Like the Sea Into a Pier

More David Berman remembrances. "Grace." Humility.

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There was a wonderful response to Ben Gaffaney’s TSB essay about David Berman this week, and it motivated me to listen to more of his music and familiarize myself with the explosive beauty behind songs that may, on the surface, seem somber, but some of them are sneakily, self-consciously hopeful. Maybe I’m too sentimental and new to his world to see it all yet, but I’ve heard a couple of songs already that tell me he was somewhat open to the possibility that there could be a different outcome for depressives like him. But again, I know nothing. Got around to “American Water” yesterday.

Along with his music, I dove into Berman’s many eulogizers who found the perfect words because many of his songs and poems found the perfect words. One of my favorites came from the Times’ David Marchese, who also interwove a tribute to his friend (a devout David Berman fan) who had died by suicide a couple of months before Berman did:

In an interview not long before he died, Berman said, “There probably were 100 nights over the last 10 years where I was sure I wouldn’t make it till morning.” One hundred nights he made it. One he did not. My scrambled brain is stuck on what those numbers might mean. Destiny or contingence? Tragedy or resilience? An obstacle to Berman’s gift or a source of its sublimity? I don’t know, but I keep going back to one of the last times I heard from my friend. “David Berman’s songs,” he said, “make me feel gratitude and hope. Even when forces seem to be conspiring against such things.”

Marchese also called Berman “well suited to offer understanding to those at risk,” which, if you think about it, is kind of the whole point of a recovery program. And here we are, lucky and blessed.

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