Sunday, February 6, 2011

Whole of the moon - more navel gazing

When I was a teenager, I had complex fantasies of being someone else. I wrote characters into my never-finished books who were enigmatic, where I was just weird; confident where I was aloof; popular where I was desperately trying to fit in. My characters were smart and different like me, but unlike me, they weren't objects of ridicule or disdain, they were physically attractive, and they didn't have a knack of being in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time, saying precisely the wrong thing.

In year 11, I think it was, a song came out called "Whole of the moon," by the Waterboys. The lyrics encapsulated every one of these fantasies:


I pictured a rainbow, you held it in your hands
I had flashes but you saw then plan
I wandered out in the world for years while you just stayed in your room
I saw the crescent, you saw the whole of the moon
The whole of the moon

You were there in the turnstiles with the wind at your heels
You stretched for the starts and you know how it feels
To reach too high, too far, too soon
You saw the whole of the moon

I was grounded while you filled the skies
I was dumbfounded by truth, you cut through lies
I saw the rain dirty valley, you saw Brigadoon
I saw the crescent, you saw the whole of the moon

I spoke about wings you just flew
I wondered I guessed and I tried, you just knew
I sighed and you swooned
I saw the crescent, you saw the whole of the moon
The whole of the moon

With a torch in your pocket and the wind at your heels
You climbed on the ladder and you know how it feels
To get too high, too far, too soon
You saw the whole of the moon, the whole of the moon, hey yeah

Unicorns and cannonballs, palaces and piers
Trumpets, towers and tenements, wide oceans full of tears
Flags, rags, ferryboats, scimitars and scarves
Every precious dream and vision underneath the stars

Yes, you climbed on the ladder with the wind in your sails
You came like a comet, blazing your trail
Too high, too far, too soon
You saw the whole of the moon

I was listening to it on the way home the other day on my bike, zooming down St Kilda Rd at some dangerous rate of knots. And all of a sudden, I realised that the gut-knotting yearning that usually accompanied my enjoyment of the song was gone. Instead, I felt sorry for the glistening persona who is the object of envy in the song.

Because, I can see the whole of the moon now, or most of it, and I can fly higher than I ever really trusted I could. But I didn't just get up and fly. I did wander, I guessed and I tried, and that's why. I don't begrudge any second of the journey of reaching and trying and failing and not being like a comet, dammit, just an ordinary person who wants to get a bit further. And I really do feel like I have the wind at my heels now, for the first time in my life.

Phew.

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