I’m riding the Q train, crossing the bridge. I’m leaving Manhattan, on my way back to Brooklyn to play a set for the recovery group. but the train stops because something’s on the tracks ahead.
from my place on the bridge, I can see people in their apartment windows. their lives are on display as if they were in a movie.
an old man in a pajama top wearing an oxygen tank is watching the six o’clock news on television. a couple of kids are at the kitchen table. it looks like they’re doing homework. there’s a woman on the telephone and she looks like she’s laughing, no, wait, she’s crying.
suddenly I’m fighting the urge to cry. maybe like me, she’s just trying to keep it together, like we all do sometimes, right, duct tape what’s inside fighting to come out. we just don’t all do it at the same time.
I begin thinking about all the windows in New York City: the parties being given, the people fighting and making up, raiding their refrigerators, being wheeled into surgery. whatever can possibly go down, from the devastating to the magical, it’s going down right now, somewhere.
at the recovery center, it’s a different view inside people’s private lives. we’re all wounded healers usually doing our best, helping each other not to keep messing up. making it through another week is usually magical enough.
I don’t think anyone ever said to me it’s okay to be messed up. but being present with that has to be okay, because, take a look around: you’re not the only one. none of us have found easy fixes. some days suck and sometimes those days are weeks or months long. and then, a grace day, here and there.
most days, we are all just trying to get somewhere. we break down, often at the worst possible times, then we start up again.
when I’m making a song, I’m never sure of what it means or what it will mean to another person. the only thing I am sure of is how I’m feeling at the time. I didn’t plan to sing this one tonight at group therapy, it just felt right, and here’s the iPhone recording.
cookie nieves 
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