then into your life there comes a darkness…

I belong to two Facebook groups, one the local community group so I can keep track of what the wackos I’m my neighborhood are up to. The other is a vinyl group where all you do is post what your playing add some words and click like on what other people are playing. It’s a friendly, pleasant group with very little hassle.

Every other week there’s a theme to vote on and this weeks theme is your favorite album released by a band. Should be easy to chose! Unless you get into your head and start to over analyze things. Which band should I chose? Now which album is the favored one? Oh can it be a solo artist? The prompt says band! Oh no what should I chose?

I sat here for twenty minutes in my head overthinking things, maybe… or perhaps…!

On and on, what band? Solo artist, oh no has to be band, which album?

In the end I had to randomize it somehow I asked my wife to randomly chose a band. This is the way I ended up with Moon Shaped Pool, which is my favorite Radiohead album, now why is it a favorite? Damn I’m not sure?

Listening to it I can vividly remember when the first time I heard it?

I’d just finished removing disabled aids in the bathroom of our house from my father in law who had been part time living with us when he went in for cancer treatments. I’d sat down with earphones and was streaming the album. The denseness of the music envelopes me, guitars and piano and the whole soundscape dragged me in, it was the first time I had liked a Radiohead album all the way through and was perhaps my entry to other albums.

My father in law had been dead for several years when I played this album and we had only just removed the handles and things that had helped him. Each day I had seen them and been reminded of that larger than life man that had been diminished by a disease. About once a week we would head out to the store for ice cream, over time those trips became longer and his stride less assured as we went, until one day he just asked for it to be picked up.

Those stupid handles reminded me of him and now we’d unscrewed them, filled the holes and painted. Probably because we were selling that house finally, it had become a burden and we had finally found a way to off load it move on and get out. And now it seems we would be unburdening ourselves in other ways. Every so often as I rummage in the shed I come across those handles etc and wonder why I kept them, was it some sort of foreshadowing?

Now his wife lives with us, gripped by a different diminishing disease and here I am contemplating putting those handles in a different bathroom on day.

Well I’ve got the first out of the way and now the whole process is beginning again, which band, what album is my favorite?

Decisions, what pain or joy will it bring?

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