(For the girl I lit the candles for)

Indiana mornings are lonely, dark, and cold.  Waking up to go to class wasn’t easy.  I lived alone off-campus (next to the train tracks where you could hear the loud horns as the trains passed through town) 

While lonely, I have fond memories of this period.  It was my first time really away from home.  Law school culture isn’t the healthiest – hyper-competitive, at times juvenile, heavy drinking, rampant sleeping around.  Not really my thing.

I thought of you a lot – especially on those mornings when I would play U2’s live acoustic version of Stay recorded in Boston to get ready for the day.  U2 is one of the three bands that made up the soundtrack of my life (the others are Led Zeppelin and Pearl Jam).

Stay is the song I most associate with you.  Heavily influenced by Wim Wenders’ film Faraway, So Close about angels who want to be human.  The song captures that essence – the music video is shot in Berlin (a city filled with the ghosts of the past and one of the most memorable cities I’ve visited) and depicts angels guiding us.   You were an angel to me – not in the sappy way many would associate with the image, but a very human, imperfect version – an important powerful presence I could feel, but could not fully interact with.  Stay also touches on the universality of the connection between the human and divine – “Miami, New Orleans, London, Belfast, and Berlin.”

This other time, we were sitting in my car and U2’s cover of Uncharted Melody came on.  I pointed out to you one of my favorite parts in the song when Bono powerfully sings “I need your love, I need your love, Godspeed your love to me” while the inimitable Edge’s guitar swells like a tsunami around the lyrics.  I’ve never forgotten that moment.

The final U2 song I associate with you is Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses.  I never quite pinpointed exactly why, but intuitively the woman sung about reminds me of you – dangerous because she’s honest, layered, many sides, simultaneously sharp and soft, open and hidden.