for some reason I decided to pop in an old jim croce CD that I stole from my mom ages ago, and I just found myself listening to this song over and over again. I’ve heard it about a million times, but for some reason today I heard it differently.
I was thinking about the story in the song, which I’ll give you the reader’s digest version of, in case you are unfamiliar with it. actually, in the case that you’ve never heard it, you should probably stop reading this now, and youtube it, or google it, or fuck that, in the spirit of this entry, go buy the CD.
fuck, go buy the vinyl…
Anyway, this man, the narrator, loved this woman, and shes run away with his best friend to L.A….and probably drunk, one night, (perhaps with his breath smelling of mustard gas and roses?), he dials the operator, and asks her to help him find the number to call her. Just to prove to himself that he can. Just to make him feel like he can move on.
All I can think about is a time, that wasn’t that long ago, when their were no cell phones for people to be reached at any given moment, and there was no facebook to find those you somehow lost along the way, and if you dialed 0 on the phone, you actually got an operator, and you could make a call for a dime. And that thought, to me, is so beautiful that I’m currently crying.
And then there is this verse:
There’s something in my eyes,
you know it happens every time
I think about the love
that I thought would save me.
Amen Jim, amen.
It’s just an average day, a normal mundane conversation, a polite request, and then, that realization. That everything is not normal, and even though I can nod and smile and play whatever part I need to, that that’s not the way it feels.
