I'm Still Here

I was seeing a woman here in Slovenia. A beautiful, fearless, dreaming, exotic woman. We argued. From early on, we both knew it wasn’t a match but we admired each other enough to remain curious. To enjoy some time together.

There was a night we were trying to make it past a disagreement and into bed. We cooked for each other as a kind of surrender. She made baked mussels and called them shells. I don’t remember what I made but I do remember thinking she was lying when she said she liked it. I remember laughing at how kind it was of her to lie.

I was wide awake when she laid down and this song came to be. I don’t want to tell you its meaning. But I do want to tell you about the moment I was witnessing, maybe I can bring you with me to its gates.

My friend called me on the phone and told me he was having heavier troubles with his girlfriend. I stepped outside to talk. At one point I asked him if he still loved her. He told me that he doesn’t see love as something that comes and goes. That he always will love the mother of his children. That when they fight, it isn’t love that dissapears, but trust. That the trust in our hearts, is a key that unlocks the gate and allows us in to love.

Before she went to sleep, the woman I was with had told me that her friend was in the hospital with a terminal illness and would likely pass soon. He had a child. He had a record collection and recently completed a mission to find specific vinyl records to leave for his child to listen to when he passed.

I thought of the garden. Of how he had made a key…

When I hung up the phone, I felt so sad and so hopeful at the same time.

This terrifying illusion, that when we forget how to be in love, we are alone. We fight each other, ironically, trying to find the way back to that place. Then, when we think its gone for good and we’re sitting by ourselves, we fight with the mirror, desperate for the reasons love hasn’t returned.

Lately, I’ve seen love very clearly. The truth is, it doesn’t ever go away. It is our ability to trust in its permanent and constant presence that ebbs and flows. When trust and faith are flowing, we can be in love with everything.

You can love existence. You can love the air. The grass. Your home, food, breathe. You can love that you tried to love. You can love that you risked yourself. You can love a memory. You can love the telling of a story. You can love that there is only one story between two people and that those good times, filled with vulnerable connection, are rare and valuable. You can even love that those times come and go. You can love a person’s courage to be on their own. You can love them even when they find somebody else. You can love that they are happy. You can even love that someone has found their peace in death.

That man passed the night I wrote this song. I can’t be sure of such things, but a part of me knows that I wasn’t writing alone… Maybe one day, this song will find its way onto a vinyl record and that child will know too..

I’M STILL HERE

If Love is gone, where did it go?
We like to pretend that we don’t know

Even if we’re unaligned, I’d like to know you’re safe
Over on your island in the ocean of your bed
Forget about the you-and-I’s on your journal page,
in the morning I will show you what all your dreaming said

Its Clear
Dear
I’m Still Here

When Love is gone, where does it go?
You don’t need to know all the things I know

Just a little space and time is all it really takes
To see it come around again in a different way
It is not yours or even mine, we dance with time and space
If Love could use our voices, I know what it would say

Its Clear
Dear
I’m Still Here

If Love is gone, where did it go?