Letting Go

There is a line in a Dave Matthew's Band song that has been in my head for weeks:

That's not a star; that's a satellite

It repeats at the end of a nine-minute song that is otherwise about how to live a good life.  Most of the other lyrics are instructive (be kind always and shine your light while you've got one), so the line feels especially out of place.

In an interview with MSN Music, Dave said this about the song:

"My father used to say to me, "Find your bliss, and that's what you should spend your life on" ... I was kind of trying to say the same thing to my kids but with more words, which I'm apt to do*. I have this image of a beaten-up soldier at a bar, sort of thinking about telling his kids this, more than actually being able to. And the war or whatever experience is the music in between... At the end, there's this image of surrender, lying on your back, whether on a battlefield or not, staring at the stars. There's a line my wife has said to me: "That's not a star; that's a satellite." I like that idea, I like that phrase, that's why I repeat it five or six times. I think it's a nice way to say goodbye."

*Me too, Dave. Me too.

A satellite, not a star. A decoy, not the real thing. Something forced, man-made, not something natural. A realization, a vehicle for letting go.

I'm going to say something obvious: It really hurts when something isn't what you think it is. It's the very worst kind of hurt, when you wanted something to be real and it turns out it was just a fabrication.  When you hoped for the magic of a shooting star, only to realize it was just a satellite with its own trajectory.

Sometimes. But not always.

Hope becomes dangerous when it hovers too long. You eventually find you're in the wrong orbit, and the feeling that it's better than no orbit at all only lasts so long.

I'm gonna steer clear

I burn up in your atmosphere

--John Mayer, In Your Atmosphere