Nobody But Us

Gwaz lost her job today. Correction: her job was taken from her, position eliminated—there’s a difference, although it looks the same in the end.

James Gandolfini died today. 51. Heart attack.

I rode the metro to work. As I sat alone contemplating the news we found on-line thanks to the internet and email and trying to contain three backpacks and man-bags of stuff, I figured I’d throw caution to the wind. I put in my earbuds and fired up my iPod. I know what you’re thinking: that James F. That wild and crazy guy; iPod on the way to work? What was he thinking?  

Police. Synchronicity. See? There’s always a cosmic explanation.

Is anybody alive in here?

Is anybody alive in here?

Is anybody at all in here?

Nobody but us in here.

Nobody but us.

Music does that for me. You know? It makes connections for me. Musicians say things in ways they mean them, and I apply them in the ways I understand them. It works for me. See, yesterday evening on the way home I listened to Bring on the Night, a live Stingy cd—a double joint with several good songs; and one fabulous one.  Afterward I scrolled to Synchronicity just as it was time to detrain, so that’s where it was this morning.

All I had to do was look around that train car to find something quite literal when Stingy asked his question. So many blank stares, including mine I’m sure. Nobody alive in there. Nobody but us. There’s not much to see from the metro and what there is I’ve seen before. My mind wandered and soon settled on the man best known as Tony Soprano. I started personalizing his fate and eventually started thinking “What if?” (I must say, I am not so prone to think this way; but as long as I was throwing caution to the wind…)

•      What if Bon Scott wasn’t a suicidal alcoholic?
•      What if we stay the hell out of Syria?
•      What if James Gandolfini had a cardiologist?
•      What if I weren’t addicted to the business end of a fork?

You’ll never convince me that finding my iPod set to play an album titled Synchronicity is anything but a perfect example of exactly that—the notion that seemingly coincidental events are connected through their meaning. At about the same time I was telling Gwaz the news about Gandolfini, she was reading an email from her supervisor. His apology for the news he shared was belied by the fact that the decision to eliminate her position wasn’t his. How’s that for contrast? 

Some things matter and some things only look like they do.

•      What if small businesses cared more about people than they do profits?

Nobody but us in here.

Nobody but us.