{"id":4479,"date":"2007-06-01T09:48:20","date_gmt":"2007-06-01T14:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com?p=4479"},"modified":"2007-06-01T12:28:53","modified_gmt":"2007-06-01T17:28:53","slug":"55friday_the_ha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2007\/06\/01\/55friday_the_ha\/","title":{"rendered":"55Friday: The “Hallelujah” Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

What was I supposed to say at that sorrow-saturated moment, when you stood behind security\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s velvet rope, reaching out for me one last time? I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t follow you to your gate, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t follow you in to hell, I must follow this war even more closely, because you have been deployed, though you weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t supposed to be. \"fleeting<\/a><\/p>\n\n

If we could all go back in time, would some of us have voted the way we did, if we knew this is where we would be in May of 2007? I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t vote for him and I certainly didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t vote for this nightmarish occupation which causes nothing but anguish, for innocents cowering in their own homes<\/a>, for the young, so very young men<\/a> and women in uniform who witness that and for the relatives of those witnesses, who walk about in a depressed haze, worrying if the last time…was that the last good-bye?<\/p>\n\n

Dazed, I now sleepwalk similarly through my days, wondering where you are, if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had proper food (vegan? In the military??) and if you are okay. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t focus, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sleep and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m grateful to be an allergy sufferer, because it gives my tears and the perma-red eyes they descend from acceptable reasons to exist.<\/p>\n\n

I miss you already, little sister and only sibling of mine. You will always<\/em> be three to me, knobby knees and ankle socks, super-short hair and moody sweetness. I miss everything about you and I wish you could come home.<\/p>\n\n

What kind of a war are we waging if we send people who just survived cancer scares over, I asked a mutineer. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re sending people with spinal cord injuries, what do you<\/em> think?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was their reply. I think we should support our troops, by bringing them home NOW. And I felt that way before I knew they would take you, too.<\/p>\n\n

That soul-crushing moment when I had to let you go, when I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stop hearing Jeff Buckley\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s voice in my head crooning \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Last Goodbye<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, I lost every word in my expanded-thanks-to-Scripps-Howard<\/a> vocabulary. I stumbled with my leaden tongue instead of my wobbly feet, awkwardly letting \u00e2\u20ac\u0153bye\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153be well\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153take care of yourself\u00e2\u20ac\u009d get muddled in to some nasty clich\u00c3\u00a9 cocktail. What I really wanted to tell you, was “I love you, so very much. You are precious to me and I will count the hours until you return.” But that truth never came out of my lips. At least I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t cry, not while you were looking. Only when the tram took you away from me did my tear ducts release pain and fear. And Buckley was there again:<\/p>\n\n

There’s a blaze of light
\nIn every word
\nIt doesn’t matter which you heard
\nThe holy or the broken Hallelujah<\/blockquote>\n\n
I did my best, it wasn’t much
\nI couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch
\nI’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you
\nAnd even though
\nIt all went wrong
\nI’ll stand before the Lord of Song
\nWith nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah [Cohen<\/a>]<\/blockquote>\n\n

I did my best, Kalyani<\/a>. It wasn’t much. And even though it all went wrong, I’ll stand before the Lord of Song with nothing on my tongue but hallelujah…because at least I<\/em> got to hug you good-bye, unlike our Mother, who wasn’t given a chance for such grace, who could only weep from 3,000 miles away while she prayed for your safety.<\/p>\n\n

::<\/p>\n\n

This Friday, write about pain, farewells, uncertainty, war or whatever haunts you.<\/p>\n\n

Ten years ago<\/a>, Jeff Buckley drowned in Memphis; that tragedy stole his shimmering, otherworldly vibrato and left thousands of music-lovers wondering, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What if…?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Write about him or other voices which will never sing again, like Nusrat’s, which inspired him.<\/p>\n\n

Earlier this week, I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get Marvin Gaye\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)<\/em> out of my head; find inspiration in his work, if you like. Write whatever story you feel like telling, as long as it contains just 55 sets of unbroken characters, because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Friday<\/a> and if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re anything like me, words are how Hygeia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sister soothes you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What was I supposed to say at that sorrow-saturated moment, when you stood behind security\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s velvet rope, reaching out for me one last time? I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t follow you to your gate, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t follow you in to hell, I must … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[33],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4479"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4479\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}