How Do You Listen To Survive?
How closely do you listen to sirens?
How well do you know the footsteps beyond your bedroom door?
There are many kinds of listening, that is beneath feet
the listening that is under this beneath. The listening that happens when your neighbor opens the apartment door to leave, and the listening when they close the door at the bottom of the stairs.
The listening of drips through gutter, tick of clock, carbonation to hiss from bottle (or not).
The listening when wind picks up or stops. The listening between waves huge intake breath, (a vacuum of silence) then roaring smash. The listening of bee wings, snorts from pup nose.
The listening when you wake and your lover is away from the bed, where are they? What are they doing awake without you? Listen for the kettle to bubble, or toilet to flush. Listen to the soft sound of door slowly closing as they leave.
I listen to the shouts through the streets, I listen to the birds bleat through wildlife refuges, I listen to the local news and listen to the chatter at the bar, and I listen when my favorite barista says his landlord is a Boulder rich-kid dick.
How closely do you listen? There are many kinds of listening, but they are all for survival.
Once, to survive writing a term paper, I listened to Andrew Bird’s tenuousness on repeat. Survival is partially through music.
Do you ever listen to those who haven’t survived to keep you keeping on?
Like Jeff Beck’s “Hallelujah” or Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black”?
When Alex died at 25, I listened to Silverstein. It was one of many bands we saw perform at the shithole-in-the-wall pool hall venue on the outskirts of Jacksonville.
When I was informed Eric died at 28, I was listening to Modest Mouse’s latest album, Strangers to Ourselves, and I kept it on repeat. Sometimes I kept just “The Tortoise and the Tourist" playing over and over, hearing again and again: Wake up, get ready/ Such a wonderful trip's ahead/ We get dressed as ghosts/With sheets taken from the bed/Inside our socks we hide travelers' checks/ We are tourists of the dead…Kristin Prevallet wrote once don't read something that already makes you feel dead, and this I would also say for music to survive. It can be cathartic to sit in your Modest Mouse space for a while, but don't get stuck there.
And if survival is carrying on through a time pressuring you to stop, then carry on through listening to chatter of friends, listen to the wind through meadow, listen to the creek.
To carry on, I listen to Bob Dylan, I listen to Prince and The Army of Love, to carry on listen to Queen, listen to Lakeside, listen to David Bowie.
Listen to voices with passion who demand “let’s dance!”
