Words of Farewell

America will elect a new President in the next few weeks, who may or may not represent change. Although I can not predict winners or losers, the only thing I know for certain is that my life will have changed by then- is, in fact, changing forever.

The song that first came to mind was the Beatles' "She's Leaving Home," the wistful vocals and maudlin lyrics accurately matching the emotional void and loss of control I felt when the reality finally took over, that I really had run out of options, that it was now to a matter of days. Deep down in my normally resilent inner core, fear began to dictate my every thought - what if I can't do it? - what if I can't make it? - what if I drop off the face of the earth forever? The house gradually became a darkened shell of its former self, dirty and sometimes disgusting, someone's else's property that I was allowed to stay in, much like the Gordon Lightfoot line about " a ghost in a wishing well ", the absolute bottom  happening over a year ago in the middle of the prolonged Hurricane Irene power failure when, surrounded by gutterring candles, I actually tried to play Little Walter's "Blues With A Feeling", trapped in what had once been my "dream" house.
You try - over time - to psych yourself out, just throw it off like Billy Joel in "Moving Out",when the going gets tough , the tough get going , the old college try, win one for the Gipper - but those phrases wear thin pretty quickly, and I don't think anyone really believes that crap anyway.

Some of the most plaintive ltrics about leaving that have always stayed with me through the twists and turns were written by Phil Ochs, whom I saw at the Mooncusser in Oak Bluffs at the clumsly age of 15. The words echo in my mind: "Are you going away with no words of farewell? / Will there be not a word left behind? / I could have loved you better , didn't mean to be unkind / You know it was the last thing on my mind." As I spend these final days and hours stripping away the memories, negotiating for dumpsters, jettisoning what I thought were attic treasures, sifting through the debris and chaos of seventeen years, I wonder what my words of farewell should be. As Delbert McClinton puts it on one of the cuts from "Acquired Taste" - "Can't nobody say I didn't try?" Or should it be Junior Wells wailing" Bab-ee / So all ALONE?" Or Mick Jagger wailing: "Time waits for NO-ONE / And it WON"T wait for me?"