Fiona Apple is Haunting Me

I went to see Fiona Apple at the Ryman in Nashville last week.  She slithered around on the stage with her Holocaust eyes, howling at the moon.  She played brilliant piano and left space in her songs for the melody to land.  She was herself unchanged, and I was lost in 1998.  I couldn't separate her current self from the bygone moments when she accompanied me at 2 a.m. on the subway in NYC, coming home from God knows where - not entirely sober - and most definitely not at all happy.  She resides too deeply in my past for me to be able to take her with me into the present.

Back in 1998, she was so angry and gritty and skinny.  I was angry, trying for gritty, and desperate for skinny.  She was everything I imagined myself to be, except I was chubs. I found myself, this week, sitting in killer seats at the Ryman, married with a baby, a house, and a husband.  She was still angry, gritty, and skinny.  Every other song seemed to have a lyric about filling her skin, using her skin, getting under or on top of her skin. Her whole wold still seems to be about her skin.  I got lost in her psychology and could barely approach the music.  My skin fits pretty well these days.

I'm not angry anymore, not gritty (except maybe for the killer tattoo I just got), and I never got skinny like Fiona-skinny.  Some tiny, twisted part of myself spent those two hours wishing I could be like that, just to know what it feels like to cave your chest in, stick your collar bones out like blades, and barely feel the clothes hanging off of your body. But then I remembered that I like being happy and that means being healthy.

Sorry I couldn't hear the music, Fiona.  I'm too far gone to the other side.