Up & Up

Up & Up, Coldplay

There are many favorite lines in this one! Here they are, ordered by how much they click with me.

“Searching for the water, hoping for the rain.”

Well, it’s blue, for starters, and it gives me a sense of faith: hoping for the rain when you need water so bad.

“Angels in the marble waiting to be freed.”

Michelangelo! He’s the one who said he could see the angel in the marble and started carving to set it free. It’s … beautiful, how we’re all sort of stuck sometimes, beautiful, whole, and the same as we’ve always been. All we need is for someone to see us and try to set us free.

“Trying to empty out the ocean with a spoon.”

It’s like a man’s last stand before an entire army. You know you’re going to lose, and you do it anyway. You can’t see how you can sit this one out. It’s foolish and noble and nothing short of graceful.

“Fixing up a car to drive in it again.”

Every day, you keep striving. You break down and you fix yourself and get right back up. The perseverance is brave and honorable and strong. Even when you’re weak, you’re strong.

“Lying in the gutter, aiming for the moon.”

Well, the image of the silver moonlight sparklingly shining the way all the way through to the bottom of a gutter is beautiful. I imagine a barrel where a little boy is sitting, curled and sitting uncomfortably because there’s no space to stretch. All he can see is one round wall … and the moon bathing him with its generous warmth and hope-bringing light. The moon is all he can see, really. The moon becomes his sole way out, the fire that burns within him to make him realize that he can stand up taller than the barrel he’s curled inside. The hope that there is a way out.

July 5th, 2019