Nobody Knows

Sun been down for days
A pretty flower in a vase
A slipper by the fireplace
A cello lying in its case

Soon she's down the stairs
Her morning elegance she wears
The sound of water makes her dream
Awoken by a cloud of steam
She pours a daydream in a cup
A spoon of sugar sweetens up

And she fights for her life as she puts on her coat
And she fights for her life on the train
She looks at the rain as it pours
And she fights for her life as she goes in a store
With a thought she has caught by a thread
she pays for the bread and she goes
Nobody knows

Sun been down for days
A winter melody she plays
The thunder makes her contemplate
She hears a noise behind the gate
Perhaps a letter with a dove
Perhaps a stranger she could love

And she fights for her life as she puts on her coat
And she fights for her life on the train
She looks at the rain as it pours
And she fights for her life as she goes in a store
Where the people are pleasantly strange
And counting the change as she goes
Nobody knows

I love this song so, so very much. It's beautiful and bittersweet and yet strangely hopeful all the same. Contemplative and quirky. Upbeat. The stop-motion music video adds yet another layer of beauty to the art. The lyrics are (I think) purposefully vague about the woman's exact circumstances: is she suffering from depression? Loneliness? Cancer? Grief? The simple wear and tear of life? Nobody knows -- and yet, maybe, we all share a little bit of that fight inside. We all recall a variation of that winter melody, distorted even so from time, and understand.

Of course, most of the time we ignore our shared human  experiences...

...but I like to think that when it really matters, we're able to remove those self-imposed mirrors and look appreciatively through the eyes of another. See their pain and their joy, their color-tainted perspective and evolving views, and really know them. Want to know them better. Appreciate the loving care that went into shaping them and continues to shape them. Because no human is ever remotely the same. No human is ordinary. C. S. Lewis expresses this far better than I can:

"There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations -- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit -- immortal horrors or everlasting splendors."

Backtracking a bit... This reminds me of a song by mewithoutyou.

A cat came drifting onto a porch from the outside cold
And with eyes closed, drinking warm milk from my bowl,
Thought:
"Nobody hears me (nobody hears me)
As I crept in so soft!
And nobody sees me (nobody sees me)"
As I watched six steps off
Like the peacocks wandering the walkways of the zoo
Who have twice the autonomy the giraffes and tigers do
Saying:
"No one can stop me (no one stop me)
No one clips my claws
now everyone watches me (everyone watches me)
Scale these outside walls!"
Oh, you pious and profane,
Put away your praise and blame,
A glass can only spill what it contains
To the perpetually plain and the incurably inane:
A glass can only spill what it contains!

That's not all of the song... there's another really awesome bit that say 'we're like children dressing in our parent's clothes' and a whole verse that talks about questioning the Unquestionable, who "makes no reply". (The song as a whole reminds me of Til We Have Faces.) But I only listed the relevant parts.

I pity that cat in particular. Something about him hurts... His proudly proclaimed independence contrasts bitterly against his utter dependence on the narrator. Not to mention his self-imposed blindness to the truth, his adamance that no one knows, that his seeming longing against the loneliness. He wants to be independent and yet he wants to belong. I don't know... maybe I'm reading too much into him. Maybe I identify with him too strongly. But every time I read that poem (and I do consider it more of a spoken poem than written lyrics), I desperately want to hug that cat and take it home with me. I want to see him, the real him in the glass.

My thoughts seem to be very scattered today. I'm avoiding the subject. The truth is, I'm disturbed, like most people, by the elementary school shooting this morning. (Massacre, more like.) It was a tragic loss of human life. An unforgivable crime. What kind of monster murders little kids? And yet... I can't bring myself to feel anger or even indignation against the gunman. I feel hurt, betrayed, and heartbroken, yes... But I can't bring myself to feel anything more than disappointment toward the murderer himself.

A friend of mind posted this (and I quote) on Facebook this morning: "Anyone who thinks it's okay to kill innocent children should die a very slow, morbid death themselves."

No less than 5 people 'liked' it. In all honesty, this made me just as sick as the shooting itself.

What the gunman did was undeniably wrong, deserving of the utmost punishment. And yet... he was human, just like any of us. Any single one of us could turn out just like him. And to me... the kind of thinking in that status is hypocritical. What is the difference between wishing death on another human being and carrying that wish through? The difference between thought and action, certainly... but then there still remains the desire at the core of each, and that desire is one and the same. And it's not justice that's being wished for. It's the power to decide who dies and who lives, and at what expense. It's sadism.

The saddest part is that there is no difference between the gunman and anyone else in the world. He only acted on his baser instincts. I don't mean this to be cynical. In fact, I want it to be the opposite. No one knows what their neighbor has done or might do. No one knows. But are we very much aware of the kind, selfless things anyone does either? The very same hand that takes a life might also save it. Both are entirely within our capabilities. If one tiny detail today, yesterday, twenty years ago had been changed -- today might have turned out very differently. Lives didn't have to be destroyed.

No one knows.

Do we want to know?