[Ed. note: This is the 41st in a series of personal essays by the @U2 staff about songs and/or albums that have had great meaning or impact in our lives.]
I know a girl who's like a sea
I watch her changing every day for me
I don't know about you, but the last two years have officially kicked my butt. I had to say goodbye to my father after two devastating heart attacks, I was laid off twice from two different companies, dealt with a cancer scare, adjusted shrinking finances to keep a roof over my head and creditors off my back, fought against slipping into depression and tried to find new ways (any way, really) of staying happy and fulfilled in an economic and emotional landscape that wasn't the brightest. I'm not much on complaining, and I know that there are others who are going through situations that are tougher than mine, but I have asked myself more times than I care to admit in the last 24 months, "When will the storm be over?!"
One day she's still, the next she swells
You can hear the universe in her sea shells
Just like millions of others who have had to deal with terrible loss, I've coped the best that I could and, at times, found myself flourishing. With the forced time off from work, I took up long distance running and yoga, bonded with my friend's dog so I would always have a buddy around, found fun ways to conserve money and make do with what I already had, allowed myself to truly miss my dad and started cooking Japanese food to feel closer to him. I started writing again. There were moments, very strong ones, where I was content and even happy to have the time off to refocus my needs and figure out what the next step in my life was. And then the inevitable voice of doubt would appear in my head to make me worry and cast a long shadow over the positivity I had managed to build around me.
No, no line on the horizon
No, no line
Every day, for the last two years, I have figuratively looked for the horizon so I could fix a point to it and navigate my way out of the rough waters. I wanted a beacon to light the way, to help me know what I was supposed to be moving toward, or away from. To not have a line meant that I was out there alone, finding my path, and I could very well crash or run aground. For Bono to be singing about no line on the horizon was unthinkable. How could this be a good thing, let alone be something to sing about and therefore embrace?
Time is irrelevant, it's not linear
Then she put her tongue in my ear
I've spent many years being seduced by the measurement of time. Marriage by this age; kids by that age; a home and top-of-the-corporate-ladder before some age; my first novel before another decade passed. I'm a goal-oriented person and the third of four kids, so it's not surprising that I measure my life against someone or something that has gone before me and how the completion of those goals measure up to that of my siblings. They're all married with children, while I am still single and childless. I felt the weight of this for many years, because it made me feel that there was a part of my life that was unfinished or waiting to start … until everything fell apart.
One of the reasons why "No Line on the Horizon" has such a special place in my heart is because of Bono's gut-wrenching wailing in the middle of the song. Larry's drums open up; Edge's guitar makes me feel like I'm flying; Adam's steady but relentless bass gets my heart pumping. It's a catharsis for me every time I hear it. It reminds me to let go. To yell at the top of my lungs in the face of incredible adversity. To trust my instincts. To forge my own path. To not care about what anyone else is doing; it's what I do with my life that matters. Even if the worst thing that could possibly happen would be to stumble, or mess up, or even lose another job at another company, it would never be as painful or as difficult as what I had already been through. I not only survived, I thrived during the darkest period of my life. I'm incredibly proud of that.
Every night I have the same dream
I'm hatching some plot, scheming some scheme
Oh yeah
In the quietest part of the song, Bono teases that he's still up to something and, being someone who has a crazy scheme for just about everything I do, this is great comfort to me. Given the chaos that has happened to me over the last two years, it's completely understandable that I would want some kind of beacon to light the way when things get dark, but listening to NLOTH reminds me that I've made it through incredible storms unscathed and emerged stronger for it. It's a reminder and a challenge for me to not only embrace change that I can't see and situations I can't totally understand, but to dream big, hope for everything my heart desires, and to accept and welcome the wonderfully exciting and frustrating process that it takes to get there. After all, how much fun would the journey be if the path were continually lit for me?
No, no line on the horizon
No, no line
© @U2/Tomooka, 2009.
