It's a wonder how some of us get around with so many bullet holes shot through us. It's amazing how we can move around with legs that have been beaten and heads that are battered and woozy. They're not real bullet holes. No one can really see them, but they are the wounds that we carry around with us through all else. They just are. There is the lead that gets too lodged into the bone, or too close to something vital and removing it wouldn't be a wise thing to do medically. So, the lead remains in there, staying intimate with he blood and muscle and all the good that they're trying to do for the mass that surrounds it, holds it in.
Jon Lindsay, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based singer and songwriter reminds us in many different ways the extent of all of us having to deal, not just with being imperfect machines, but ones that have to make some serious concessions to the imperfections that have done their best to cover themselves up, heal their markings away. What you get from listening to Lindsay is the resiliency of the comeback that he seems to give most people the credit for having within themselves. They refuse to pile up the feelings of brokenness and strive to find ways to live the best that they can, even with all of these scars internalized. People are used for target practice most of the time. They are meant to live up to, not just to their own expectations, but those that others place on them and there's never much winning that can be done with those pressures. It's all one big compromise.
*Essay originally published June, 2012