43. The Colour and the Shape - Foo Fighters
Ths is perhaps the most challenging post I’ve written in this series. (Edit: So challenging, in fact, that I’ve waited 5 months before pressing ‘post’ on this one.)
Not just because of the rules I set myself for this project:
1. Be Honest
2. Only tell those stories that are mine to tell
3. Don’t be a wanker
But also because this song reminds me of some of the more painful regrets of an adolescence filled with snark, immaturity and mistakes.
So…here goes.
I met the person I’m now married to while we were in high school; year twelve to be precise.
Well, to be truly precise, it was in house choir which I’d joined to better round out my school experience in my final year.
Sure, I’ll join chorals, I thought. Could be a bit of fun.
Well, I didn’t take it seriously, took the mickey out of the choir leader incessantly and promptly fell for her best friend.
Joining that choir was an eventful decision, if ultimately rendered embarrassing by my lack of tone, ability or willingness to play within a team.
It was also eventful because another member of the choir was the only other girl I’ve ever dated.
* * *
My romantic experience and story isn’t terribly interesting.
Actually, given that I’m a heterosexual male in a heteronormative patriarchy, it’s remarkably unremarkable.
I met my TGNW in year twelve, we got together, and we’ve spent the last 19 years together, building a nice, rewarding life.
Prior to that, I’d had a number of unrequited crushes, some deep friendships and one other girl I really liked.
Who introduced me to the Foo Fighters.
I’ve written before about my slow education in music, about how that shift from musical naif to music snob ultimately led to an appreciation of how ignorant I’ll always be.
Well, this girl – who, for propriety’s sake I’ll actually give a name, fake though it may be – was there at the start of that journey.
Let’s call her Dana.
Dana was there as I slowly crawled out of the primordial ooze of taste towards something more enlightened.
I’d liked her for quite a while, though those feelings were not reciprocated for a long time. We’d been friends for a long time, and she was wise enough to see the risk any changes might pose to that friendship.
She was clever – razor sharp, really – funny, curious, kind and generous.
I was, in that way you can be when you’re 15, smitten.
* * *
I remember snippets of that time; conversations in a park on a hill, the exchange of handwritten letters, that odd relaying of messages through other parties, the rumours from trips I’d not been on, the slow progression towards a relationship beyond that of friends.
I don’t blush, but if I did, thinking about these tales of adolescent embarrassment would be bringing a healthy glow to my cheeks.
I only have snippets of those times in my brain now, but one thing I remember clearly is the copy of The Colour and The Shape right next to the stereo she had in an area near her room.
I knew embarrassingly little about music. The cover was cool, though, and Monkey Wrench was – is – a damned fun song to listen to.
We must have spent some time listening to it, though I can’t really remember that now.
I do remember that Dana was the first person to tell me about the Foo Fighters, so I have to thank her for introducing me to them.
* * *
I don’t remember how, but we did get together in year ten.
It was a happy moment, though my utter inexperience, lack of confidence and wildly powerful defensive walls conspired to make me just an awful boyfriend.
Not in the way you might expect from a teenager, more from just not being terribly available.
I remember feeling very insecure about what was happening. And I recall that the risk of it all crashing down in a detonation of all those great fears you have as an adolescent left me paralysed.
Failing to reconcile that feeling of insecurity with the reality of what was happening in front of me was my biggest mistake.
Again, the snippets keep floating to the front of my mind.
There was the conversation at the park near the house I was about to move out of, the closest I think I ever got to honestly discussing my life at home.
It was also the time I, thoughtlessly, kicked piles of dried grass as we walked along, triggering Dana’s hayfever – forever preventing me from doing something that stupid again.
There was the time spent writing a school project that became a play we performed in a regional drama competition.
The rehearsals for that year’s school play (Macbeth).
Phonecalls (on a landline!), conversations, music.
And all of those other things that come into mind when remembering a relationship from long-ago.
* * *
I remember the day we broke up quite clearly, unsurprisingly.
There we were, sitting on a bench in an area we’d often congregate with our friends, when Dana explained to me that it wasn’t really working and perhaps it was best if we stopped.
Those weren’t her exact words, but the embarrassed ringing in my ears drowned out the precise and thoughtful wording of the message.
I recall the bell ringing for recess and being joined by our friends shortly after.
As they mingled and laughed around us, I remember sitting there stock still, silent, ears ringing. I was, strangely for that time I imagine, at a loss for words.
Of course, it was absolutely the right thing for her to do.
I had no idea how to be in a relationship.
I now know that to be in a relationship requires more self-esteem and confidence than I had then – much, much more. It requires actual commitment to the risks that come with being close with another human, commitment that I was foolishly unprepared to take.
When I think about it now, I shudder to think of how difficult that must have been for her to do. I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but she had the courage and character to actually do what to be done.
Unfortunately, that disparity in our character didn’t stop with our nascent relationship.
You see, I barely spoke to her again after that.
* * *
The way I behaved in the years after that conversation remains one of my biggest regrets.
I don’t think I was outwardly hostile or mean, but I was gutless enough to never really speak with her again.
It wasn’t out of spite, though I imagine it must have seemed it. It was out of fear, shame and a foolhardy desire to avoid anything approaching cliché.
Looking back, I realised that I just wasn’t equipped for any kind of relationship that required the slightest bit of vulnerability.
I mean, something like that would require accepting the possibility of somebody liking you for you. And when you’re a moody adolescent with esteem issues, that’s a bridge too far.
So it was that I threw away a friendship I’d really valued, because of fear and false bravado, like an idiot, surely causing completely undeserved pain.
God, I must have been insufferable.
* * *
When my mind goes back to those times – often triggered by one of the tracks off this (excellent) album – I think of those good times.
But I also think about those big, cowardly steps I took away from that friendship. The times I should have said something – could have said something – but instead looked away. Or walked away.
That kind of action – or inaction – requires a special level of selfishness, one that I’ve hopefully managed to dilute over the years.
(Of course, including such a revelation in a blog dripping with the single person takes a new level of gall.)
I think about the many, many mistakes I made, the fearful refusal to commit to something that I’d wanted for a long time.
Often, I also think about the moment of pure grace Dana gave me at the end of our final school assembly.
That remains the benchmark for maturity and class to me. And my muted – stunned – reaction will probably shame me to the day I die.
Adolescence, eh?
* * *
Obviously it wasn’t always Foo Fighters playing in the background, but that whole album rockets me back to that time.
Listening to it with Dana – and listening to it without her to try and get to know it a bit more.
Monkey Wrench.
Walking After You. (Damn, that song…)
Life, as you’re told as a teenager but never really believe, moves on.
The pain of those mistakes I made with Dana woke me up to stuff I had going on. It shaped how I looked at things, at how I behaved, at myself.
And that evolution left me better equipped to make a real go of my next relationship.
As trite as it sounds, those painful mistakes made my next relationship better. What a shame that kind of education has to come from the mistakes we inflict on others.
Naturally, these songs have followed me through those years. Their place in my life has moved, evolved, streamed in and around the memories I’ve created.
Yet always rooted in my memories of that time.
Those memories have been added to over time.
The echoes of the headaches I’d give myself dancing to Monkey Wrench still bounce around my brain.
The time I saw Foo Fighters play Everlong at Festival Hall, investing the crowd in a moment of real unity.
Watching the clip for My Hero with my TGNW, on a long-cancelled music video show.
* * *
Even now, though, that first frantic riff that kicks of Monkey Wrench takes me back.
To those times.
To that bench.
To the person I was.
And to the person I wish had have been better.
———————————————————————————————————-
You may notice that I’m trying to avoid talking about this from ‘Dana’s’ perspective.
This isn’t simply the usual ego engine driving any blog out there – it just feels deeply unfair to even try to imagine things from her side. Anything I would say in that case would be wrong, inappropriate and just not fair to her.
Any memory is going to be distorted by self-interest, protective filtering and a thousand other factors. My truth, to use the parlance, may not be the real truth. To pretend otherwise and impose that on somebody else would be to do them an injustice.
In fact, I’ve really deliberated even releasing this post because it feels unfair to do so.
In the end, I did. But it might have been a mistake.
