Mark Eitzel had a thirst that would make the ocean proud, or so he said, but he also knew that some bartenders had the gift of pardon. Our thirsts are quenched and forgotten, by turns. It’s possible they even transform into other thirsts. Take the thirst for love and affection from the desired sex. Our first sexual longings stick with us, do they not? This post addresses mine. I was fresh out of Sunday School, and I met a blonde churchmouse named Jenny Cole (name changed to protect the heaven-sent) who was the most beautiful thing I ever saw. The operative word is thing.
I met her at a camp, of all places, which had associations with music, Christianity, and an old woman who played sounds from glasses filled with water. All three of those things still pique my thirst, now that I think about it. But when you cram them all together and plop them squarely on planet Earth, well, they lose their luster somewhat. But I digress. This camp was out in the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania. I sat next to Jenny at a Christmas concert and fell right in love, as you do. To me, she promised the weightless harmony of music, the untold wholeness of the hereafter, and the gawping, giddy thrill of watching someone make sounds from glasses filled with water. She was everything unnamed and sacred. I projected it all onto her. She was All I Want.
I went to sleep that night in a musty bunkhouse, there at the camp, my mouth tart and tangy with stale Little Debbie’s whoopie pies, my walkman full of Echo & The Bunnymen, playing “All I Want” as I slipped into restless sleep. I knew that night I would never get All I Want. I didn’t get it then, I didn’t get it later, and I don’t get it today. Countless innocents have suffered in the wake. I spare little sympathy for them today, as I see them from the wide view, sputtering meekly with their own memories and aftertastes. We’re all victims. None of us get all we want.
A dear friend of mine once wrote a lyric, and the “we” in this passage refers personally to me and him:
There’s a world where we can go and tell our secrets to / It’s everything we want / It’s all we have
All I have tonight is: a crippling sense of money, a hope for a woman I’ve begun tutoring, a beautiful pet cat that I adore, healthy parents, a song in mid-composition, a blog, a dread of staying up so late when I have to work in the morning, a job, a remnant of faith. Is this “all I want”? Maybe.
I think it might be. I feel pretty happy about it, all told. You see there, when I listed the things at the center of my being, nothing in that list related to Jenny Cole. Has that thirst been quenched? Is it still in the back of my throat? Those are tough questions, and I’m thinking hard right now. I think the answer might be in a future post.