Overly Sentimental: A Song and a Shot In the Dark

Don Henley has a lot of songs that I love – more even from his solo career than from his time with the Eagles. Boys of Summer, Sunset Grill, Dirty laundry, All She Wants To Do Is Dance – this is great stuff, not to mention all but mandatory on any mix tape of L.A. songs. Then there’s The End Of The Innocence, which is one of my all-time favorite songs period. And then there’s some stuff that’s much less well known, from his 2000 solo album, Inside Job. The album has a lot of good tracks, but my favorite is easily the closer, My Thanksgiving.

It begins as a salutation to an old friend:

Well, a lot of things have happened since the last time we spoke
Some of them are funny, some of them ain’t no joke
And I trust you will forgive me, if I lay it on the line
I always thought you were a friend of mine
And sometimes I think about you
I wonder how you’re doing now, what you’re going through
Because the last time I saw you, we were playing with fire
We were loaded with passion and a burning desire
For every breath, for every day of living
This is my Thanksgiving

I think that Henley here is in fact addressing his listener, each loyal fan individually, more than any specific long lost friend. It’s a nice little trope, personal and not as condescendingly “rock star” as Henley can sometimes come off. But I’m not old enough to be a long-time Henley fan, I don’t connect with the song in that way (which is not to say that I don’t admire the maturity of this song and the album as a whole). I connect with it personally, and to that extent this verse, and therefore the song as a whole, has always made me thing about my friend Romi.

Romi was probably my best friend in high school, a person who always seemed to essentially be me in a different body. I don’t like the term “soul mates” because it’s so associated with lovey dovey BS that I don’t believe in, but I do believe in … call it kindred spirits. Romi was a kindred spirit – we went to concerts together, we talked about books, we dreamed similar dreams. I loved her in a completely platonic but powerful way – one of the best ways to love someone, in my experience. She, who had a sister and therefore has somewhat of a right to know about such thing, once wrote to me one of the happiest compliments I’ve ever received: she said I was like a brother to her.

And we were friends in high school, a time that is the very definition of “loaded with passion and a burning desire.” The whole world was in front of us. We were believers in a certain kind of better future and our place in creating it. The world was in front of us and it was ours, and even if we were many miles apart it seemed like maybe we would be conquering the world together. She was the one person I actually believed I would keep in touch with after high school. I haven’t seen her since 2001, and haven’t heard from for nearly as long.

The next verse and the bridge:

The trouble with you and me my friend is the trouble with this nation
Too many blessings, too little appreciation
And I know that kind of notion just ain’t cool
So send me back to Sunday school
Because I’m tired of waiting for reason to arrive
It’s too long we’ve been living these unexamined lives
I’ve got great expectations, I’ve got family and friends
I’ve got satisfying work, I’ve got a back that bends
For every breath, for every day of living
This is my thanksgiving

And have you noticed that an angry man
Can only get so far
Before he reconciles the way he thinks things ought to be
With the way things are

As bad as the third and fourth lines are, I love the first and second lines so much that I forgive him. I don’t mean to diminish anyone’s pain, goodness knows there are any number of awful things that can happen to us in this life, but seriously we’re pretty damn spoiled here in America. I remember reading once someone’s rant about how our country was based on the assertion in Jefferson’s declaration that we all have a right to the “pursuit of happiness” but that we modern Americans seem to have forgotten the first part. We act all too often like life isn’t supposed to be hard. But that’s not what the promise of this country was supposed to be – you’re not guaranteed happiness, but you’re guaranteed a chance at it. A chance that anyone who doesn’t live in a free society by definition does not have. I could really go off on this for a lot longer, but Henley has done a beautiful job of summing it up in two lines, so I’ll drop it.

The other thing I love is that bridge, where Henley realizes that he’s much happier when he isn’t fighting so hard for his happiness. It’s a bit of a resignation, I suppose, and heaven knows we’d be nowhere if it weren’t for the passion of youth. But at the same time, when you spend all your time raging against … well, whatever, that’s time you’re not spending really appreciating your life. It’s a two-way street – it’s a worth while life to try to make the world better. But you have to take a breath sometimes, and appreciate the beautiful day outside.

The song ends with:

Here in this fragmented world, I still believe
In learning how to give love, and how to receive it
And I would not be among those who abuse this privilege
Sometimes you get the best light from a burning bridge
And I don’t mind saying that I still love it all
I wallowed in the springtime, now I’m welcoming the fall
For every moment of joy, every hour of fear
For every winding road that brought me here
For every breath, for every day of living
This is my thanksgiving
For everyone who helped me start
And for everything that broke my heart
For every breath, for every day of living
This is my thanksgiving

The best part of this section is what he’s thankful for. Look: fear, winding roads, broken hearts. He’s thankful for this? Ah, but that’s the beauty of a life happily lived: coming to terms with the dark times in our past, seeing how they’ve helped to lead us to where we are, and allowing ourselves to appreciate that such pain may have actually in the end made us stronger.

So this song has always made me think of Romi. It came out when I was in college, at a time when I was still sporadically in contact with her. We’d write sometimes, maybe talk on the phone. And then, for whole months at a time, just not. The day after the Dave Matthews Band concert in boulder in 2001, Romi called me. Have you ever actually gotten a phone call from an old friend who is on your mind but you haven’t talked to in a long time? It’s the neatest feeling. A day or two later we had lunch. Afterward, we saw something awful happened, and I haven’t seen her since. There have been a few letters back and forth – yes, actual letters, and the fact that she would write and mail me actual letters is just one more thing that makes her awesome – but even that’s been years.

And so this song came on this morning and made me think of Romi, and I miss her. Maybe, just maybe, she’ll Google herself one day, and this will show up on Page 19, and she’ll click on it and respond. Probably not. But I thought it was worth a try. Romi Pekarek, if you’re out there, thanks. I hope you’re doing well.