I'm not in any way the boss of it, and it is often hilarious (as well as bewildering) to me why it plays what it does.
It also has a No-Sleep-For-You mode, where I'll wake up in the middle of the night, and the lyrics to a particular song will be running over and over in my head, but tuneless, attached not to their original rhythm, but to my sleep-slowed heartbeat. The same few words, over and over, thudding against my skull. It's super fun.
Lately, the jukebox has been feeding me the phrase "looking out of the window, staying out of the sun" from Don't Cry for Me, Argentina in Evita. (Remember, I'm not the boss. I do love that musical, though. Don't hate.) And as annoying as the jukebox can be, I do sometimes try to figure out what it might have to tell me.
There are, of course, two ways to stay out of the sun.
Lloyd Webber & Rice's Eva Peron was speaking about a metaphorical hanging back from life, of which of course, I am also sometimes guilty. But the way I see it, the literal sense of staying out of the sun involves the former sense. And that's where it gets tricky for me.
Let's say, just for example, one is fair-skinned, light-eyed, and has a history of various types of skin cancers in the family. That person should probably do all the sensible sun-avoiding things, just as she has been told to do, and has understood are the right things to do, since she was a child.
Especially now that this theoretical person has all sorts of visible sun damage all over her face, neck, chest, arms and hands. That person oughta cover up. Stay inside.
But... how can we stand to live like that? Aren't we supposed to roam the great outdoors, fighting SAD, brewing up some Vitamin D, connecting to the grand and glorious Earth? Isn't being locked away inside the worst punishment for us poor little humans? I don't want to be precious with the outside of me, to the detriment of all the good stuff inside - the joy, the mischief, the memories made from a life lived wild and free. I can't think of anything sadder than pressing my face against the glass of a door that's not even locked... just in case. Just to arrive at the end of it all less scarred, less spotty, having received all the gold stars for prudent choices.
But... I've also watched skin cancer take a bite out of a thigh, sink inward into bones then up into a brain, eat through a face and bleed into lymph nodes. I know it can mow us down.
Obviously...sunscreen, hats, shade when you can, nothing between 10 and 2. I know, I know. It's not really a question, it's Tug-of-War. Between soaking in the brief, precious, dwindling light - and using the information we know to be true; believing the science, if you will. Every time I am in the sun, every single time, I am aware I am taking a risk. And yet it seems I absolutely will not stop. Sunscreen, hats, shade, I know.
I was driving to the studio the other morning, listening to an NPR report on the already inevitable 10-inch minimum sea-level rise due to melting ice sheets in Greenland alone.
Later that day, I came across a pun-heavy "controversial...though plausible" digital model of what Los Angeles would look like if ALL the planet’s ice were gone. Venice is part of the Bay of L.A., of course. Orange County is, cutely, The O. Sea. Baldwin Hills becomes Baldwin Island.
Steven and I are - on a humankind time scale - among the last people who will live right here, on dry land this far West on this continent. Maybe people born in a few hundred or thousand years, people who will never have known the planet we were born to, whose communal stories will reflect a world that we see as dystopian and disastrous... Maybe those people will never have read "Thou, Nature, art my Goddess." Will never have dreamed of a "St. Tropez Tan." (Just checked - the elevation of St. Tropez is 49 feet, so...probably not.) Maybe they will see spending the day outside the way I see smoking 3 packs a day.
But I live now. And the stories I was told as a child were of epic adventures in a world where the enemy was not... the world. And in these just-the-beginning-of-the-end times, if that’s what they are, the longing to feel the wind in my hair is much more powerful than logic.
Everything is easier than letting go of what we love. Even glaciers melt at a less glacial pace.
I cannot shake the thought that wine's to be drunk, days are to be seized, joy is to be chased before they tuck you in with a spade. (Spot THAT musical theatre reference, homies.) Surely, it's my age. Surely this is part of finally realizing this isn't a practice run. And that I have no idea how much time is left. And that even if it's a lot, it's not... a lot.
This guy named Stephen Sondheim (maybe you've heard of him?) wrote a song called I Remember, sung by a young character named Ella who has been living indoors as part of a secret hidden community, and hasn't seen the sun since she was six. (I bet her skin looks GREAT) I've always loved it. Plenty of longing and hope and loss - and right in my key. It ends like this:
I remember days
Or at least I try
But as years go by
They're a sort of haze
And the bluest ink
Isn't really sky
And at times I think
I would gladly die
For a day of sky
Yeah, Ella of the Night People. I think about that trade all the time, too.
