A Dream About Lightning Bugs by Ben Folds

Author:Ben Folds
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2019-07-29T16:00:00+00:00

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Now we can unfreeze the sad Ben on the suitcase and keep the reel running.

…But what’s this? He still looks frozen. He’s not moving.

Well, that’s because I actually sat on that damn suitcase, frozen in indecision, most of the day. I didn’t move for hours. Anna was to arrive in the late afternoon, and the plan had been to hop the PATH train into the city to see an MTV taping of Nirvana Unplugged. Yes, that one. That morning, however, my creative visualization had crashed my entire nervous system and I found myself paralyzed on my luggage. Should I stay or should I go?

Every selfish cell in my body said, Go to North Carolina now! It’s time! Leave a note! Anna will be fine! Start the car and GO!

There were some decent unselfish cells in me too, but those cells were being shouted down by the majority. The decent minority tried to hold a filibuster and explain that leaving a Southern girl who’s just come to town, still technically my wife (and my best friend), in a slightly suspect neighborhood, without at least sticking around a week to help her set up—well, that’s plain wrong. Couldn’t I stay and see this Nirvana TV taping, help get Anna settled, have a discussion, and then leave in a few days?

But then I thought, what if those few days led to endless wallowing in indecision, with all that back and forth, hot and cold, for months on end? What if someone gave us one of those awful Save Your Marriage books and we wasted a year on marriage therapy? I could end up stuck in New York another year while some other piano band took my rightful spot. Anna and I had been separated for so long it all seemed like a done deal. We were over. Why the charade? Just go.

I learned something about myself at that moment, frozen on that suitcase, clutching a set of keys, as the sun inched across the floor. I realized, when it came to my musical ambition, I was not going to be stopped. I had been fooling myself if I thought I was taking my career in stride, that I didn’t have some very lofty goals, or that I was always a nice guy. All along I had really been one of those assholes who was out for himself. That creative-visualization stuff? That was pure unadulterated ambition, dressed up in some pseudo-spiritualism. Sure, I was a hard worker and I was polite and fair. Kind, courteous, empathetic, a good listener. All of that. But all that good-guy-from-N.C. shit always melted away at the first threat to a music career that I believed was rightfully mine. I was ready to admit that. Sitting there on that suitcase was about coming to terms with who I was and what my priorities were.

Moments of self-honesty are often laced with selfishness. I’m not proud of my selfishness, but we’ve all seen how acts of honest selfishness can often unblock the way and liberate others to live their lives.

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