Someone Else’s Loneliness Made Me Feel Less Alone

By Lewa ~ 🥀

”The sunshine walking inside you”

I’ve found a great deal of respect for poetry this past year. In truth, I respected it all along. I’d just forgotten about it for a few unbearable moments. Of course it was always the words that would drag me back to reality, kicking & screaming, saying something truer than truth with precision vocabulary & beauty.

It was early summer, and I was about to drive to a nursing home for my first job out of high school on a random morning. I put on this weird album titled "Purple Mountains". Whatever combination of words came out of the melon the night previous; it was enough to convince 19 yr old me to give it a go. The words on the first song grabbed a hold of my mind and didn’t let go.

I can sing this song by heart. I have a memory of a thought like "This guy killed himself cause he was so sad, & I feel exactly like what he's putting down." It was honestly a wake up call. Suffice it to say, I listened to that album a lot that summer. If I end up in one of those nursing homes I was working @ that year, the CNAs are gonna have a few real perplexing months while the dementia starts ripping out wires. Berman’s work has stayed with me like a child that won't let go of your hand. It's easy to see why his fanbase is so reverent, especially after his tragic death.

Suicide

I still remember the exact moment when I found out. I was listening to Purple Mountains while driving to work for a week. I was driving my friend home as per usual and he was reading the youtube music album description automatically pulled from wikipedia. My heart sank, I remember thinking all week that I literally couldn't wait til he'd release more music so I could listen to that too. I remember mourning not just him, but the words he could no longer write, the songs he could no longer sing, the poetry that would never be born. Just like the rest of his fans, I'd wanted him to get better & take care of himself & love himself & write because he was happy. Instead, we got an unbearably beautiful suicide letter.

Berman’s songs seem cluttered in a menagerie of sad emotions. He feels like he’s not enough for his wife, he dislikes his voice, he can’t find an escape from a chronic sadness that follows him around. For much of his later life, up until his death, he struggled with these insecurities alongside a cloud of personal demons til his suicide in 2019. And there was no clearer sign of how he felt than the lyrics on Purple Mountains.

I'd just like to say a little something if that's okay. I won't pretend that I'm immune to suicide, in fact, I think it's becoming increasingly appealing considering the world on fire and all that. But might I suggest that even in suicidality, there truly is hope? I know that it's rough, and I don't know specifically what you've been through. But I am no stranger to pain. I think that suicidal ideation is perhaps even a rational response to extreme emotional pain. Only you can fight to live your life, no one else can! Therapy does not need to be this expensive thing, you can work on your mental health without having to pay a therapist money once a week, it's just that a good one usually helps. I am not telling you to endure your hurt, but if it's the hurt you're worried about, there are solutions. Please do seek them out, please fight for the healthiest you that you can. The best days I've ever had were when I woke up first thing in the morning and I made that choice.

I really like David Berman 🧍‍♀️

I have to be careful, because I feel like unpacking anything he's ever written is just not worth the time as compared to just telling you it's the shit, & encouraging you to listen to a playlist or American Water or whatever. As for me, I'm just gonna try my best to describe to you a list of my personal favs, shotgun style.

Storyline fever is centered around some wonderful wordplay discussing the nature of selfishness, and anger and the lies we’ll tell ourselves to justify it. Send In The Clouds is a banger & includes a line I’m quite partial to; "Windex tears rolled down the robot's face/He'd never felt a mother's embrace." “Like Like The The Death” is perhaps the most nonsensical and simultaneously sad bit of poetry I've ever encountered. “Long Long Gone” contains what is mayhaps his most profound statement he's ever published; “Everybody knows that I know what’s going on / & if cars could run on teardrops, I’d be long long gone.” I Remember Me is a tragic love story that sent shivers down my spine upon a first listen while high in a bathtub. “Aloysius, Bluegrass Drummer” is the story of a Bluegrass drummer named Aloysius. “Honk If You're Lonely” is a genuinely fun & playful little tune at the end of American Water, and yet it still resonates Berman's motifs so strongly. “That's Just The Way That I Feel” is fucking heartbreaking, and absolutely the kind of song I'd put at the beginning of an album if I was planning on dying soon. I remember agreeing with every word I heard upon first listen. “Blue Arrangements” has a kickass chorus, objectively.

Berman Established a Connection Through Loneliness

I’ve yet to come across a synopsis or description of Berman or his work that didn’t acknowledge his undeniable ability to find the prettiest words for the ugliest emotions. Throughout much of Berman’s life, he clearly struggled with some intense ones, to be sure. Perhaps it's his perspective of disconnection juxtaposed to his obvious adoration & tragic death, whatever the case, we love Berman because we all feel alone. It’s like, the thing everyone feels one way or another. Hell, it may as well be the thing that makes us human! I can’t say I’ve encountered a piece of art he’s worked on that didn’t at least leave a passion mention.

When I read Berman’s lyrics, I see someone who’s scared to even seek connection, someone who tells themselves they aren’t enough, someone who’s insides are too ugly to be shown, someone who just had an argument and is confused why anyone would yell about anything at all, someone who doesn’t have a symbol to attach these feelings to. I’ll allow y’all to speak for yourselves, but for me, this man has become that voice. That solid symbol of loneliness that I know is always there. I find a great deal of comfort in that. It means that I’m not alone in this world, there really are other people that know me. Berman’s career might seem like a playlist of emo indie rock greatest hits. But to me, I’ll remember how sad and lonely I know he felt, because I felt it too.

~ Lewa 💚