Repeat One Ad Infinitum

“I can’t get to sleep, I think about the implications of diving in too deep and possibly the complications. Especially at night I worry over situations I know will be alright, perhaps it’s just imagination.” Through my childhood, there was one thing for which I was highly praised: my imagination. My parents were pleased because it meant that I, as an only child, could entertain myself. But my imagination got me in trouble some times. Granted, it was never real trouble and I think it helped me, ultimately, to mature. Just as JD is haunted by Colin Hay in this (fairly genius) opening from Scrubs, there were things that haunted me. For me, they were ghosts of things to come that plagued the time when I ought to have been sleeping. I’d lay awake in my bed, covered by the quilt my mother made from pieces of lamb-patterned fabric she’d collected, staring across the room to the hanging lamps that looked just like pineapples. I loved those lamps during the day, but at night they cast odd shadows. The neighbors’ native grasses they’d planted swished eerily. But the most terrifying thing was thinking about my parents. I knew they didn’t love each other and didn’t get along and I tried for years to be OK with the idea that they were going to get divorced. I’d tell myself that it was going to be fine; I had friends with divorced parents and they got along well enough. More than fearing my parents were going to separate, the knowledge of how unwell my dad was horrified me. Just the thought of him dying made me cry. It’s these sort of things I remember when I hear this song, but there’s something in it that’s soothing and reassuring.

(Also, Lazlo Bane does a pretty decent cover featuring Colin Hay)