Therapy?

We live life in metaphor. In symbolism. In action, reaction and counter-action. How enticing, and yet sometimes oh so unintentional, it is to find that your beliefs, thought processes and ultimately actions, can and will mean different things to different people. Yet the real meaning, as fallible as "real" gets, can only lie within yourself, however you want to be interpreted as.

Perhaps we’re trying to be more poetic than literate. Perhaps everyone has an inherent multiple personality disorder ready to be dissected, voluntarily or otherwise. We draw parables, comparisons, quotes, misquotations, from all cornerstones of life. We take from other people’s words, hoping to find some sense to it all, anything that we can hope to relate to, in their literal meaning, and in their hidden meanings. Sometimes in desperation.

But in the end, all we want, all we desire, is meaning.

I am guilty of this too sometimes.

Lou Reed, master storyteller, the lead influence of many a good band through Velvet Underground, once wrote a song with a million interpretations. Reading through the words you will have yours and I will have mine. The truth is everyone can take these words and make it somehow relate to themselves, to make the words theirs. This is my truth, tell me yours.

The song is "Perfect Day".

And while the title itself conjures images of a sunny day, children playing happily in the fields, and you spending some time alone with your loved one… even the words seem suspiciously happy… the music is far bleaker. Over a hushed, slowed melancholic piano tinkling in the background, in a minor key, Lou sings.

"Just a perfect day,
Drink Sangria in the park,
And then later, when it gets dark,
We go home.

Just a perfect day,
Feed animals in the zoo
Then later, a movie, too,
And then home."

A decades-old debate on whether the song is as literal as it seemed… spending a day in the park and the zoo, or whether it carried any hidden undertones, is still very much contested. A popular theory is that these are images totally conjured from the author’s mind after a high from heroin… owing to his known history of drug abuse.

This theory is further explored in the film "Trainspotting", the 1996 drug-addiction film that made a minor star out of Ewan McGregor, before Moulin Rouge and Star Wars. Ewan played Mark Renton, a middle-class addict who hung around with the wrong company, before seeking redemption in the end. The song played in a scene where he was shooting up, and probably this was on his mind while he did… it was a perfect day.

"Oh it’s such a perfect day,
I’m glad I spent it with you.
Oh such a perfect day,
You just keep me hanging on,
You just keep me hanging on."

But nothing was as it seemed. Renton suddenly collapses to the floor, and the floor sunk with him into an imaginary grave… his point of view became that of someone looking out his own coffin… he was overdosing and he didn’t know it. A perfect day gone wrong.

Where do I figure in all this? The perfect day is a metaphor for a blissful period in your life. It can be due to love, a good day out with friends, anything… and it always is very simple. The zoo, the park, a movie… common, simple places. It never gets compliacated. And you feel thankful for it, thankful for living, for being alive. "You just keep me hanging on". It can go wrong at anytime, but for now, as long as the simplicity still exists, you hang on and don’t question.

"Just a perfect day,
Problems all left alone,
Weekenders on our own.
It’s such fun."

By now Renton’s drug dealer felt something amiss. Vital signs not present, pupils abnormally dilated, not responding to lights or sounds. He paid a taxi driver to take Renton to the emergency department, to resusticate him, before he was too far gone.

"Just a perfect day,
You made me forget myself.
I thought I was someone else,
Someone good."

I have… recently, been struggling with this very phrase. Every word rings true. The fact that I have been disillusioned. That I was not having a perfect day, but I thought I was. That I have wronged someone and did not know about it. An apology that came too late. Disillusioned.

"Oh it’s such a perfect day,
I’m glad I spent it with you.
Oh such a perfect day,
You just keep me hanging on,
You just keep me hanging on."

At this juncture Renton has been successfully resusticated by the medical staff… he opened his eyes, breathed out, and the thought sunk in… he survived. And that in essence, was his actual perfect day. He had had it wrong in the beginning. But now, he had found his true definition and would never be the same person again.

The song ends in a major key. The pianos rise to a crescendo and the song turns out to be not as bleak after all. But even then… at the end of the song it sounds a word of caution, so important it bears repeating.

"You’re going to reap just what you sow,
You’re going to reap just what you sow,
You’re going to reap just what you sow,
You’re going to reap just what you sow…"

I am hoping for my perfect day to come.