Marion Winik
If your skin is thin, said Mr. No Thanks, you should not be on Match.com.. I think he was right. My skin is cellophane wrap; my heart is pinned smack in the middle. Squarish in shape, it catches the light. HELLO MY NAME MY IS MARION.
So thin is this skin that everything pierces it, and through my eyes leak the seven seas. In the car, at the beach, in the darkened arena watching Leonard Cohen. He is so beautiful at 75, at last grown into his ancient voice, and he is right when he says he is my man. I cried the night they sent sweet young Allison home from American Idol, red hair, wide smile and all, and I cried through the whole end of the movie where the long-lost animated dog rushes through the fire to find his animated girl. My 8-year-old daughter rolls her eyes.
When I wake up in the morning, when I come to on the yoga mat, when I hear songs that stood for passion and heartbreak years ago and now fill me with all of it again. Fortunately my little dog loves the taste of saltwater. His tongue is a comfort to my cheek.
Perhaps I will grow into it. Perhaps when I am 75, it won’t be so embarrassing, so big, so wet, so confused by self-pity, romantic mishap and female biochemistry, no longer such a trial to my daughter. Perhaps by then I will have stopped trying to turn it off and go somewhere else. By then I will have learned to carry Kleenex. May I learn to bear it: my thin skin, the old songs, my bursting heart.
Songs That Stood For Passion and Heartbreak Long Ago
1. Alive and Kicking, Simple Minds
Associated with the time of my first husband Tony’s death from AIDS in 1994, and the thorny joy I had to find in simply not dying. I picture emerging after a long climb through the forest into brilliant sun. It is very cold and there is snow everywhere.
2. The Miracle of Love, The Eurhythmics
Originally made me cry because we played at the funeral of my stillborn baby in 1987, but now makes me cry remembering the $2000 I had to play to quote two lines from the song in the book I published about it in 1996. This is why I did not quote from “Primitive,” the song we played at Tony’s memorial, but it makes me cry anyway. Frequently comes on the Muzak tape in grocery stores, which can be a problem.
3. Lightning Crashes, Live
It’s the chord changes, and the power of the break. This was the anthem of my time in central Pennsylvania, where this band is also from. I would hear this song as I came out of the Wal-Mart parking lot and think, Well, they got out of here, you can too.
4. Landslide, Smashing Pumpkins version
When we were splitting up, my second husband Crispin kindly made me a mix tape composed entirely of versions of this song. I learned to play it on guitar. It was all “Landslide,” all the time. It tore that shit down.
5. Sad Lisa, Cat Stevens
Tea for the Tillerman came out when was 12, when I was lost in a hall and no one could hear me. Cat sent in piano and strings.
6. I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing, Aerosmith
This ridiculous torcher was the song of my long-distance love affair with second husband (the future “Landslide” situation) in 1998. Poor kids had to hear me bellowing the scat sections over and over when it came on the radio in the car. Now it is unbearable in every way.
7. Let’s Stay Together, Tina Turner version
This is the song Tony and I danced our first dance to at our wedding in 1986. He used to call her Tina Tuna. He used to call me Mali Wali. I’m thinking of the high sweet optimism of the synthesizer riff. Now that is the way people should feel.
Marion Winik - Marion Winik has been a commentator on All Things Considered since 1991. She is the author of six books of creative nonfiction: TELLING, FIRST COMES LOVE, THE LUNCHBOX CHRONICLES, RULES FOR THE UNRULY, ABOVE US ONLY SKY and THE GLEN ROCK BOOK OF THE DEAD. She’s also written two books of poetry and a bunch of magazine articles and book reviews. She currently teaches writing in the MFA program in Creative Writing & Publishing Arts at the University of Baltimore. (www.marionwinik.com)
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