Occasionally, when I have the place to myself for a few days, I have to do an existential deconstruction of all the things. Junk drawers, closets, the basement, the stationary; basically everything. In the process, there is inevitably the churning up of the past.
I keep a curio alter, so the past and the beloved dead are never too far away from the present. But there are surprises that arise as well. A piece of gum. I only chew gum while taking off in an airplane, if I even remember then. A collecting card of a favorite childhood superhero that a friend gave me a few years ago. That kind of thing.
When undertaking an existential deconstruction project, it’s my speed to also have music on from the deep past. The songs that I was in love with in my most absorbent years. When every word and every note of an album would get tattooed onto my bones. Today’s album de jour is Blind Melon’s album Soup.
When I was a teenager, my grandfather on my mother’s side—Pipi—was in recovery from alcoholism. He did a great job in turning that around. But he ended up dying a long emphysema decent into death. Breathtaking is much more bleak when it comes in long terrifying stretches. It also robs a person who plays harmonica of that joy.
That was about the point that his 40-reeds Marine Band Full Concert harmonica was passed to me in a Christmas stocking by Mimi, my grandmother. It was the one that he’d played in the Navy during WWII. There aren’t really harmonica lessons available the same way that piano lessons are. You teach yourself. You learn to play by ear. You work things out.
My first song was Cecilia by Simon & Garfunkel. I’d put the song on repeat with my enormous CD player, then play along as best as I could. I’d slip the harmonica and its blue cardboard box into my jeans pocket and take it to school.
When the Soup album came out, it was a follow-up to the album where they made the slash into the larger national consciousness with No Rain. Soup didn’t land as well, but was actually much better. There’s also a song on it called Walk that has a hell of a good harmonica solo. Two, in fact. Instead of learning how to play the melody on the thing, I was learning how to play a contributing voice to the larger work.
While Pipi was able to take care of that thing through the war, a dozen pregnancies, a business, and a few fires; I broke it in a few short years—the box, the reeds, the screws came off, and I damaged a pretty important personal family relic. That sucks.
It took years of searching to find another 40-Reed Marine Band Full Concert harmonica. Of course, it was through the powers of the internet that I eventually found the exact one. It doesn’t have the same emotional legacy as the original, but the touch memory is there. One for the curio alter, one for active use. What do you know, I can still hit all the right notes of Walk; just like I remember every word of the song.
Being older now they mean something different to me than they did back then. Being in the Pacific Northwest also helps to understand it differently. In Michigan, a mountain simply means something grand, whereas out here a mountain means a mountain. And when Shannon Hoon says “I need to be on top of a mountan where I can see everything,” he’s talking about being on top of a fucking mountain. And “everything” is something grand. It’s also a song about a person who is suffering pretty hard. But there’s also a conviction stated right before the harmonica solo that says “I’m gonna take a breath, and try, and try again…”
After that album, Shannon Hoon died of a cocaine overdose.
Stationary. I mentioned the stationary. I’ve got plenty. I’ve got notebooks, journals, postcards, and holiday cards. Also, I’ve got a thing about holiday cards where I don’t actually do a seasonal message, or just drop a card in the mail where the message is written out in advance by a card company. I write to each person on my list. Both of my biological parents were from families of eleven. They all had a ton of kids too, and I can’t even keep all my cousins’ names straight. Then there is also a stepfamily. Then an enormous cloud of friends that I’ve made across my four decades.
“For love of friends and family, you know I need them….” Shannon Hoon croons.
I’ve never made it entirely through my list. As a result, I have stacks of holiday cards that have names on them, some with an address, most with stamps on them. I’m at the part of my existential deconstruction/reconstruction when I’m organizing those things when I am stopped hard.
That one is addressed to my little cousin Joan.
Joanie just died a few months ago. Now she won’t be needing this card, and whatever I would’ve said to her in this card will never be read, and this card needs to be returned to the ether.
Joanie, like Shannon Hoon, died of an overdose. Now that they’ve both also returned to the ether, all of their contributions to the world—good, wounded, or otherwise—are complete.
Joanie loved music too.
“Find myself singing the same songs every day
The ones that make me feel good
When things behind the smile ain’t okay…”
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Written 6/15/2019
Edited 05/23/2023
Posted 05/24/2023
Happy Birthday, Cousin Joan.
We weren’t very close, but I knew you enough to know that you were sweet and kind and that dying so young was tragic. Giving Walk a spin and thinking of you.
With love,
-Chris
Post Script: The first draft of this was composed on my electric typewriter. After finding the card for Joanie, it didn’t seem like the kind of thing that you just pitch into the recycling. So I folded up the original, stuffed it into the holiday card, addressed it to the dead letter office, and dropped it into the mailbox to find that ether.
