Alberto Balsam

I know how these things end. I've read Anna Karenina. Twice. Was all I could think then. It sucks to know thyself. As well as I know myself at least.

There's a moment in the song Alberto Balsam where a dream is interrupted so distinctly, like the feel of hobnail boots on reverie. Reality laughing at you saying you actually doubted I'd catch up? Like the cliche of an algebra teacher waking you from a pleasant daydream to answer a question about the surface area of a rotating cylinder. Like getting off one of those flat-escalators and tripping*. Like having the rug pulled out from under your feet so roughly that you don't know if you'll survive it, and then a moment when you realize you will. And perhaps this is worse, but either way it isn't a choice. No one's asking you. And then comes the struggle of reality. The fact that you do have to. You do have to get back on your feet, you do have to survive. You do have to reach some sort of equilibrium and it won't be easy. But it comes. First you're off-kilter, like the song, building a kind of steady momentum. Channeling your resources because there isn't room for indulgence. And then it's steadier, and richer somehow. There's a path and you're not without a fate, a route, a lifeline.

But it isn't the dream. And you still wonder.

I love this song. Or no, that's not true. It isn't love, it's something else. It just makes sense.


*This happened to me once, incidentally. At Schiphol Airport. I know, I'm worse than Gerald Ford