White Gold and Pearls Stolen from the Sea

This is the week leading to my mom's birthday, so there may be a few posts about her.  Maybe not directly about her, but about the aspects of my life that I tie to her.  Moms are complicated.   My mom was mad and selfish and disappointing and fucked up.  But she was also brilliant and charming and fun. A lot of who I am, the good and the bad, comes from her influences.

So when I was 18 and living in Tahlequah, my mom moved up there for a bit.  This wasn't the best of all times for her in terms of stability, but she was, as she always was, magic and electricity, and fire.

She came with her VHS copy of Rattle and Hum and we would watch it over and over and over again. Not just watch it, mind you, but sing as well.  She would always, in drunken dramatics, announce what the song meant to her, and why.   It wasn't enough that the song existed on its own.  It was part of her now, part of her soul and part of all that made up her universe.

Songs can be the fabric of us.  There are moments of our lives that we explain by or console ourselves with, the songs we heard at that time.  My mother, in her truest moments of living, did so through song.

Mom loved U2 and so many of their songs. But I think when I consider her and U2 at the same time, this song ties them both together so well. The song is about addiction, about desperation, suffering, losing, and hurt.  And all of this is expressed in a way that is so heartbreaking.

She runs through the streets
With her eyes painted red
Under black belly of cloud in the rain
In through a doorway she brings me
White gold and pearls stolen from the sea
She is raging
She is raging
And the storm blows up in her eyes
She will...

Suffer the needle chill
She's running to stand..............still.

Yes. That is my mom. Always.