Take it with me

I remember the first time I heard this song. It was in the second grade, highschool. Our classroom was on the first floor. It was the weird, small one where no one ever managed to feel completely at home. There was hardly any space at all. Outside of our classroom were some steps that led to nothing except a sort of "window" in the wall out to the hallway. Then there were the lockers and the rooms where the teachers resided.

I was having a hard time. I usually am, but these hard times were, as they tend to be, different than the current ones. I don't remember what I was crying about or to whom, but I think I'd been out in the hallway by the door that didn't open up - and yes, I was crying. I felt horrible. That I remember. I felt like really weeping, sobbing. A good, heartfelt shedding of tears. I didn't manage to let it all out then, because I was at school. But I remember walking back into the classroom. Håkon was there. I think I said to him that I felt really, really shitty, when he asked if I was OK. He looked thoughtful and then he gave me his ipod and asked me if I wanted to listen to something. I said yes. And it was this song here. And it calmed me right down. Didn't make me less upset or anything, but it calmed the storm and made my heart be a little bit more still. I listened to it several times. He said, I think, that he showed it to me because he thought it might help. I'm really thankful for that. It's one of my favourite Tom Waits songs. It's so beautiful. He's so good at writing songs about reflecting on yourself and your life, songs about looking back and considering, songs about looking forward and being OK with the future. Knowing where you're from and where you're going - or accepting that you don't know where you're going or how you're gonna get there.

This particular song makes me think of accepting death, which is something I have never been able to do, nor do I think I ever will. Life is so precious and the thought of it being taken away from me... I just can't seem to accept that. It will happen, but I'm not OK with it. Listening to people who are able to deal with that, though, with death and with leaving this world... It fills me up with something. I don't quite know what. But it does. And "Take it with me" embraces so many of the things that are beautiful to me and describes love in a tender, wise, simple way that I'd never heard before. It makes me smile. Not a smile filled with joy, but a quiet, solemn one, the one where you're considering something or you know something that no one but you knows, something important... It makes me think of all the things that I'm taking with me when I go. And how beautiful the world can be, even if it is full of heartbreak and we don't understand any of it.

~

phone's off the hook
no one knows where we are
it's a long time since I drank champagne
the ocean is blue, as blue as your eyes
I'm gonna take it with me when I go

old long since gone
now way back when
we lived in Coney Island
ain't no good thing ever dies
I'm gonna take it with me when I go

far, far away
a train whistle blows
wherever you're going
wherever you've been
waving goodbye
at the end of the day
you're up and you're over
and you're far away

always for you
and forever yours
it felt just like the old days
I fell asleep on Beula's porch
I'm gonna take it with me when I go

all broken down
by the side of the road
I was never more alive or alone
I've worn the faces of all the cards
I'm gonna take it with me when I go

children are playing
at the end of the day
strangers are singing
on our lawn
there's got to be more
than flesh and bone
all that you've loved
is all you own

in a land there's a town
and in that town there's a house
and in that house there's a woman
and in that woman there's a heart I love
I'm gonna take it with me when I go