I Need My Girl

I have purposefully not listened to the new (not so new, now) record from The National because they were a band that Summer and I discovered together.

Our gateway was late - the Dark Is The Night double-cd the Dessner brothers actually produced. We bought it along with several DCFC albums at Easy Street Records in Seattle on our first trip up there. I’d been out in SF with her but had to return to NYC for jury duty in July. Summer was in Carmel in rehearsals for David Hare’s “The Blue Room” at Pacific Rep. She emailed me “Slow Show”.

With its refrain: "You know I dreamed about you/For twenty-nine years before I saw you/You know I dreamed about you/I missed you for, for twenty-nine years”

Summer was 29 that summer. It was crazy appropriate.

Soon “Boxer” became our favorite record. Summer called me from Outside Lands - the annual music fest in SF - to say first off “why aren’t you here with me!” (I was in aforementioned NYC jury duty hell) and that she had gotten all the way to the front of the stage and said to Matt B “I hope Ada is treating you well” (a reference to a song we loved and she worried was about having his heart broken). He asked her to repeat what she said and then, understanding, chuckled lightly and said “yeah, it’s okay, I wrote that with her, she’s my wife…”.

We were so excited when “High Violet” came out. I got us tickets for both Radio City and Prospect Park. It was the record of our year, our last year. Summer always thought she would die young. She warned me of it constantly. I would dissolve in tears at the thought. She would simply say, “remember me, listen to our music and remember me”.

There were a thousand reasons why we could have lost each other but the one that took her from me was impossible. It has been equally impossible to listen to our music. It’s almost three years now and it is impossible. But I saw this tonight. With a title - I NEED MY GIRL - that could only destroy me. I had to listen.

Summer, my love, my little sweetheart, you are with me always, my gorgeous girl. Always find me. None of this - we - are not over. All my love forever…m

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMhMcXppqcc

Open Letter to My Sweetheart on Jan 8, 2014...

It's January 8th, little sweetheart and I'm sitting on your bed in NorCal. I flew out at Xmas and was supposed to fly back Sunday night but my flight was canceled. Finally, yesterday, I got in touch with the airline and they can get me out via SFO this Friday. I almost never fly from there because it's where you always picked me up and it makes me so sad. But, ya know what, my love? It's time that I try harder. It's time I not be so afraid how much it will hurt to really immerse myself in your memory. It's a new year. My third without you. And I promise, my darling, to work hard, to listen for you and tell our stories. This year. Now. And then I can go. Then I can find release. Then I know I will be able to come to you. Then I imagine you collecting me just as you did at the airport so many times, your blue Prius taking the curve, seeing you through the windshield. Running to you as you smiled your million kilowatt love and waved, pulling to the curb, getting out in your little yoga pants and a cute little t-shirt, your gorgeous red hair piled atop your head, rushing into my arms. Just like I imagine you collecting me soon at Arrivals once I've left this mortal plane and asking me to drive, telling me in a rush, all the things I need to know about The Beautiful New Place, how we can be in anyplace all at the same time and that's why it looks just like arriving in San Francisco. That we will always be together now. That all time is for all time. I can't wait, baby. I can't hardly wait...