7/28: The Present Tense
When you lose the past, the future makes no sense.
In a silent universe,
The moment can be so real
You almost can't stand it.
Yes, I know I just did a Geddy Lee song. But Monday is Geddy’s birthday, and while I already have something scheduled for then, I wanted to honor the special day somehow.
Compositionally, “The Present Tense” is my favorite track of Geddy’s solo album, with my favorite line:
When you lose the past
The future makes no sense.
Grief is a black hole. When you lose someone, you lose not just that person, but an entire universe of memories, jokes, references, experiences. You lose an entire language, along with the only other person who spoke it.
It’s equally true for the intimate loss of friends and family members and the generational trauma of genocides. I think of what Geddy’s parents went through, and my ancestors—how pogroms and the Holocaust stole not just a community, but that community’s collective past. From that point on, the future, such as it was, no longer made sense. All that was left was the present, and surviving it.
Which brings me back to this song. “The Present Tense” is circular: The melody doesn’t progress to a certain climactic, cathartic point but instead doubles back on itself, forgetting where it has been, going nowhere in particular, because the music only exists in the present moment.
Until it ends, just as suddenly as it began. For a brief moment, the reverb echoes—just as our lives echo on briefly after we’re gone, in the people we knew and the hearts we touched—but soon enough, that too is gone.
Or is it? The album continues on, of course. Maybe in some way we do too, if only through those we love. As Geddy writes:
Open yourself
Up to the possibility
Aware of some reality
Outside your world