#howieepstein

Stevie Nicks with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - "Silent Night"

“It’s like you got a tree dying in the backyard... and you’re kind of used to the idea that it’s dying. But then you look out there one day, and they cut it down. And you just can’t imagine that beautiful tree isn’t there anymore.”

–Tom Petty, Rolling Stone Magazine, 2003

The writing that struck me most in Rolling Stone’s account of Tom Petty’s life the other day was something Tom himself wrote about former Heartbreakers bandmate Howie Epstein who died of complications related to his use of heroin in 2003. Howie was 47.

The writing stuck with me because even though that narrative’s about heroin... it doesn’t have to be.

“...and you’re kind of used to the idea that it’s dying.”

When it comes to such things we don’t want to or can’t deal with, or that we’re tired of dealing with, or that we simply are in no position to deal with... those things move to the back of our minds, the bottom of our priorities. That’s what happens. That’s how it works. The Intractable becomes something that just is. Something we’re used to no matter how extreme or tragic. Something extreme or tragic of which we become no longer aware.

Because it’s not an active part of our present.

“The thing is, Howie never played bad, but then he’d fall apart as soon as the show was over. It drove us crazy. You’d get angry, you’d get sad, you’d get indifferent, you’d get passionately involved, but none of it was enough and I don’t know why.”

–Tom Petty, from the book “Rock’n’Roll Guardian”, 2014

“You’d get angry,”

“You’d get sad,”

“You’d get indifferent,”

“You’d get passionately involved,”

“But none of it was enough”

“And I don’t know why.”

God that sounds familiar. It just does. Because I don’t know why either.

No matter how involved we are in helping, we’re still on the sidelines trying to bring health to lives in unhealthy process. It gets worse as those lives begin to pull away. Leave orbit. Isolate.

That has been our experience, by the way. All of it. Live and in person. From the sidelines.

And yeah... it’s exhausting. And depressing.

But when any one of us hits a point in their life where they don’t know what to do with the pain they’re experiencing... all kinds of things are possible. Dreadful things. Perverse things. Especially when we surround ourselves with people for whom bad choices about health, safety, or wellbeing are a way of life.

Some of us, too, are committed to cycles of behavior that keep at bay our troubled pasts. Even our impossible presents. We maintain a sense of normal through extreme juggling. A touch of misdirection. Doing whatever it takes to make sure the narrative of it’s all good keeps flowing. 

We drape ourselves in career. We fill each moment with obligation. And it works.

For a while... it works.

But whatever’s ailing us has ways of inconveniently breaking loose. Like, The Kraken loose. In the end, it’s not that tough to be pinned down. Trapped. Going nowhere.

So yeah. We are not in control. 

And it’s exhausting. Depressing.

A little bit of reading about Howie Eptein’s life eventually led me to the song “Running Man’s Bible” written by Tom Petty in memory of his fallen friend.

You’re with me tonight on this dark highway // We’ve run it together // So many times // We’ve run it for money // We’ve run it for music // We’ve run it to pay for our innocent crimes 

I took on my father and I’m still walkin’ // Took on all comers in some shape or form // And I see with the eyes of somethin’ wounded // Somethin’ still standing after the storm

Yeah.

There are trees dying in our backyard. 

We’ve been angry about them. Sad about them.

We’ve been passionately involved with them and on their behalf. 

We’ve been indifferent. Benignly compassionate.

We’re also used to the idea...