surrender

The first album (yes, vinyl) I bought with my own money was Cheap Trick's Heaven Tonight and it had the song "Surrender" on it. "Mommy's alright, daddy's alright, they just seem a little weird. Surrender, surrender, but don't give yourself away...." At the time, I was very close to giving myself away to the guy at the record (yes, record...vinyl...) store who'd sold me this disk (along with Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker's self-titled LP). He was an older man. I was 16 to his 22. I actually remember very little else about him except that I thought he was cool, he wore a leather jacket and, I thought, looked like a cross between Tom Petty and Robin Zander (the blond, skinny Cheap Trick guy). I'd been going into the store after ditching 6th period gym and, er, loitering. The world felt full of possibilities, though mostly I remember being terrified of almost everything. I fronted confidence pretty well as I recall: "Sure, come over to my house, we can smoke pot til my mom gets home." (inner dialogue: oh shit, oh shit, she'll be so pissed if she knows there were people over and she smells pot. I don't wan't to get grounded...again.) "No, it's cool, you can roll it out on the glass table." (Oh mi god, i'm gonna have to windex that table, cuz she's gonna wonder what that dust is.) To me, at the time, surrender meant giving yourself away (somehow the 'don't' part got lost in translation). It meant to become whatever it was the person you liked wanted you to be. Sublimate.

Years later, I roll around in Patti Smith's "Dancing Barefoot": "She is sublimation, she is the essence of thee, She is concentrating on He, who is chosen by she." And I begin to get what power these words can have. Surrender. Sublimate.

I see how we choose. At the time I didn't think I had much of that. I hoped, I wished, I became, I disappeared bit by bit, I reappeared reflected through someone else's eyes. They left, I waited to be redefined. And so on and so on.


It's pretty recently that I'm getting to the surrender part in a way that serves me. Surrendering to self, though. To the darkness, to the light. Not to any one person except myself. Surrendering to whatever feelings and thoughts come up. Just giving in. Giving myself to myself. Funny how I've never done that before. It feels scary, though so incredibly necessary. Get out of my own way and surrender to whatever is next...