judecorp | Cliched Introspective Lyrics Post

I was thinking about the easy courage
Of my distant friends
They said I could let this bridge wash out
And never make amends

I've been listening to Dar's "Out There Live" in the car for the past couple of days, and I always get so excited when "Spring Street" comes on, because A. has my copy of "The Green World," so I don't hear the song very often. Like Dar, I've come across people in my life who feel that it is easier to cut ties with people than to work through icky parts. These same people seem to have friends on a temporary basis - one disagreement, one slip-up, and they're off the island. That boggles me. I mean, I'm really choosey with the people I let get really close to me and I'm not inclined to let them walk away so easily. In my younger, more idealistic days, I was fond of snootily saying, "Love cannot be created nor destroyed." I'm not sure I'm so pretentious as to believe such things today, but I do definitely still agree that once a love is cultivated, all the bridge-burning and grudge-holding in the world isn't going to bury it.

Can I blow this small town
Make a big sound
Like the star of a film noir postcard?
Can I just forget the frames I shared with you?

It's ironic that A. has my CD when this songs speaks of him to me. When we parted ways, my plan was to blow this town and head back to a bigger, crazier place I could get swallowed up in - bright lights, loud noises, and plentiful distractions. I don't know if I was trying to erase him and us from my memory, but I know I was too busy and too dazzled to think of him... and I liked it that way just fine. They said I could start over on Spring Street.

Yeah, let's watch the tour bus stop and tell us
Here's the scene of a spring green life dream
Take the best part
Write it in your caffeine diary

Yeah. Self-explanatory.

Yeah the one who leaves this also grieves this
Too much rain on a prairie flood plain
Houses floating, love is like that
We built on the river

Love is like that. It's so hard for me to get rid of, so hard for me to stop caring about someone I invested so much energy into. I'm a master of forgiveness, a by-product of an abusive childhood, I'd suppose. I'm quick to accept "I'm sorry," I'm quick to believe in the correction of mistakes, and I'm quick to look for the greener pastures (but with the same cows). I stay in touch with my high school boyfriends. I correspond with old friends, old coworkers, old classmates. And the ones I don't correspond with, the ones who have burned the bridges on their ends? Well, I think of them fondly, and often, and without regret.

And that's to say, yeah I'm leaving
But I don't have to go there
I don't have to go to Spring Street
'Cause it's spring everywhere...

And I left him, that's true. Or rather, we left each other. And I stayed in Columbus and he stayed in Columbus, his life rougly unchanged (same job, same friends). I moved into my neighborhood and he to his, and spring ran down the hill past my front door. Yeah, we left and there's no denying that, him to Alison and me to my Jennifer. I was offered a quaint little apartment on Spring Street on the East Coast in June of 2002, and I moved to Buttles instead. And I'm glad. Because it truly is spring everywhere, even in Columbus, even when Jennifer moved to my neighborhood, and when we moved in together a few streets away, and when Alison and Aaron moved into our neighborhood, and tonight when we go there for dinner, armed with dessert, wine, springtime, and gratitude for a heart that won't let me burn bridges and run away.

I don't love indiscriminately. So why should I stop when difficulties arise? And why should I stop when the journey changes?