Set Adrift on Memory Bliss Part II

"It really is amazing how a song can take you to a place, a time from the past and make you feel the way you did back then...no matter how you feel at the present time...maybe that only happens to me...but I doubt it." ~ Martin Streek

"But I had to put her right back with the rest.

That's the way it goes, I guess." ~ P.M. Dawn

I've written about P.M. Dawn's song Set Adrift on Memory Bliss before. It's one of those early 90's rap gems that gets perilously close to cheesy, yet ultimately has remained a morsel of pure pop sampling goodness.  In the early days of Hip Hop's ascendancy, it was one of the first rap rehashes to get it right.

When I wrote about this song previously, I was talking about it in the context of music and memory and how visceral an experience that can be. Set Adrift...reminds me of a happy time in my life, the summer I stayed with my Grandmother in Glasgow, of having more time ahead of me then behind me, and of feeling hopeful.

This past Saturday, my family and I convened in our former home town of Brampton to say goodbye to an old friend, our family dog Gussie. My parents had kept her ashes since her passing in 1995. 

But with their move to a new town and the inevitable reflection that downsizing can bring, my parents decided it would make more sense for her ashes to be scattered in a place she loved. With summer vacation schedules converging, a task my parents were going to complete on their own became something our whole family would participate in.

We agreed to meet in a small plaza by our old house. Our old subdivision borders on two man made lakes that were added to the established forests already in the area at the time. Gussie loved walking along these lakes and in fact made many solo expeditions over the years from which we would frantically retrieve her. She had no road sense at all, and we were always worried she'd get hit by a car whenever she took off. 

The plaza was the best place to meet as it was close to one of the lakes and small forests through which we took Gussie on many walks. When I pulled into the parking lot, my family were already there. My Dad and I coordinated where we would be parking and I then followed him out. As the car started to move, the song to come on via my Itouch's shuffle was...you guessed it.

Coincidental? Perhaps.

Sentimental? Absolutely.

I felt as if it was a little visit from Gussie, a trip back to the time we had together. 

We parked in front of the path into the forest and headed in. None of us really felt like saying anything. We sprinkled some of her ashes amongst the trees and then down by the lake. The forest still had the same quiet rustling sound from summers past. The lake was slightly misty and more overgrown, with its requisite contingent of ducks and geese. It just felt right to bring Gussie back there and I said as much to my parents.

Afterwards we had dinner and then headed to our respective homes. It felt strange not going back to my parents' old house. And yet it felt right too. Brampton isn't the same city any more, and we're not the same people. And as much as I tend to live in the past these days, would I really want to go back there? Not really. I like who I am now more than I liked myself when I was younger. But I can't say I like my life as much.

I suppose I just feel my possibilities were better then. That sentiment and a general lack of progress in my life is something I've clearly been contending with for a long time now. It's hard not to go inward, to not feel afraid. There are many times where it feels like there is no point. Why invest in a new career path? Some bean counter can just take it away. Why try and have a relationship when your instincts and sense of self are so out of whack in that area that it will inevitably implode. Why try and build a home when paying your mortgage and repairing your home take all the financial resources you have? Why have artistic dreams and ambitions when it's all you can do to keep the sink clean and empty of dishes most weeks?

You might say that the above events are just part of the ebb and flow of life. You would be right. But I would like to win once in a while. I would like to stop being good at just surviving, and actually get some place I want to go. I didn't always win when I was younger, far from it. But I won sometimes. And that's what's been missing the last few years, a sense of progression beyond just edging ever so slightly more away from the precipice.  I'd like to feel I'm heading in a new direction entirely, that there is momentum, that I am leaving the wreckage of the last few years behind.

To be completely honest, I don't feel life is bad. I just don't find it currently or in the last while, to be particularly good. I just don't feel it's going to get much better than it is now, and that is frightening. I can say with certainty that as I get older, life will be filled with more loss. I'm not so sure it will be filled with any more gains.

And I suppose that's why when Set Adrift... came on my car radio, I gasped. I have been trying so hard lately not to focus on the negative, not to be glum and stuck mentally in what was and who I have been, but stay right in the present to try and make it better. One opening riff, and I got pulled right back. 

I'm tired of being adrift in my memories. I'd like to live in more bliss here and now.