This New Year's Eve Post Is Brought To You By ...

My silhouette drinking from a plastic cup at the Levitation festival. Cheers. It's been a hell of a year. 

Glow

Since I still don't have words for the things I want to say, here's some light in the dark instead.

Blue Lamp

Some months ago, I mentioned dreaming it was 1987 again. The dream ended, but the feeling somehow remains. There was nothing especially memorable about that year, yet the memories flit around unreasonably, like moths battering a window pane.

In those days, my cousin Anna was a huge fan of Stevie Nicks. So much so that she'd go around wearing her mother's antique lace table cloth and a pair of enormous boots. One of Anna's favorite songs was called Blue Lamp. This may seem strange to relate to 1987, as the song was released on the Heavy Metal soundtrack in '81, but of course we weren't allowed to see the film back then. Our brothers had the soundtrack, though (of course they did) and Anna's Stevie Nicks obsession gave the song a prominent place that year.

Now it's more than 30 years later, and for reasons unbeknownst to me, I've had the song stuck in my head for weeks. The lyrics have a poetic, mystical bent  - slightly tinged with anger - of the kind especially appealing to young girls.

"There was no message to be found anywhere in sight
Inside or out
I had looked everywhere but the only lamp left on in the house
Was a blue light"

While this lyric may evoke loneliness for some, to me it was always a comforting image. Perhaps because I thought - and still do - that the blue light was actually the message. I like this idea, that a light may be a message as much as any written word.

According to Nicks herself, the blue lamp is a real object, a Tiffany lamp that was gift from her mother.

Stevie Nicks and The Blue Lamp

In the song, the lamp is a concrete object, but has also become a symbol. As Nicks has described it, "a light at the end of the tunnel" as well as her mother's love.

While I can't relate to the idea of having a loving parent any better than I could in 1987, I can certainly relate to the idea of light as a symbol of hope, a sense of not being alone. Back then I was just beginning to come to terms with my chronic sense of solitude.

"Downstairs the big old house is mine
Upstairs where the stars still laugh and they shine"

While I honestly can't say what Nicks meant by this line, I know what it meant to me. The image of an empty house and shining stars meant freedom. I imagined being completely on my own, moving about under my own power. I could seek out any adventure. I would no longer need permission. And the stars would keep me company.

"And the light that shines through the shining night
Is the lamp that I carried from my mother's home
And the light that burns through the window pane
And the love remains"

The act of carrying a lamp becomes something bigger, weightier. A legacy or heritage, perhaps. Maybe a transfer of feminine power, or love itself.

I intuited this much in 1987, even if I didn't quite have the words for it. I still don't have the words for it, to tell you the truth. But there must be a reason the song is stuck in my mind after all these years. These things don't happen without reason.

There is still a lesson to be learned somewhere.

Neon

In 1840, the first sign of the Great Comanche Raid in Victoria was a flaming arrow. In an odd sort of commemoration, a neon arrow set this barbecue joint's roof ablaze nightly for 50 plus years.

Gaslight

Downtown, where the gas company used to be, the lamps are still burning. The ones I mentioned here. The gas company moved out years ago, so the light illuminates little these days but an empty  lot and the occasional passerby. Still, the lamps stay lit. 

Around the corner at the Protestant church, the much fancier gas lamps shine a warm glow on parishioners leaving basement recitals and potluck suppers, but this gas lamp - my gas lamp - soldiers bravely on alone.

There is something inexpressibly beautiful about a single light in the darkness.