i've always dreamt about them, the band {radiohead}, and over the years the dream has almost become formulaic. i've come to recognize the variations on the themes:
tour, show, unspannable distance between me and the musicians, chaotic disconnect, and
desire, or, more accurately:
unmet desire.and every time i wake up, i feel like i've been handed the best and worst possible gift. for a moment, i had them in my world and undeniably connected to me, even if they never spoke or looked at me. i can even remember once or twice when there was a definite point in which they, no, him, thom,
wouldn't look at me when everyone else would. yet every time that fleeting sense of connection is swept away as i surface suddenly into reality and realize it wasn't mine to keep.
just an illusion.
just another dream.
but a few weeks ago, something changed.
everything got a little closer.
the night before this new kind of dream, i sent an email to someone i met down at the santa barbara show on august 28th, 2008. he was one of the two people i traveled from los angeles to santa barbara with the morning of the final show of the united states tour. we had met online via the radiohead message board and i never for second regretted the decision to trust my gut instinct that it was safe for me, a single woman, to travel these few hours with two people i had just met. beyond the safety issue, there was also the risk of sharing one of the most emotionally intimate and raw things i can image short of {and actually, even perhaps beyond} sex: a live radiohead show. but my gut was right and not only did they hugely alter the course of the trip, but one of them was directly responsible for getting me into the after party with the band that night. i'm also still in contact with both travelers and hold both the drive there, and back {with another person entirely}, very warmly in the memories of the tour.
i digress. onward to the email.
in an earlier email he had sent some videos of their tour through japan and the night before this shift in dreams i had written back to him, explaining that i couldn't watch them.
these were my words:
i played about three seconds of the live version of 15 step and then couldn't watch any more. it's hard to explain. my heart hurts. i never got around to playing the live concert from the santa barbara show and/or diving in for an evening {or however long} of writing, and until i do that, watching them play live makes me feel really raw. i can't explain it more than that. it's like seeing an ex before you're ready to see them. the breakup is still too new. and i think that's kind of what's at the heart of it. it's like this thing that held so much promise or desire and it can't possibly be the thing i want it to be. taking it on the grander scale, it's like all my desire is present when i listen to them. the desire i have to be an artist. to be a good artist. to make beautiful, soul-wrenching, soul-elevating things. and when i hear them, i hear someone who has done this and done it so well and i'm not there yet. i'm not there.and that's just the start.
shortly after the email was sent that night, i went to sleep and that's when the dreams changed.
that night, i dreamt i was seeing them play live at this outdoor venue that was rather sparsely filled. the concert was winding down but we still had a ways to go when they stopped playing and ended the concert. it was so sudden and disappointing it felt like an injustice. as the musicians were putting away their equipment {which they haven't had to do for themselves for over a decade}, i walked up to the bassist, colin greenwood, and explained to him that i had this radiohead waterbottle that i had purchased earlier in the tour and that i really wanted thom yorke to sign it {he was conspicuously absent on stage}. i explained how this has always symbolized to me how simple and easy he makes even writing his name on a water bottle look like art. it's just this small gesture, but i can distinctly see his presence, his vitality and his inner life living itself out in this small and unselfconscious way. {part of me wonders for the first time if one of his kids actually signed the bottle...but no matter.}
colin immediately took to my idea, smiled and escorted me back stage. thom is legendarily a prickly person, and i've seen him up close in his post-concert exhaustion {in real life} to know he's probably not his most congenial then, so colin {in my dream} also automatically assumed the role of lobbying for my plan. he walks up to thom and starts talking and i can see that initially thom blows the idea off, but colin works him a little more and says i want to collect everyone's signatures from the band and that he and phil, the drummer, have already signed it. in the way of dreams, it was already done and one of them had even put his signature and note to me in a playful heart shape. i was sad to have my initial idea veer off course a bit, but if that was the price i had to pay, than so be it. it didn't take long for thom to agree to the idea, and there was genuine warmth in him as he took the bottle and signed it in green sharpie. i remember looking at it and being a little disappointed in the combo of blue bottle {that's the color that i bought last year on the tour} and green sharpie, but after a year of pining over this desire to have him sign my bottle i could hardly nitpick. the dream ended shortly after, as i turned to leave to collect ed's signature. {and yes, to all the loyal fans out there, i somehow forgot about johnny in this particular dream.}
and despite the fact that i never had a real dialogue with thom and there wasn't a huge amount of interaction in the dream, i still
finally after all this time, got a little bit of one on one time. even for a few seconds. and not only that but i got my very own take away gesture of thom-ish magic to have and remind me to be as spontaneous and uncensored and true in my art.
i remember speaking to one of my best friends the next day and trying to keep my voice steady as i said my dreams about them were
getting closer. yet somehow, despite the appearance of progress, brokeness seemed to be the only thing i could feel. the unrequitable longing for something had deepened and the sense of loss a presence i can't ignore. and perhaps the most frustrating part is how uncertain i am about what it is i am reaching for. i can't tell beyond the fact that it runs so deep and is swathed in so much {
so so much} that i can't make heads or tails of who is standing in for what. all i can say is that this man, this band, and their work is a key. the transportive and evocative quality of their music simultanously represents the thing i'm reaching for in myself while providing a direct line i can borrow to take me there. and this is a generous and heartbreaking gift because even as i travel down the path their work creates, i am always always aware that i'm only just borrowing their key.
fast forward to last night.
in this dream, i first saw his daughter, who's name in real life is agnes, but who went by something different in my dream. something that began with an "m," i think. and more melodic. {was it melody? or some lovely variation on that word?} she was about five in the dream, which is a pretty accurate reflection of her real age {i just now looked it up on wikipedia...no, i'm not
that big of a fan}. in the dream she noticed me right away and attached herself to me in the endearing and adoring way of children and she pulled me into her parent's house with her enthusiasm. the band was practicing and a small gang of the band's friends were hanging out. the daughter announced that
the friends are all coming back later and wouldn't i like to come?, while thom yorke, her father, was at the other end of the room a little distant and listening to his daughter's determined invitation and ignoring her in the hopes i would go away. there was almost a question of me becoming a nanny to the girl and she was so excited about this prospect and was petitioning heavily in my favor. i suddenly noticed my mother who said, rather boldly on my behalf {in regards to the invitation to hang out later that night},
oh, you would like that a lot, wouldn't you, nathania? and i was left in painful embarrassment as i realized the obligation thom would now feel to invite me back later that evening. the girl was satisfied and smiled as her father obligingly extended a formal invitation and i happily, though somewhat guiltily, accepted.
i came back later that night and the band was just finishing their work and thom was going to bed, but i was still allowed/invited to come hang out with this random group of strangers in his house. i cautiously entered and descended to the basement conscious of this oblique form of honor to be there, but also feeling a little out of place. in the strange narrative of dreams, there was a part here that had to do with an abduction of sorts. i can't remember the particulars, but this darkness swept down to get me in some scary and ominous form and i found myself hiding in a small dark space. thom shooed them away and opened the door, calmly rescuing me.
then there was a third section i barely remember beyond the fact that it is the crown of not only the night's dream, but, in fact, all of my dreams about radiohead. i'm sifting through my mind's images, praying for one to come back to me in full color, but the only thing i am left with is the lingering delight of having a conversation, an entire
conversation with thom. the part i do remember is the intoxicating glow of being in his presence and somehow achieving this gift. he had a warmth and openness to him and there was a frankness to our conversation about his lyrics that implied a connection and friendship that must have ocurred between the second and third parts of the story.
the details are slipping farther even as i am pulling at them, trying to extract some value, some feeling. but the realization i made this morning upon waking still lingers and it was centered around how this series of radiohead dreams has paralleled my journey toward becoming my own artist. my relationship to this band is not just about the art that they make, even though their music, inherently, is worth all that it evokes in me. above and beyond all the resonance and beauty and life and universal truths their music taps into there runs another story that is so particular to me and my journey and my burning/pulling/pinching/prodding/throbbing drive i have to made my own version of the kind of art they make. and i'm not saying i am going to tour the world and i definitely am not aiming to be a musician, but i want to create art on that level of density in lush, gorgeous, emotionally evocative colors. and i think what i am running headlong into is the heartbreak i have deep inside me.
my heart is broken and i can't seem to make progress on how or why. it's something to do with not trusting myself to get there, wherever
there is. i don't know what place it is, but i can feel the coordinates inside my chest to the thing that's blocking me from just living
there and the block is alive and scared and scarred. the tensions between the two is vibrating with such a frequency at times i can literally feel myself oscillate.
the part of me that is analytic and self aware asks how to manage and control this situation. how do i get beyond this "block" so i can tap into this space and take all these little projects of painting, sewing, writing and color exploration and make them something whole, something significant. but this is how i've always approached this wall inside myself and it hasn't seemed to work. the paradigm of broken and fixing.
going in the opposite direction entirely, how do i change my perspective on this thereby altering my reality around this point? i am fighting so much inside myself, and what if i throw in the towel? what if i realize the part i'm struggling with so much is that i percieve myself as not being the artist i want to be, when really, i'm already there. when i paint, i hear each layer speak to me in such a calm and gentle voice and it tells me what layer needs to follow it and when i have perhaps gone too far or need to switch directions. and when i finish a painting, it calmly lists the things that are perhaps a little incongruous and i would change next time, but i don't stretch endlessly for the phantom of perfectionism. it's a peaceful journey of creation that has it's ups and downs, but i don't tether my worth to it with piano wire.
while my acting isn't to the point of such easefulness or flow, i can reason that it's because 1. i haven't been doing it for that long and 2. because i have so much pressure on myself to be perfect and to make the pinnacle of my life's work tomorrow, or even better, yesterday. an ex of mine {and now, nicely, one of my best friends} jokes that instant gratification isn't fast enough for me, i need preemptive gratification. somehow, i'm racing myself here and i know this journey takes time. {radiohead's first album is one i can't listen to. it's too green.} perhaps upping the stakes a little is the perception of my body and self as the instrument. i have to put myself out there in such a way and in order to do that, i have to come to terms with the last remaining scraps, or let's face it, chunks, of insecurities i have about myself. my looks. my worthiness.
how can it be me? and silmultaneously
why can't it be me?and during this agitation surrounding this whole story i'm laying out before you, there is this calm voice in me saying,
nathania, what are you worring about? you have this lovely short film project in front of you and you're investing all this energy into restlessness which could be going into making this piece of art. begin, child. and then i rustle about paying rent and making art that supports me financially and the calm retort is merely
have we ever failed you yet? well...it hasn't been a comfortable ride so far, though i must say i'm in a better car, clothes, and house than i ever have been in before.
it will be easier if you stopped worrying. just go out and mix your colors.
okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.
okay.
breathe, nathania, and spend this afternoon
making your art.
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