What Otis Redding Didn’t Say

I left my home in Georgia
And I headed for the Frisco Bay
‘Cause I’ve got nothin’ to live for
Looks like nothin’s gonna come my way…

I didn’t bother to do any Wiki-research on Otis Redding before sitting down by myself in the quiet of night and waxing poetic on my own emotions. If memory serves, Dock of the Bay was released in 1967, a solid 8 years before I was even born… so pondering what it meant to the singer/songwriter 53 years ago isn’t something I’m at liberty to weigh in on.

But for me, having returned from the City for a short trip, the feeling is always the same— hell, I don’t know what it’s called. It’s like that eclectic mix of tearful joy, nauseating sadness, longing for a time you only wish you had, achy-hearted joint pain in your brain and soul and behind your eyes, wrapped up in the wistful misty-eyed hope that you get to do it all over again soon.

What’s the word for that?

Whatever it is, Otis Redding got it, even if he didn’t write it down.

And the ethereally un-penned lyric was mine for a brief moment, shared with good company: sitting in the darkness of the night and the light of altered consciousness, illuminated softly by a Chinese-built bridge with a cuttlefish-like pulsing light show. Off in the distance, a freighter plodded silently towards the open sea; closer, a weekend boater motored by, clueless to the beauty around him, marked by a million little reflections on the water.

Couples wandered by in their strange Valentine’s cadence: did you folks plan to both wear red puffer jackets, or did that just happen organically? And like, when you get home after your date, will you tell your friends that it was a sign? Because I thought it was a sign…

… a sign for me to savor a moment, to block out all the imperfections around me and just be present. The dancing bridge-light in a pair of eyes, marked by a constellation of freckles I’ve seen a thousand times in my dreams. The way a red aura hangs around a known soul… little more than my own synesthetic neurological intertwining, mind you, but nonetheless real and visible, made brighter against the dark of night and within the embrace of a good buzz; the object of my affections and devotion, a friend, a soulmate, a love, my missing piece, a trusted confidant, a shadowy reflection of an alternate universe.

I’m sittin’ here restin’ my bones
And this loneliness won’t leave me alone
This two thousand miles I roamed
Just to make this dock my home…

But like always, I had to leave it there. I had to get off my frozen butt, and amble past the Ferry Building (itself, ablaze in red light… which was funny to me in my hazy dazey phase).

Worse, I had to leave everything there… and a day earlier than planned, no less. Because amidst that blissful peace, I also unlocked vaults of my own demons; bloody and murderous and terrifying and despondent. And the depression they bring stole me from my own happiness, snuffed out the little spark of joy I had lit there on the bay in the dark the night before, imagining a different time and place and face, wondering what it would take, and what first it would break.

And this loneliness won’t leave me alone.

I suppose there is some scrap of wisdom, some shred of dignity in the notion that I need to beat my own demons before I try to help anyone else with theirs. I’ve spent so much time with those demons, though, and in a lot of ways, they’re all I know. They’re what defines me. They guide me, and direct me. They somehow motivate me… and in a selfish sort of way, if they were all gone, I don’t know what I’d have left.

So I’m just sitting here, like Mr. Redding, wasting time. Watching the tide roll away.

Looks like nothin’s gonna change
Everything seems to stay the same
I can’t do what ten people tell me to do
So I guess I’ll remain the same.