Something Happens and I’m Head over Heels

This past Saturday, as evening collapsed on the orangeade drinkers carousing the boutiques, I put my hand down my throat to touch my heart and it stung.

That’s a line from my uncle Dean’s poem “Dog Toy”–a line, I once told Deano, that I would forever try to commemorate in my own life. The tang of orangeade. The art of carousing. The urge to feel my own heart. The sting of trying.

When I read this line I think of Icarus. In the myth, Icarus flies to the sun, burns his wings, and plunges into the sea. I look at this high-flying champion. I see the self-destructive attitude of the spirit. I see the self-obliteration of a man in whom the spirit is strong. This is spring to me: the season of self-obliteration.

The spring always fucks me up. Recently, I’ve suffered a flare of my gut illness, ulcerative colitis. Every year, it’s the same: spring rolls around and I experience a fresh slew of autoimmune symptoms.

And yet, I love the lunacy of spring.

Jubilant crowds take to the streets with no other design than to enjoy living. Young couples kiss in full view on the crowded streets. Old ladies eat fruit on the corners. Old men bound up steps, two at a time. Everyone’s making important decisions and making the exact opposite decision the next day. The weather, echoing the mood, changes erratically, hour to hour.

This past Saturday I was walking with Karen down 17th to Rittenhouse Square when we came upon a massive black man strutting in orthopedic shoes, wearing fat, old school headphones, and singing Tears for Fears at the top his lungs:

Something happens and I’m head over heels
I never find out till I’m head over hee-ee-els
Something happens and I’m head over heels
Ah, don’t take my heart

Don’t break my heart
Don’t, don’t throw it awa
y

He seemed to have a foot injury, something that made him lunge forward, on one foot, then the other, from side to side. He didn’t really walk; he bounced. And yet, somehow, he had made of his foot injury a swaggering style. He was all confidence. His voice, high-pitched and somewhat melodious, was flawed, yet he sang without inhibition, with the fist-clenching braggadocio of a diva.

The man infected me. I’ve always loved Tears for Fears. I couldn’t help myself: I sang along at the top of my lungs.

The street was jammed with the tipsy affluent people you’d expect to see on Rittenhouse. We walked through the crowds, down 17th, singing, past Bleu and Devon, past the glamorous line of wood tables outside Parc. Two springs ago I sat at one of these tables with Karen, Suzanne, and Andrés. We drank too much wine. At one point, I bolted up from my seat and challenged the entire street to a bet.

“I bet I can run around Rittenhouse in three minutes!”

A few people flashed five dollar bills in the air. Andrés set his watch.

“Ready?” he asked.

I took off.

Empty glasses

Whenever I feel ill, I lie in bed and daydream about a different life: a different body, a fresh hack at my twenties, my thirties. I’m not sure why I just can’t lie in bed and simply think about my life as it is. Someday, I hope to no longer dream about being anything or anyone or anywhere different. Someday, hopefully, I’ll just dream about being me, as deeply me as possible, alive to my triumphs, my failings.

I will recover from this latest relapse, no doubt. And then, sometime, I will relapse again. When will I actually accept this cycle?

“We must change life,” writes Rimbaud.

Following this dictum for years, I’ve played the role of a change-pusher.

“This book changed my life,” I’ve said. “Read it!”

“This mango changed my life!”

“Eat this mango! Read this book!”

But what’s the point? To be different? To go elsewhere? I’ve spent a lot of time trying to change. What if the point is to merely fulfill, not change, life?

*

That night I sprinted around Rittenhouse, a warm, early June night, I wore boots–big brown boots. I’m not making excuses for my performance. Just saying.

Anyway. The transit around the square took longer than expected.

When I breathlessly arrived back at Parc, Andrés called out my time. “Three fifteen!” I had lost the bet, but everyone agreed that, in trying, I had won. I was sore for days.

*

I suppose this is why Spring fucks me up so much: my soul feels inspired to riotous action, and yet, my body feels compelled to nap. I walk around sticking my hand down my throat to touch my own heart. I make stupid bets on drunk enthusiasm. I  pay for all this with my blood. What, exactly, have I inherited? How much of this is inevitable?

*

By the time we reached Parc, the black man’s tune had changed. He now sang a new song, another eighties classic, from Toto:

It’s gonna take a lot to take me away from you
There’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never have

The tipsy waved and clapped. And this massive man, seemingly oblivious to the tumult he was inspiring, just bounced along, singing at the top of his lungs. For a moment, the entire street seemed mobilized by this solitary voice crooning into the dusk.

The tipsy cried from their tables: “What is that one?!”

“Does anyone remember that one?!”

At the end of that poem, “Dog Toy”, Deano writes,

What are you
waiting for? You’ve already
been given your free gift.

Inspired by the solitary crooner, inspired by every single person on the goddamn street, I couldn’t help myself: I sang along at the top of my lungs. Spring had arrived early, it seemed, and I had no choice but to welcome it. Others joined in. Soon a chorus accompanied this man: a slew of people singing along at the top of their lungs.

9 thoughts on “Something Happens and I’m Head over Heels”

  1. Seth, dear friend, you dip a pen down your throat and into your heart every time you blog about life, illness, vitality, hope, Karen, food, Spain and the wellspring of lifeblood that comes gushing from your heart each time you tap into it.
    I love your writing. I think about it when I sit with clients who struggle with the hand they've been dealt. I think about it when my own gut is giving me trouble. I think of honey when I counsel diabetics, and what I want to say is, Here. Meet Seth.
    Spring has not yet arrived in New Hampshire. Thank you for sending a crocus.

    It changed my life.

  2. I am reminded of that evening in New York. All of us were on a mission – a good restaurant, a decent wine selection, and an atmosphere that allowed for good conversation.
    After several blocks you decided to scout the area ahead. You suddenly took off running. I swear your feet left the ground for a few seconds, treading air, like a starving Wyley Coyote. We called you a living cartoon character.
    What you wrote here is much more. I know. But the image you brought back to me is priceless, and for that I thank you.

  3. 'Someday, hopefully, I'll just dream of being me, as deeply me as possible, alive to my triumphs and my failings.' That's awesome, Seth. What a great essay. Thanks for the insights…

  4. Damn! I'm so glad to find you via Sandra. A writing blog that isn't boring as hell, where someone actually WRITES, and doesn't just list their varied accomplishments in publishing etc. Glad to read about a life being lived and observed with a poetic mind. Glad to meet you-

    Maggie May Ethridge

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