Harmony

Last night I went to hear Harmony Korine speak at the Frist Center for Visual Arts. I was impressed. I haven't always felt this way about Harmony.

It was shortly after we moved into our new house in Hillsboro Village when I first met Harmony. He came by unannounced with his new girlfriend. Jay had spoken often of Harmony, his skateboarding-turned-movie writer and director friend who, at age 19, dropped out of NYU to write and direct his first movie; but the wild stories of Harmony, coupled with the fact that I had never actually met the guy, made him seem more fictional than real.

He hung out for awhile, and Jay lit up around his old friend. But I felt suspect. He had a skateboard punk vibe and a young, beautiful girlfriend who would soon become his wife. The clip Jay showed me of Harmony getting kicked off David Letterman, and his shockingly disturbing movies, did not help his case either. Harmony was clean and sober now, unlike his days on Letterman, but I felt on the fence. I was not too worried because he appeared into our lives out of nowhere after years of not seeing Jay, so I assumed he would disappear as quickly.

I was wrong. Harmony continued to come around, and I continued to feel cautious. But his brand of quirky off-the-wall comments and humor were what I grew up with, so it did not take too long before I became a member of Harmony’s fan club. But I wasn’t a film loving fan of Harmony’s like most. His films, in general, felt so dark to me, and I run from the dark.

I was a fan because Jay loved his friend, and I always loved seeing Jay around Harmony. I can still see and hear Jay doubled over, belly laughing around him and can imagine Jay, with his fro and teen acne, skateboarding with Harmony on the sidewalks of the building where I was sitting that once was the main US Postal office in Nashville and is now the Frist Center for Visual Art, where Harmony is exhibiting his art.

I was actually relieved the day Harmony crossed the line from being a friend to a wife to Jay. Finally, I was not the only one nagging Jay. I think Harmony was more of a nag than me. He was always on some health kick and wanted Jay to join him. He worried about his friend and his yo-yo way of living. I needed Jay to have another wife because my pleas were not enough.

"Yo dude, I need you to push yourself. Once a week is not cutting it. You gotta get out there at least twice. Your stomach looks like a bowling ball. Come on, you dude. I need you to push yourself."

This is a clean version paraphrase of a video selfie Harmony sent of him talking to Jay as he was running early one weekend morning. Harmony's up-close face with his shades on, the up-and-down motion of the camera while he was running shirtless on a sunny day in Nashville, and his words of encouragement (insert question mark??) made Jay and I laugh over and over as we watched it many times. I think we also watched it so many times because it felt good for me to see Jay so cared about by his friend, and I think Jay felt the same. Harmony always looked out for Jay.

If you hung out with Jay, you probably heard him speak about Harmony. Maybe you thought Jay was caught up in Harmony's movie director fame, but Jay had a way of showing his love via bragging about the people or things he loved most in his life. He spoke this way about me, Zoe & Simon, his family, my family, our friends, or music and the newest gadget.

"I just love her laugh," he would say about me. Or "she is such a great writer" or "she has the best smile."

The other night I heard an unexpected knocking at the door around 9PM. It was the night after the election, and we were recovering. It was Harmony dropping by just like he did many years ago to say hello. He is in Miami for the year, so we don't see them often. I love seeing Harmony, but I am not the cool, baggy jean-wearing best friend that Jay was to Harmony. I don't talk and hang or belly laugh with Harmony in the same way Jay did.

He walked into my “writing studio” on Wednesday night as I was deep in words. My writing space does not have doors or the colorful paint splatters I have seen in Harmony's studio. The longer the shadow, the longer the light holds true with Harmony. His visual art is full of light and color, without a trace of the shadows in his films.

I think Harmony and Jay lived on parallel planes within this same spectrum of light and dark. Most of us do connect with those who see the world through similar shades, and the shades Harmony saw Jay through on his morning run are how many saw Jay. He was easy to love and care about, and we all wanted him healthy and safe.

My studio is my house with dirty dishes, and I am somewhere in it, tired and ragged, like this night. I was putting away dishes in my messy kitchen and coming in and out of the room as Harmony visited with me and the kids. Sometimes I want to be Jay for people, and I worry they will get bored because I am not.

I have been hard on myself this week. Maybe it was the supermoon coming or just the collective energy of our moment in time, but I felt overcome by feeling small in the world, and I missed Jay and how I could rest my head on him and he and his words wrapped their way around me until I felt right-sized again.