A Dark Turn of Mind

Take me and love me if you want me
But don't ever treat me unkind
Cause I had trouble already
And it left me with a dark turn of mind
~ "A Dark Turn of Mind"  - Gillian Welch

I often hear songs that make me feel a bit wistful, that are full of lyrics I wish somebody would sing to me.  Josh Ritter's "Long Shadows" springs instantly to my mind.  There's a man in that song who knows that life is full of darkness, of things that come howling after you.  He knows, too, that some of the night lives inside, that those shadows fall "across the heart."  He doesn't promise to make it all sweetness and light. I don't want somebody who does that.  Those would be very pretty words, I guess, but in all honesty, words that would be exceedingly difficult to live up to.  Instead of empty vows, the speaker in the song makes a promise he can keep; he simply swears not to run away, to be there when he's reached for, not to be afraid of that dark in whatever form it comes.  I think that is all a person can really ask for, somebody who is strong enough to take it.  They're fewer and farther between than can possibly be imagined.

Then there are the songs that I sort of think that one day I might hesitantly offer to somebody I love.  Chris Thile's "I Am Yours If You Want Me" is the ultimate example, full of the mix of doubt and desire, of worship and fear that always accompany any serious affection for me.  The song says that "I'm scared of your body/ I'm scared of your soul/ but I'd rather be a letdown/ than let being with you go."  Since I tend to be a pedestal builder even though it always seems the feet of my beloved wind up being made of materials baser even than clay, I know exactly what he means.  I've talked about Thile's song before, so I won't belabor this point, but when he says, "I don't care about my future/ I don't care about your past/ those things come from and lead to right now/ so they can get the hell out fast," he is also summing up a philosophy that I have.  What went before doesn't matter.  What comes next, well, I'll figure that out.  I think this actually goes back to an Emerson quote about living in the moment.  Or maybe it was Doctor Seuss...

Today, though, I heard Gillian Welch's "A Dark Turn of Mind" for the first time, and I had the oddest feeling of hearing myself defined in song.  Somebody might have been looking over my past when they wrote it.  Every word was perfect.  It's as though whoever wrote it simply traced a pen over all the scars in my past and took the shape of song from that.   "Leave me if I'm feeling too lonely/ full as the fruit on the vine/ You know some girls are bright as the morning/ And some have a dark turn of mind."  That's me.  I am all too often in need of being left alone because I am too lonely, unbearable and bad company.

And I've never been one of those "bright as the morning" girls, although I have several good friends who are.  Their lives have always seemed so much easier to me as they sort of glide in that golden fall of light like some sort of Renaissance Madonna.  It has followed them their whole lives....to summer camp where every boy fought for the right to fall in love with them....across the floor of the high school dance...down the aisle of the church on their fathers' arm to their waiting husbands...into sedate maternity cradling multiple children close...  I know that some of that is an illusion and every life has its issues and struggles, and I don't mean to say that they have no problems, but I've been the one walking with my face to the storm, a little offbeat, a little mistrustful, and always somehow alone.  I don't sparkle or shine like they do with that golden light.  I've never really defined that difference between us, but this song manages to do that.  It's not that one is better or worse; we were just shaped by different events.

The last line says, "...And some girls are blessed with a dark turn of mind."  I had to roll that around in my head for a few minutes.  It's not always comfortable to be this way if you want to know the truth.  Sometimes I wish I was one of those bright as the morning girls.  If I were, I would probably already be married.  I would probably already have children.  In all likelihood, I will probably never have either of those things in my life.  That's the price of having this darkness inside.  And yet, I cannot say there is nothing good that comes from it.  It has given me a certain freedom.  I've been able to go places and do things that would not have been possible otherwise.  There is also a certain insight to be gained from anything that hurts, so I guess that is a part of the "blessedness" of it, too.

The more I hear the song, the more it fits me.  Maybe the most comforting part of it is that there is somebody else who knows what it's like to be this way, too, who knows that curious mixture of pleasure and pain that comes from standing in the shadows.  "But oh, ain't the nighttime so lovely to see/ Don't all the night birds sing sweetly/ You'll never know how happy I'll be/ when the sun's goin' down..."