272. Song Nos. 4,090-4,092: “The Great Unknown,” Jukebox the Ghost
The Great Unknown, 2014; Jukebox the Ghost, 2014; Long Way Home: Live, 2016

Keep your head up
Don’t take your eyes off the road
No, you’re never gonna change by doin’ what you’re told
You don’t wanna let yourself down
So don’t be scared to stand out
There’s a thousand voices saying
The time is now!
So let go, you’re on your own…

This is truly one of my favorite Jukebox ditties, and its mid-July rotation in this project was such a necessary visit from a band I share with my favorite person I’m not married to at a time when I earnestly, finally started trying to work through and accept all the unwanted changes both already in play and still to come in our nearly 20-year friendship, right on the heels of one incredible, needful PNW adventure with the neurospicy sapphics I feel like I’ll eventually strike up a commune with. Because, hey, if these guys can make the end of the world sound almost celebratory and buoyant, obviously they’d make staring down the gaping maw of continental distance and its accompanying maelstrom of an uncertainty-punctuated future seem a lot easier to digest while reluctantly embracing all these new questions that come with it, like: When’s good for our next visit? Are you sure I’m not an imposition as a days-long houseguest camped out on your living room couch? So, like, you really, actually own a piece of land on the other side of the country that you’re calling home now, huh? And what’s so great about delving deeper into an unknowable future you never asked for and have spent two and a half years trying to accept and still feels like the worst thing that’s happened to you even if it’s everything someone you love with all your heart needed to become their happiest self?

This song is anthemic and optimistic and feels exactly like miles and miles of invitingly open road unfurling before you as you hurdle headfirst toward whatever mysteries the future holds, and is one of those times, like “Bobcaygeon,” when the music video is so pitch-perfectly aligned with the vibe of music that it makes me fall in love with the song all over again.

If there’s anything I’ve learned this year, it’s that life is a constantly evolving journey whether you want it to be or not, regardless of how badly you don’t want to accept the terrible quest laid at your feet. Other people’s choices, loss of all kinds and an endless parade of goodbyes—both overdue and far too soon—are the consequence of existence, which is the ultimate unasked-for odyssey we’re all shuffling our ways through. Falling into an immovable, crumpled heap on the floor might be an option in the immediate aftermath if you’ve got the good fortune to have a sympathetically present and proactive support network to pick up your slack as you pick up the biggest salvable shards of the future you’re suddenly mourning and trying to cobble together some acceptable approximation of, but goodwill runs out eventually and a perpetual victim mentality wears on even the saintliest of good people’s patience and you’ve got to return to the land of the living sooner or later, even if you’re wailing and heartsick all the way through finding your footing again.

Life isn’t all good or all bad, and neither are all the things that come to pass throughout it. And, yeah, while trying to reclaim your life in the wake of loss and death fucking sucks, it’s all a matter of perspective once you give your heart time to heal. Rolling with the punches is how you grow as a person, just like finding meaning in loss is how you make sense of the grief that can so easily consume you if you’re not careful. We can’t control the curveballs life throws at us, but we can decide how to react once the clouds part and a little light illuminates the path forward to healing, self-reclamation and the perspective shift that inevitably follows a thunderclap of irrevocable change. The journey forward isn’t always a clearly defined win or loss, but it is an adventure nonetheless with plenty of reasons to stand staring in awe if you look at the world and your place in it with all the wonder that waits if you meet the universe without fear of whatever comes next, because you’ll miss all the good to come if you don’t take those first uncertain steps toward the great unknowns still waiting to meet you once you start inching toward them again.