This week. It has churned up things. I’ve wanted to write about certain things. Late at night, when I’m drifting off to the Land of Nod, words flow and I wish I could retain them. Remember them as they appear in thought so I can jot them down the next morning. All my best words feel like they come as a stream of consciousness so when it comes to the point where I am sitting at my computer or have my iPad Mini in front of me … they float away. Thought clouds that dissipate before they can be fully grasped. It’s exasperating. It never ceases.
Last night I had David Bowie’s ‘I Would Be Your Slave’ stuck in my head. It’s been around for the past 24 hours. It usually creeps in when I am feeling particularly beholden to the thoughts of someone else taking over large parts of my cerebral cortex. I have done so well in blotting him out lately. Well, for quite a while to be honest. But the shock of Lore’s passing this week has once again brought thoughts of him to the core.
Last night this whole stream of detail started forming. I wanted to make mental notes. Try to remember the way in which my words were forming and write out what I wanted to say. Aspects of it I can recall. Things about the ‘unreliable memory’ that we learned about in the Creative Writing module. Irony, anyone? I was thinking about something he said during the interview he had with Nicola Meighan about Everything is Possible. Something about it being their story to tell and they are the best ones to tell it. But I was thinking, are they really? Is he really the right person to tell the Simple Minds story? Just because it’s your story to tell, it doesn’t mean that you’re going to tell it any more truthfully than anyone else, does it? In fact, you have a vested interest in telling the story with the view of it showing yourself in the very best light, no? Or at least you and Charlie.
This is part of the problem I’ve been having over the past 12 months. It’s like a veil has been lifted from me. When you want to believe in something so much, you cut yourself off from what is blatantly obvious to others – or perhaps not quite so obvious to all. Perhaps many other Simple Minds fans fall victim to what I feel I had succumbed to for a number of years? Possibly not to the degree I fell, or in a different kind of way but with a similar result.
A case in point is how I purposefully closed myself off from the things that Derek would say in relation to Jim and Charlie. It was easy to think ‘Ah, he’s just an embittered guy who felt he was shafted and has held onto that for years and years when he should just “let it go.”’ And of course, elements of that still rings true, but that embittered feeling continues for a valid reason, whether it’s healthy to have it hanging round you or not, I can now appreciate much more than I used to why it’s there.
Part of my thoughts last night had me thinking about Jim writing a song called ‘Who Killed Truth?’ How it seems so laced with irony, Jim Kerr asking a question like that. Maybe irony isn’t the right word here, perhaps I should use hypocrisy?
One of the exchanges we had ‘back in the day’ was him acknowledging how sketchy his memory is. It was in response to me saying I was astounded that he’d forgotten about a particular Simple Minds song that had only been released in the more recent past (at that time) – around 15 years prior, and yet he could clearly recall things from many years before that. Of course, he could have been joking (about so easily forgetting a more recent SM song).
And that was a point also…in his obit for Lore, applauding her sharp wit and how he said it’s not an easy thing to deploy with aplomb, but she did. I never knew when it came to his own sense of humour. I always felt I was the butt of his jokes and he was being cruel and malicious and not playful. I used to get hurt a lot by his supposed ‘wit.’ I’m pretty sure he knew that too and just thought I was a stupid fool. I guess he was right.
So, the truth? What is the truth? We all stick to our own “truths.” I can’t help thinking of the Manic Street Preachers album title; This is My Truth Tell Me Yours. I guess the truth can only come out with factual substantiation. But all things are corruptible, even the truth.
As for the limerence? It still creeps in. When I think that good people – or at least people I believe to be good souls – still hold Jim in an esteem that for me personally has lessened to a degree I never believed would have been possible a few years ago.
I used to think there was a change in him that went like this: from the forming of Simple Minds until around early 1983…ambitious and focused but something virtuous in him, keen to be amongst like minds but not necessarily with an air of superiority behind it. A strong sense of humility behind a facade of bravado. The self-belief HAD to exude itself like that to gain ground. Second phase: 1984 onwards to …. I don’t know when…ego comes in, self-belief is vindicated and becomes dominant, fueling further ambition and focus. Superiority creeps in. Humility flies out the window. Third phase: possibly early 2000s? Not sure exactly. Possibly then. Humility seems to show its face again at times. Ambition has been tempered some, focus is still fairly present. Mostly guarded …. A hard nut to crack. Enigmatic but in a different way to before. Arrogance present.
Now? I don’t know what to think any more. I find the Jim Kerr of the early Simple Minds days beautiful in a way that is not merely just an aesthetic. I used to think that the Jim Kerr of 1981/82 wouldn’t have even struck up a conversation with me. Would have paid me absolutely NO heed at all. That he would have been beautifully intangible to me. He always will be. Whereas ‘modern’ Jim, at least around 10 years ago (or a little less, more like around 8 to 9 years ago) drew me in by making me feel included. But, then I began to feel shunned after a time. A play thing that lost its appeal. I guess I just didn’t have that elusive ‘wit’ or perhaps I just became how I do when someone lures me – especially when it comes to men – I try too hard. I become a desperado. Too eager to impress and continue to win the favour of a man who dazzles me that it all falls away. I am a turd that men too quickly tire of polishing. I make it sound like I’ve had a string of guys! Lol. I haven’t. I’ve been infatuated by a string of guys over the years. Mostly from a safe distance. I stayed protected by a barrier of intangibility with most of my past fancies. I don’t think I’ve been particularly attractive to any man. It’s not as if I’ve been swatting them off with baseball bats, you know?
Anyway, I could at last turn it around in self-preservation over the past 12 months. Was I bitter? Hell yes! It bloody hurt! But I was healing. I was trying my best. But these past few days the hurt has returned. That desire to be thought of fondly by Jim? To be ‘part of the in-crowd?’ When I think of all the good feelings it produced to begin with? How I felt like that perhaps I WAS ‘worthy.’ Perhaps I was capable of more than I ever gave myself credit for. That I wasn’t just a waste of earth’s ever-depleting natural resources. That he saw something in me that I couldn’t see myself?
We arrive in the world alone, and we die alone. We have people around us, sure. A mother gives birth to us so that in itself means we are not truly ‘alone.’ But not all women are maternal. In its strictest terms, a mother is a vessel, a carrier.
I want to carry myself better. I want to be a better person. I want to cast out the unsightly things about me – and I don’t mean that in a physically appealing sense. I mean – I don’t want to be misanthropic. I don’t want to mistrust people. I want to have grace. And instead of feeling shunned by those who I thought were people deserving of being looked up to, I want to hold my head high and know deep within myself that it’s their loss – and really believe it.
