Another musicians death on the news feed. They are always surprising, as the people you once held up as the champions of your own personal soundtrack go down. Leonard Cohen…ok, he had some health issues, but I think he let go just so he wouldn’t have to look at Trump. Prince, that was very surprising, although I’m not sure why I say that, because what the heck do we know about famous people’s lives? And according to one tabloid in the doctor’s office, he had his fair share of heartbreak. If I had lived through this man’s sadness, I would use drugs too. David Bowie…still feels fresh. But Chris Cornell? So young?
The weird thing is, my immediate reaction was oh no, I wonder how he’s taking it? He being my high school/on again, off again college boyfriend. We haven’t spoken in years and our lives do not intersect at all, but my first thought was of him, and of his brother, whose friendship I have long known I always took for granted, something I will have to live with. For all I know, it didn’t affect them at all. But for me, there was this tiny blow to the heart. It brought me right back to my youth and to who I used to be.
Soundgarden had been the first concert I had ever really blown out my eardrums to. You know, where you answer the phone and say, “I actually can’t hear you, I stood next to a speaker head-banging and I’m probably deaf, so try me in a few days.” Chris Cornell’s bands dominated the basement speakers for years, and then in my college room hovel, clothes and ashtrays, and books strewn about. At that time I wore tights with holes in the legs and poked out toes, boots and dresses, my Dad’s favorite fishing flannel with the one arm ripped out. It was a good time for me to be in college: Grunge served me well and it was the only type of clothing I could have ever afforded anyway. My kids look at those pictures and see their mom looking like a bum, big army pants and long hair thrown over one eye. But yet, I’ve never been more myself than I was then.
We listened to Soundgarden so much we got sick of them, and then pretended like they had never been a big deal to begin with. We…broke up with them. And then the boyfriend and I broke up for good, and I shoved all the Soundgarden and Soul Asylum and grunge tapes into the back of the cupboards. My roommate came into our shared bathroom one evening as I was having a bath, crying into the water, about a month after I had been the one to break it off. “Are you going to stop crying at some point? Because I don’t think I can take you crying every night for another month,” she said. She wiped tears from her face. I smiled at her, and said, yes, I think I could stop crying now. We laughed. She looked down at my naked body, my naked self. There was nothing to hide, this was it.
I think this is why friendships you make when you are in your 20’s are the ones you pine for the most. Those friends loved you like no other people could. They put up with your shit, let you cry and snot all over them in the wee morning hours when you’d drunk too much. They tore their clothes off and jumped in slimy lakes in the moonlight with you. They did all sorts of stupid things with you that should’ve ended in arrests or death. But none of those things happened: instead, you got to keep your time in the world. You got to forgive and forget, you got to hold on to a few of those people. One of these friends calls every five or six years.“Whassup,” she says, and we are 22 again, and nothing has ever come between us. We only lived together for six months, but we bonded in a way that I’m not sure could ever happen at my age now.
We get to go on. But the musicians? The terrifically sensitive and talented and hardworking ones, who are probably never satisfied with all that they’ve done…sometimes they end, abruptly. Their timeline stops: May 17, 2017. He had a family, a history, a litany of awards and kudos. Chris Cornell, thanks for bringing back these memories. They are somewhat painful and embarrassing. But your music? Your music kicked ass. You will be missed by many. I’m sorry I ever broke up with you. I never got rid of your cd’s. In fact, I’m going to go dig one out right now. And since I have no one to rock out with at this moment, and no one to drink bad beer with me on a porch and listen to it, watching the cars go by… instead, I’ll turn you up and do some vacuuming. Because everyone knows hard beats and screaming vocals can make one clean their house like a badass, which is as close to badass as I can ever really be these days.