Stand in the Rain

Yesterday included the journey home from Hell.  The day before that the elder weasel had decided to watch Megamind.  As a result this was in my head for various parts of the journey home from Hell:



That's scenes of Roxanne, one of the two best parts of the movie (the other best part: Minion), set to the song "Stand in the Rain" by Superchick.

I know the band Superchick not at all, Wikipedia tells me they're a former Christian rock band.  Wait, Christian Rock band.  Most rock band members are Christian, but Christian Rock is a different thing.  Anyway, I don't know the band, I don't know what went into writing the song.

But I do know the song.  Not know of the song (though obviously that too), I know the song.  I've felt it, I've lived it.

Lyrics:

She never slows down.
  She doesn't know why but she knows that
                                                                  when she's all alone,
  feels like its all coming down

She won't turn around
  The shadows are long and she fears 
                                                      if she cries that first tear,
  the tears will not stop
                                raining down

So stand in the rain
Stand your ground
Stand up when it's all crashing down

You stand through the pain
You won't drown
And one day, what's lost can be found
You stand in the rain

She won't make a sound
  Alone in this fight with herself and the
                                                            fears whispering 
  if she stands she'll fall down

She wants to be found
  The only way out is through everything
                                                            she's running from
  wants to give up and
                                lie down.

So stand in the rain
Stand your ground
Stand up when it's all crashing down

You stand through the pain
You won't drown
And one day, what's lost can be found
You stand in the rain

[Repeat last two stanzas two more times]

Technically it's a little bit more complex as the second to last "And one day, what's lost can be found" is followed immediately but the "So stand in the rain" that begins a stanza instead of the "You stand in the rain" that ends a stanza, but I'm not go delving into meaning of how they choose to repeat the repetitions of the chorus that close the song.  There's more than enough meaning already.

-

She never slows down.

Of course not.  You can't.  You can't stop, you can't ever stop because if you do you might never start again.  You can't stop because if you do you might have time to think.  Time alone to think is bad.  Time alone to think leads to...

  She doesn't know why but she knows that
                                                                  when she's all alone,
  feels like its all coming down

Yup.  If you don't distract yourself, if you don't keep yourself constantly occupied (which is hard as hell and exhausting as fuck, or is it the other way around?) you might start to appraise you live.  You might start to feel the walls closing in, the bottom dropping out, you might start to realize that you don't actually have it in you, and, yes, you might realize your entire world seems to be crashing around you

She won't turn around

Ok, honesty I got nothing here, but it's just one line.  I mean I could bullshit something about how once you've started on a path it feels like you have no options and there's no way to turn back, or maybe take it as self reflection where "Turn around" means "look behind from where we came" and it's about refusing to appraise one's situation because when you're all alone, feels like it's all ... see above.

But if I'm honest, the line doesn't resonate.  When I say I know this song and have lived this song I do not know that I have grokked it in fullness, merely that I grok it.

  The shadows are long and she fears
                                                      if she cries that first tear,
  the tears will not stop
                                raining down

This is self explanititory.  Been there.  Done that.  Though sometimes I wanted to cry that first tear anyway and couldn't.  Songs and fiction can make me cry, my own life seldom does outside of a full on nervous breakdown.

So stand in the rain
Stand your ground
Stand up when it's all crashing down

Note the mood shift.  Up to here was talking in third person.  Technically it was storytelling with a third person limited deep penetration perspective.  (Third person = She; limited is that we're only ever seeing what she sees; deep penetration is that we're seeing into her head.)  But I didn't say "note the person shift", I said note the mood shift.

Up to this point was indicative mood.  It's what we use most of the time.  These three sentences are all in indicative mood.

Indicative is talking about things that did happen, will happen, are happening, and various other tenses of really happening in the real world.  (It's a mood, so tenses are on a different axis.)

This is suddenly imperative mood.  "She stands in the rain," is indicative telling you exactly what it says.  "Stand in the rain," is imperative ordering the person or persons addressed to do what is said.

Imperative is naturally second person because it orders the person being spoken to.  The you.  Even if the "you" is in fact the speaker.  ("Calm down" spoken to oneself, is addressing oneself in second person.)

Because imperative is naturally second person, the second person is omitted.  This is important.  This will matter when we talk about the very next line.  The second person is always omitted.  Even if you literally say, "You," to the person you're ordering, that isn't part of the imperative.  We would write it as, "You, stand in the rain," to show that the "You" is serving a different function and isn't part of the imperative clause.  The function it's serving is stating who is being spoken to, if you're wondering.  (Thus the actual word "You" would probably only come up in conjunction with pointing or some other identifying process.)

All of this is a long way of saying that we've gone from talking about "She" to talking to "she."

These are commands given to her.  Stand in the rain.  Why?  Not entirely sure.  I note that this immediately follows the idea of tears "raining down" and those tears would, by definition, be lost like tears in the rain.  (See also: I Wish It Would Rain by the Temptations.)

More likely, in my opinion, is that it's because rain is often seen as adverse and adversarial.

Consider that the next two lines are "stand your ground", which you only have to do when you'd otherwise lose it, and "Stand up when it's all crashing down" which is a very clear image of not giving up when everything is going wrong.

These commands thus serve as words of encouragement.

Then we shift again.

You stand through the pain

One of the reasons that it was important to establish that the previous lines were direct address to "She" is that it tells us who the "You" is in this line.

More important, though, is the shift back to the indicative.  One could argue that it's aspirational.  One could argue that it's saying, "You should stand through the pain," with the should understood.

I don't think so.  I've been there when it's all crashing down and the thing is, no matter how unable to cope you are, you've managed at least some standing through the pain.

Standing through the pain is a way of life.  I came to that sentence meaning a way that ... the language is tangled.

Most of the time when we talk about way of life it's understood that we're not talking about a way to stay alive even though that's what "a way to live" or "a means/method of living" or "a way that you live" or something like that could mean.  But in this case I think it has that both.

I have to caution that I've never been suicidal, so I speak with no authority here, but it seems to me that when you stop standing through the pain, you stop being.  If you don't get through it, but you're not in it, then the only option is that you're not.  You have ceased to be an "are" and become an "are not".

Which is something that's worth understanding in depth: no matter how badly someone copes, no matter how pathetic they may think they're doing, no matter how badly you may think they're doing, the very fact that you even know they have/had something to cope with means that they stood through it for at least some time.

This song hits me in all the depression cords and the thing is, (speaking of depressed people) we're all survivors.  Even the ones who didn't manage to live through it survived until they didn't because no one is gone the moment it sets in.  Every one of us has stood through the pain, or the apathy, or the hopelessness, or whatever the fuck it was.  Even the ones who eventually stopped standing held out for some amount of time.

You won't drown

This is reassurance, and one that's needed.  Even the best swimmer eventually falls to exhaustion and it can feel like trying to keep your head above water as your body gets weaker and weaker.

Your attempts begin to fail you, and darkness feels like it's closing in, and you worry that you'll sink, that you'll slip that tiny distance separating you from the water flooding your lungs.

And one day, what's lost can be found

It feels like naive optimism, but it really isn't.  There is hope.  Not certainty.  What's lost may never be found, but perhaps it could be.  Maybe, one day, it can be.

You stand in the rain

Note that we started this interlude of direct address with the singer ordering (or perhaps imploring, but imperatives are sort of imperative when unqualified) the "She" to stand in the rain and now the singer is saying she does just that.

She won't make a sound

It is a sad truth that asking for help is hard, and sometimes inconceivable.  You cannot do that which you do not conceive because you can't think to do it.

You pull in.  You shut out others.  You become isolated.  You become quiet.

You don't get peoples attention.  You withdraw.

  Alone in this fight with herself and the
                                                            fears whispering
  if she stands she'll fall down

No one should face it alone, but we have a strong tendency to do so.  More interesting to me is what the fears are whispering.

The ground is safe.  You can't fall when you're already down.  And so rising up becomes frightening.  Good things are scary.  The prospect of making a friend is seen as the prospect of losing a friend.  Can't do that if you never make one to begin with.  The possibility of being happy is seen as the possibility of crashing back down.

Trying to rise above the horrible place you find yourself is inundated in the fear of falling from that height.  Seagulls don't lift shelled animals into the air for the hell of it, they do it because the damage from falling after soaring is so much more than the damage from trying to peck your way in when the thing is on the ground.

Fear of failure keeps you from trying in the first place.  And so the inability to improve becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

She wants to be found

She won't make a sound but she wants to be found.  Note the problem there?  There's a reason that Harry needed  Hagrid to come and get him.  There's a reason Tsukasa had to become embroiled in impossible things to get help.  There's a reason that Bella Swan needed first an impossible van scene and then Edward forcing himself into her life.

None of them could reach out, and yet the fantasy of being found is so strong that we see it in story after story.

For all of the withdrawal, and for all of the barriers placed between oneself in the world, someone getting in and somehow helping you is an alluring fantasy.

The only way out is through everything
                                                          she's running from

Not always, but often.  Often it's the things that you're most unable to do that are needed to actually fix things.

A lot of untreated depression is untreated because depression makes it very hard to seek treatment.

  wants to give up and
                                lie down.

Curl up in a ball and have the world go away.  Relax all your muscles and collapse to the ground.  Just scream out to life that it wins, you lose, you surrender, now could it please fucking leave you alone now.

It's all crashing down, and if you stand up you'll fall down.  With no hope of winning, why bother.  Isn't giving up and lying down so much easier?

But you can't.  That doesn't work.

You have to stand up when it's all crashing down.

So stand in the rain; stand your ground.

-

The weird part: Roxanne totally doesn't have depression.