Another Permanent Address

So today I find myself listening to an album that was largely a soundtrack to the summer of 2002, Chroma Key's You Go Now. The ambient melancholy feel of the album draws me back to the hot sticky stifling summer nights of 2002. In a car with no A/C driving stretches of empty road with the hues of dusk still haunting the horizon and living a life that by and large felt like wheels spinning without traction.

Sometimes I want to sleep in the street
But it feels a little funny without you
Down in the basement feeling the pavement
Holding my stomach

And sometimes i can't believe my own feet
So I found another permanent address
Sold the old mattress keeping the changes
Talking to strangers

I knew I could forget you
That's what I'm gonna do
Now I'm staring at a stop sign
Just like the last time

Hey you're everything you dreamed you'd be
What a civilized way to be angry
Locked in the attic, starting to panic
Wait, that's me

Always it's the same situation
It's got to be somebody's fault
But I never know what to do
So let's say we put the blame on you

Standing in a phone booth
Waiting for the punch line
Trying not to call you
Just like the last time

Sometimes I wanna sleep in the street
But it feels a little funny without you
Down in the basement feeling the pavement
Holding my stomach in

And sometimes I can't believe my own feet
So I found another permanent address
Sold the old mattress keeping the changes
Talking to strangers

I knew I could forget you
That's what I'm gonna do
Now I'm staring at a stop sign
Just like the last time

At the time I was debating moving back to Chicago. I'd spent my last semester of college there and I felt homesick for a place I'd only lived for about 3 months. And there was a certain bittersweetness. I'd come to know and love Northern Ohio. It was more home to me than the small town where I grew up in Northern New York. I knew I was about to embark on a grand adventure-- "another permanent address" and say goodbye to the place that had gotten under my skin and into my bloodstream, into my very soul, a place that had come to feel like home in every sense of the word. I was beginning to feel homesick for Ohio and I hadn't even left yet.

And somehow the music from Chroma Key's CDs perfectly captured that mood for me. A strong ambivalence... An excitement for a fresh new start and the yearning melancholy of a goodbye. At the time there was talk of return visits to see old friends and keep those friendships alive... Since leaving Ohio on a brisk autumn day in October 2002, I've returned a grand total of zero times. I guess the road paved with good intentions doesn't go that far. The guy who had been my best friend before I left, I'd drifted so far from that I didn't even have his address to send an invite to my wedding in April 2005.

Listening to this CD again, after so long, I'm feeling that hot sticky summer melancholy and wondering whatever became of some of those people I'd once called friends before I took the winning gamble on love that led me here.