and just let it play. After about an hour I heard a familiar piano line cue, causing me to move away from my sauteeing vegetables in the skillet.

“Where you going to? I don’t mind. I’ve killed my world and I’ve killed my time…”

The good thing about Ms. Jones is that she enunciates. So for the first time, after loving this song for so long, I could finally understand what she was singing about. Sitting on my living room carpet, leaving the broccoli and peppers to brown on top of the stove, the sentiment of the song crept towards me. This is a poignant song about life, and finding someone to go through it with, together it all becomes easier. I thought about the burns in the carpet that Michael and I have hid, from when I knocked over the hookah with a blanket. I stared at the stencil of “the Dude” above our fireplace. Drawn for Michael’s birthday, but cut out by him, since I lack the precision to cut in a straight line.

“So we will share this road we walk, And mind our mouths and beware our talk. ’Til peace we find tell you what I’ll do: all the things I own I will share with you. and if I feel tomorrow like I feel today..we’ll take what we want and give the rest away. Strangers on this road we are on, but we are not two, we are one.”

I put the song on repeat, and we listened to it as we ate our carbon-enriched meal.