#patrick watson

3 am Spleen

When I first heard Je te laisserai des mots, I felt as though the instrumental passage that follows the humming was a blanket settling over everything. Like those first crisp days of autumn, when the sun begins to disappear earlier each evening and a quiet melancholy starts staining the trees.

It's winter now. So cold that snow has fallen in parts of the region today, somewhere it hadn't snowed in decades.

My body carries me to the park. I reach into my pockets and realize I've forgotten my cigarettes. Shit. No biggie. After all, it's a bad habit I picked up in my last month of university. I sigh. Cigs are harmful, but I keep trying to convince myself I hardly smoke at all. Strangely enough, they make me feel accompanied. They're one of the reasons I've been enjoying cold weather a little more lately, even if most of the time I feel like a fluffed-up little bird, desperately searching for a patch of sunlight on a power line.

Today I thought about my last relationship quite a bit. Not with sadness, nor longing. I simply wondered where we'd be now. As my dog runs through the square, I whisper to myself,

"Nothing but the consequence of my past decisions."

Then I smile, because a part of me knows I made the right choice, even if I now feel like a small orb trapped inside a body, drifting through cold landscapes, sustained by daily ambitions as humble as cooking a good meal.

I watch people travel, move away, begin new lives. Even my ex is living with someone now. Three years after the great heartbreak, he managed to fall in love again. Love itself feels so distant, so foreign, that it's almost become a literary concept to me, something I stumble upon while opening old books or watching wonderfully terrible romantic comedies.

I found myself thinking that true love is both utterly real and utterly improbable. I've seen love exist. I've seen it destroy itself. Perhaps it does exist, but permanence doesn't. Even so, I still love the idea of it.

I take another drag from my imaginary cigarette, watching my breath curl into the winter air, while my dog quietly stands beside me, letting me know she's ready to go home.

The night deepens, and the blanket settles once more. Not with sorrow, nor with anguish. Just a tender acceptance in the small hours.

My eyes ache from staring at screens all day, but somehow I'm at peace. I don't even know when it became three in the morning.

Sometimes I wish I didn't need sleep. I wish screens couldn't wound my eyes. I wish I could wake up tomorrow with that little orb inside me finally woven into this body completely.

I'd like to believe that a love as enveloping as Je te laisserai des mots truly exists. I'd like to wake up in a small apartment somewhere in France and walk along the Seine on my own.

I'd like my greatest ambitions to remain this simple, and this fulfilling: cooking something beautiful, walking my dog, watching the seasons change.

But I suppose God's timing is perfect.

Even if tomorrow a car were to hit me.

Patrick Watson's "Hommage" is a short instrumental elegy with no vocals. It conveys a feeling of bittersweet sadness, nostalgia, and memory through musical imagery. The word Hommage translates from French as "tribute" or "homage."Like the entire Wooden Arms album, the track is filled with "domestic," tangible sounds. This creates a feeling as if the listener is in an empty room where old memories come alive.Wooden Arms is the third studio album by Patrick Watson and his band, released on April 28, 2009. Patrick Watson admitted that the main source of inspiration for the album was the legendary sci-fi series The Twilight Zone.Instead of classical studio techniques, the band decided to use household items for percussion and special effects. While listening to the album, you can hear:Spinning and creaking bicycle wheelsThe clatter of pots, spoons, and pansSteel wool rubbing against guitar stringsThe rustling of dry tree branchesDresser drawers and even rubber plungers.

I'm fascinated by these Patrick Watson songs. They seem to sum up so much of what Kattdo is about.