What Could Have Been

The Return of the Jedi.....ahhh. How I love the Star Wars saga, and I know I'm not alone. It
resonates for a reason, that simple reason being it rests on the greatest themes of all time.



Lately this image from the end of ROTJ literally keeps appearing in my mind. Trying to figure it out I've realized that I have many friends who are grappling with the permanent scars life is lashing on them. Myself, I have angled to try to convince myself and others that these dramatic and painful events aren't permanent, that we can overcome, that by lending our thoughts and our efforts towards good -- towards The Force, if you'll forgive me -- is the way out.



I've always identified with Luke Skywalker from the "could go either way"perspective. I'm not an Obi Wan, always clear and focused, without doubts and never truly in peril. I recognize and look up to those people, but I could never claim to be them. (Maybe in about 30 years....)



But I'm not an Anakin all the way, either. I battle darkness, and anger, and the occasional conviction that I can overcome what hurts me with more hurt. But I don't really believe that. And I don't want the people I love to ever believe that either.



So I look at my friends in pain, and I see their turning point. And I think about my own. There are clear moments to me when the woman I could have been, the woman I wanted to be, was lost to this life. My personal spiritual beliefs tell me that even if we go the wrong way, we will be restored to who we could have been through love. But you know.....I want to see that person, those people, NOW.

My heart is hurting for the turning point of losing ourselves in this life.

Runnin' On Empty

I heard this Jackson Browne classic last night driving home from picking up a pizza and beer. Mind you, this is not quite as unimaginative as it sounds; it was gourmet pizza from Lola’s and Rogue Morimoto. There is something quite comforting about this kind of meal for me on a chilly rainy night. I’ll take it over the finest dining any day.

Runnin’ on Empty is on JB’s album of the same name released in 1977. It was his fifth album, and is unusual among live albums in that none of the tracks had ever appeared on a previous studio album. He recorded tracks on-stage during concerts, but also in hotel rooms, on the tour bus, and backstage. Over 30 years later, it is his best-selling album.

Even as a child in the 1970s, I could tell something was up with this record. I was fascinated by the voice of an obviously still-young man, already cataloguing the phases of his life and his increasingly fragile grip on the belief that he had control over his own destiny.

I’ve heard this song hundreds of times. Without fail, I cannot turn it off when I come across it on the radio. I love the masterful combination of apprehensiveness, urgency, and hopefulness about the inevitable passage of time, and his willingness to keep “running into the sun” at the same time he knows he doesn’t know what he’s looking for exactly or if he’ll ever find it.

This picture of Mr. Browne is from March 2008.