Springing eternal

Around this time of year when winter and spring mingle for a moment, I find my unconsoled heart reflecting on loved ones no longer around, recounting the headstones turning one year older that belong to friends I never gave a proper goodbye to. But these new days of spring are brighter, so they say, and I embrace that too. I think it’s beautiful and unbearably human to hold multiple truths at once. If you’re here for wisdom, I can’t make any promises. All I can say is there’s a sunflower in the sky, and there’s something surreal about experiencing heartbreak in a thousand ways every day while still embracing the promise of tomorrow’s sunrise. 

Something I return to around this time of year is the first song off The Gaslight Anthem’s debut album: “I took a drive today/ I thought about you/ I thought about a friend who passed/ And how much we just went through.” 

The lyrics are from the song “Boomboxes and Dictionaries,” off the band’s 2007 debut release, “Sink or Swim.” As a rez kid growing up on the Navajo Nation, through the magic of the internet I came around to this New Jersey punk band in March 2007. Back then, the younger versions of myself and my friends were only concerned with the day-to-day. Back then, it felt like death and the future would never find us. Grieving the loss of friends had yet to become a common reality, but that’s a recurring theme in The Gaslight Anthem’s early music.

With the song “Boomboxes and Dictionaries,” the band began its career holding both grief and joy in every note. The song starts with a dirty guitar riff that quivers and rings out before the whole band jumps in. That moment mimics the act of someone seated in their car, turning the engine and then taking a contemplative breath before driving forward. Throughout the track, lead singer and rhythm guitarist Brian Fallon’s gritty vocals wander between weariness and perseverance. 

After contemplating the toll of recent losses, Fallon concludes the second verse by singing, “I thought about how fortunate I feel to be alive.” You can hear Fallon stepping forward and saying it like he means it, which is why those lyrics keep my heart. Discovering The Gaslight Anthem also meant discovering what it means to grow up while grieving. Oftentimes the loss is abrupt, like a missed phone call from an old friend who I mistakenly take for granted because days later, I find out that friend is gone. Then I’m left shattered and wondering if answering that call would have changed anything.

My new year’s resolutions now are more like pleading prayers: Dear God, for these next few months can you not take so many full-of-life people away from me? I come to you as a writer left speechless after witnessing so much loss in the last year. And I want to know, God, what does it look like when you spare mercy? Do I just not see it around me?  

There’s a reason The Gaslight Anthem titled its debut album “Sink or Swim.” Before Gaslight, all four band members had been in various bands that dissolved before gaining momentum. From the start, The Gaslight Anthem was a collective last chance to make a statement. On “Sink or Swim,” the band’s raw sound is indebted to The Clash, The Cure and Bruce Springsteen, among others. Thematically, the album grapples with mortality and heartache, asking “What next?” The band would carry these themes forward on later releases, refining their songwriting on polished-up albums and working with legendary rock producers like Brendan O’Brien. Along the way, Springsteen also became a devoted fan. While I love every version of the band, I have a soft spot for that first Gaslight album.

I return to “Sink or Swim” during this time, when a season of cold darkness gives way to a season of warm renewal. Throughout this shift, I’m adrift in remembrance of all the people I’m missing. In the album’s cathartic sincerity, it tries to make sense of the blessing and curse of life wrapped up in loss. When I revisit this album today, I realize that perhaps mercy is found in recognizing the innate beauty of being alive. It is a miracle what we do with our hearts and hands, the way we guide our love toward each other, to the world and to our inner self. The fleeting eternal moments of love we share offer a glimpse of something divine, a glimpse of that other world we’re trying to create within our current one broken by empire. 

In the chorus of “Boomboxes and Dictionaries,” Fallon sings out to despairing hearts, “If you’re scared of the future tonight / We’ll just take it each hour one at a time.” It’s a small demand that I still take shelter in. We can invent hope by the hour until we’re renewed together.