MUSINGS

About Face/Before the Bridge:

A Look Back To Aid In Future Healing

(+ Top 20 Albums of 2018)

Corey Bell, Stage Traveler & Blogger

February 13th, 2019

I have never been good at beginnings.

Whether it’s the beginning of a story, the beginning of a poem, the beginning of a relationship…it’s never been a strength of mine. I always find my mind rushing to the middle, trying to center itself in the thick of whatever may be building around it; it craves to be in the midst of something. Maybe because being in the midst of something, it doesn’t feel isolated and afraid. The journey is underway, the plot is thickening, the wheels are already turning, and things are moving. There’s an inherent sense of progress, the hard part is over. The same goes with words on a page: in the middle of a piece of writing, the underlying current – the flow of the piece, helmed by the mind of a writer – is in the company of hundreds of words, literally surrounded by physical manifestations of its otherwise intangible being. In the beginning, however, an empty page can feel like a cavernous, echoing, blinding white room. Some people crave the freedom that a blank page offers, others find it somewhat desolate and daunting. My writer’s mind (my flow, my words ), much like my personal human self, does not very much like that feeling of being so unrestricted yet so…alone.

Much like endings, beginnings are often very lonely.

Chances are, at some point in your life, you’ve heard the song “Once in a Lifetime” by the Talking Heads. For those who haven’t, the song is largely about the human perception of the passage of time, how we are so oblivious to most of the things we do (“half-awake or on autopilot” as band leader David Byrne calls it) that when we do stop and think about where we actually are and all that has happened to lead up to this point in our lives, we almost can’t handle it. The reality in which we operate seems almost like a dream, kind of like when we miss part of a movie because we got distracted or spaced out or dozed off. But the scope of the passage of time isn’t quite like blathering away during Legally Blonde; we unfortunately can never just rewind to a certain point – maybe our lives’ equivalent of the ‘bend & snap’ scene – and press PLAY (or RECORD) and live (or relive) from that moment on. We are stuck in playback mode, though often it can feel like the FAST FORWARD button has been hit – like when something unpleasant is looming, such as a deadline or a dentist appointment – or even PAUSE, when everything just freezes; be it for the momentous couple of seconds of a first kiss, or a period of days or weeks or months when everything just feels…stuck. It’s in these times that we take note of our surroundings, of the circumstances that envelop us. These are the moments when we can’t process what our lives have become, when we find ourselves in another part of the world, denying that this is our beautiful house or our beautiful wife, and we ask ourselves, Well, how did I get here?

The reason I bring up the classic Talking Heads song is because the past year I have had many moments in which I have felt just like Byrne in the song, though perhaps without the same level of exaggerated disbelief. It was about one year ago that I decided to not return to California, instead venturing to find a home in the North Carolina mountains. And I did get that beautiful house, with a beautiful man, but I do not ask myself the central question because I don’t remember; I was not on ‘auto-pilot’ as it were when I made the conscious decision to move to Asheville. I’m not after answers to a sincere inquiry into the consequences that led me to where I am today when asking these vague questions of myself; rather they serve as a sort of rhetorical reminder, a reference point I can return to in order to center myself; to remember grace, gratitude, and feelings of positive forward mobility. This sort of mindset has propelled me in one true direction, a vector stemming from a place of complete reinvention that was necessary following the turbulent events that culminated in my dramatic departure from California. Everything happened so fast in the first half of 2018 – especially those first two to three months – that sometimes I feel like I was the victim of some kind of self-imposed emotional whiplash. But above all other sensations was the powerful urge to succumb to momentum. Often in my life I had succumbed to inertia in the sense that a body at rest tends to stay at rest. This time it was the opposite, oft-forgotten aspect that I hurled myself into: being in motion and staying in motion.

And for me, it did quite a bit of good. Propelling myself constantly forward was refreshing. It allowed me to tap into a work ethic I had never quite felt before. I was finally making the most out of what I was capable of as a mindful independent entrepreneur. But before long, I noticed that there was something else going on, something I had not consciously expected to happen, though in hindsight, I think sub-consciously I was aware of it all along: this upward mobility had thrust me to a place beyond independence: I was bordering on isolation.

Upon leaving California, I felt a great deal of shame in myself. I felt I had failed not only myself, but my friends, my family, my colleagues…even the state of California itself. I had always dreamed of living there, and for the time I was there I was happy. At least I thought I was. After the way everything went down, I began to question my own sense of self-awareness. Had I really gotten that bad? Was this blissful state of being I had grown accustomed to rooted in reality? Or was it a bubble of ignorance I had slowly inflated around myself during the past four years? The truth is, I thought I was finally getting to a place of true happiness: I had finally managed to build a core group of friends that were beginning to feel like family, my professional future was starting to come together in my mind, I was even starting to level off financially (well, as much as one can in northern California). The only real problem was the tempestuous relationship I had found myself part of (for the second time), but upon leaving San Francisco on Christmas Eve 2017, I had secured in my mind that that was the end of that as well, seeing as the other party was planning on leaving the city for good. I had planned on it being painful, but altogether, a relief. I resolved to return to the Bay Area a week later a new man, ready to press on and secure my happiness in the Golden State

But then, on Christmas Day, I was ambushed. My future fell apart in a matter of five minutes. All my dreams were torn apart, and I felt physically and emotionally gutted. In the coming weeks, however, I managed to pull myself together and move forward. I would return to California after some time away, and things would slowly go back to normal.

But normal was never a word that tripped easily off my tongue. As fate would have it, on the first day of February 2018, I stumbled upon the person I was destined to spend the rest of my life with, the one person who instantly provided much needed light for this dark, shriveled husk of a man that trudged the Earth. Everything changed then, including my plans to return to CA. I knew people would be shocked. But at the time, I couldn’t think about them. I needed to press on with my life. It was necessary for my sanity to be selfish for once. I plunged head-first into this new direction and never looked back.

And for that, I feel that I now must apologize.

I’m sorry for the friends I left behind, those who felt abandoned not only in the months leading up to my departure, but in the months that followed. I’m sorry for never expressing the gratitude I eventually felt for the steps they took in ensuring I did not end up in a far worse place than I was already. I’m sorry for never reaching out, or only feebly attempting to once or twice, and for distancing myself to the point of isolation. I’m sorry for never really explaining how things got so bad, or how they got so good (once they finally did). I’m sorry for still keeping distance after all this time; I guess since realizing the amount of pain and suffering I was capable of causing others, I have been afraid to reconnect with others out of fear that I will do it again. But I implore you all to please try to understand why I did the things I did: in order for me to heal, I needed to do much of that healing on my own.

2017 was a year riddled with anguish.

2018 was a year of recovery and rehabilitation.

2019 will be a year of affirmation.

That being said, I must affirm that I am happier than I have been in a very long time. Asheville may not be the ideal location for someone like me (I still feel no real connection to it, other than a superficial one), but I am with the person I know I am meant to be with, and like I said just under a year ago, wherever he is, that’s where I belong (though he doesn’t feel that connected to Asheville either – we’re giving it another year).

During all of these nutty occurrences of last year, funnily enough, I was not very much in tune with the new music of 2018. Maybe it was me and my self-induced chaos, or maybe it was just a ‘meh’ year (though 2019 is looking much brighter), but I just couldn’t connect like I had in previous years. Sooooo, I’m only going to be giving a top 20 albums this year (and yes, I know I’m a month late):

20. Justice, Woman Worldwide

19. The Field, Infinite Moment

18. Kamasi Washington, Heaven and Earth

17. Yves Tumor, Safe in the Hands of Love

16. Matthew Dear, Bunny

15. David Byrne, American Utopia

14. Troye Sivan, Bloom

13. Chromeo, Head Over Heels

12. Gorillaz, The Now Now

11. SOPHIE, OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UN-INSIDES

10. serpentwithfeet, soil

9. Robyn, Honey

8. Spiritualized, And Nothing Hurt

7. Jon Hopkins, Singularity

6. Aphex Twin, Collapse EP

5. Ariana Grande, sweetener

4. Beach House, 7

3. Janelle Monáe, Dirty Computer

2. Orbital, Monsters Exist

1. The Presets, Hi-Viz

Yes I know, Where’s FJM/Dirty Projectors/Arctic Monkeys/Blood Orange, etc.? TBH, I haven’t listened to those albums a lot yet, but I plan to…so we’ll see.

And yes, the Presets. That album was such a wonderful surprise. It is so brilliantly produced, so profoundly superficial, so exquisitely catchy. I highly recommend it.

Well, I hope I didn’t lose any of you in the course of this blog vomit post. 2019 is starting off well, and though I have many bridges to mend, I can say without doubt that the foundation is stronger than ever.