Last Tuesday, Dennis and I got our first dose of the Pfizer and I was reminded of what it feels like to let out yet another breath from a year-plus of holds (see January 20, 2021, for the first exhale). I suspect on April 27 (2nd dose), then May 11 (two-weeks later, antibodies in full force), I’ll be remembering what it is to fill my lungs all they way to my soul. A few things in the last week have had me catching my breath in interesting ways. We headed off to Los Angeles after the shot where Dennis was helping to construct one of those restaurants build-outs happening on sidewalks in cities across the nation/world (bye-bye, street parking). I decided to go along and use the time/space for a self-directed writing getaway. We had use of a friend-of-a-friend’s empty apartment in West Hollywood that was such an old-school bungalow style that I expected Raymond Chandler to be sitting on the couch.

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I’m finishing up a first draft of a novel that wants me to remember what music felt like. Really deep down inside. How notes, lyrics, instruments smashing together would move me in ways that mixed pain and pleasure. Over the past years, and for a variety of reasons I’ve only just begun to tip the iceburg around, I stepped out of the playground of music. Now I’m circling the slide and merry-go-round again, testing the swings. So imagine my surprise when I wandered out our West Hollywood front door and found Barney’s Beanery up the street. Much like CBGBs (RIP) in NYC, the place looks a helluva lot different in the light of day. This was where, after seeing X or Duran Duran at the Whisky Club up the street or when I came to LA during my journalism days, I’d end up, either hoping to spot a rock star while hovering around the pool table or trying to coax a story out of one by not hovering around the pool table. I’m crap at pool. What with COVID restrictions, the current Barney’s did not tempt me inside, but it did make me think back on who I was and what I hoped for back then: age-appropriately confused/naive and filled with grand plans with road maps that were fuzzy. Climbing up to Sunset Blvd, I came to the corner where Tower Records sits/sat. The sign’s still there. The business not so much. And again, my mind did a little memory dance. Although Tower wasn’t my local record store (I’m looking at you Licorice Pizza, Huntington Beach; the Wherehouse in Newport Beach/Fashion Island, which we called Fascist Island–although it might have been in South Coast Plaza…anyway…), I spent plenty of time at this Tower Records when journalistic or record company business took me there. And, boom, I think that was where the issues sprang. By then music for me was a biz of moneymaking rather than a fizz of passion. I went back to our bungalow and thought on it.

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The next day I hoofed it to the LA County Museum of Art, where they’re open for a-few-at-at-time entry. Approaching the building, I saw the Tar Pits (right outside the grounds of the museum) and had a flashback moment. First because I used to go there with my dad, and there’s an installation of a mammoth being trapped in the tar during the ice age while the rest of the mammoth family watches helplessly. It made me sooooo sad!!! Back then, to distract from that little emotional trauma, we’d go to a restaurant across the street called The Egg and The Eye, a quintessential cafe/bookstore where I’d feel very grown-up and pick out lots of books to buy. It’s now a craft store that’s closed because of the–wait for it–pandemic. But the Victorian building is painted up colorfully, which was lovely.

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Yoshitomo Nara selections

I headed into the museum. I hadn’t paid too much attention to what exhibit I was going to see since just the idea of going to a museum was enough. So imagine my surprise when I stepped inside and found in Yoshitomo Nara‘s art exactly what I needed in the moment. In the first exhibition room, one wall was covered with record albums from the sixties and seventies. Come to learn that Nara had grown up in a small Japanese village and was a fairly lonely latchkey kid who found joy and escape through music and art. There was an audio offering to go with the exhibition that I thought would be the blah-blah that happens when someone tells you about what you’re looking at. But, NO, it was a soundtrack of songs—”Eve of Destruction” and “Both Sides Now” chosen to go with the time and vibe he was working in. A total suffusion in how music moves a hand across the page. And the images were the perfect rendering of how I remember music making me feel: manic, mischievous, movement. Powerful. I wandered round and round, soaking it up, then went to the gift store and just barely managed to not invest a small fortune in all things Nara.

Starting my walk home, I’d decided earlier to play music rather than the podcast selections I’ve been walking around with lately. I shuffled, hit play and goddamn it if Led Zeppelin’s “Going to California” didn’t cue up and fill my head. Stop it. But yes. I walked. Through that and Nirvana’s Unplugged “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” (a performance I had the great, good fortune of seeing) and Rein Wolf “Are You Satisfied” and on like that. And I did feel the power and I stayed in it as best I could. I reminded myself to roll one foot in front of the other, breathe. Let my feet walk me and my emotions while I tried to figure out just when it was that I’d decided to put music to the side so as not to really have to feel it. Then decided the when didn’t really matter. Just carry on now. And breathe.