Typhoon and grappling with mortality while living with a chronic illness

(Disclaimer: White Lighter was released over a month ago, on August 20th, but was available to stream two weeks before then. Given that time frame, it has taken me almost two months to write this emotionally-entangled post. I'm still not certain I've done their music the justice it deserves. However, I'm seeing Typhoon live on Wednesday at Rock and Roll Hotel and getting this entry published was a "now or never" feeling". It's overly personal and raw but honest.)

I'm certain this goes without saying -- music has always been one of the biggest emotionally-complex components of my life. A song can be akin to a drug: a stimulant to heighten my feelings in the best of times, a depressant to bring me back down to reality in my more manic-induced moments, or an analgesic to shut down everyone and everything. Most days, I operate with a soundtrack playing in the background.

Kyle Morton, of Typhoon, has managed to write the soundtrack to my most probable "possible death": an ultimate and slow, painful demise from diabetic complications. I never tried or wanted a soundtrack for this facet of my possible future, but with Typhoon, I allowed it.

My mother had crippling depression but I watched her earnestly embrace life, in a way I had never seen, after she lost most of her eyesight and went on dialysis, after also suffering from diabetic complications. Yet, somehow, her own daughter, without any mental illness and an insatiably passion for life, has spent the past seven years living life to the absolute fullest under the impression that life will be over the minute she gets hit with a complication. The past few years have been this surreal whirlwind of adventures, love, connections, and joy. However, I haven't really envisioned a life for myself into my thirties. Every doctor appointment is a harrowing, nerve-wracking experience. Every bad bloodsugar level is a moment of heart-stopping regret. The fundamental part of living with a chronic illness boils down to these panic moments and the anxiety-filled late nights. I have a hard time not letting this define who I am. 

I often ask myself questions.
Is today the tipping point? Is today the day everything changes? 

I discovered A New Kind of House and I couldn't stop listening. Summer Home pulled me in and shook my core. Within the first few lines Morton talks of never wanting to give up but having a body that does. He's holding out for the summer, this promise-land, where the days will be back to normal or over. This was the first wake up call. I can't be the person who doesn't fight. I can't be the person who pleads for the summer, as my days won't return to normal after the "tipping point" occurs. The idea of there ever being a "normal" in the first place is delusional. My only summer, my only promise-land is the end.

There's Honest Truth and with the lines "On my time, oh Lord I've been so blind. But now I see the light below my doorjamb. Hallelujah, it will be gone soon", death almost seems glamorous for brief, fleeting moments. Be relieved that the end is here. However, it's not difficult to hear the regret laced throughout and it makes me hesitate. Claws Pt. 1 is damaging: "We are conceived all with the same chance/ to be spared, to be salvaged, to be kept safe/ then you hope to god nothing bad will happen/ from when you're born 'til you go quietly from old". For some of us, the bad happens, "the great great beast", sooner than we wish. The beast simultaneously claws, reminds us of our fate but also provides some solace, as we know what our fate will be.

 

 If A New Kind of House wasn't stark enough, I listened to Hunger & Thirst a few weeks after. Starting Over describes the common phenomenon among diabetics who "go off the bandwagon" and come back to desperately try to get their bloodsugars well-managed. I start over every single day, where "I've started a new beginning, suspiciously like the old one, only this time I'm ready". Even though I tell myself I'm ready, I never truly am.

 

Typhoon's latest release, White Lighter, transcended all of my high expectations. On the aural front, it's pure, unadulterated, witchcraft. Somehow, the band's twelve individuals sound simultaneously cohesive and entirely jarring together. If only one audio element was removed from this album, it would not have the grandeur it does now.

On the narrative front, Morton continues to explore life and mortality. I have read his insights, published back in June, many times now. It's impossible to be blinded to his brilliance and the wisdom he has gained throughout life while suffering from an illness. I initially never knew his back-story of his development of Lyme Disease while growing up. I was not surprised when I did find out. These words can only be woven together by someone who has experienced the path of gradual death, at a speed possibly faster than the average person.

Possible Deaths is two minutes of morbid bliss. If nothing else, this song reminds me that my notion that diabetes is my sure-fire end is pure folly, as "every star is a possible death".

The hardest part of White Lighter is grasping with love being introduced as a theme. I've always thought of Common Sentiments as the prelude to White Lighter, as thoughts fully flushed out in Prosthetic Love and Post Script creep up here as well. At the end of the day, there's the reality that "you are sleeping together, but you will die alone" Is there a point of exposing vulnerability when the inevitable end won't be any different? I'd like to believe so. I began to think of the end of the song mantra as my own because "I will be good though my body be broken" and someone surely will acknowledge that truth about me but won't give a damn at the same time.

However, never in my life have I had a song describe so acutely my own thoughts with letting go of stubborn independence, as with Prosthetic Love. I think it's how he describes growing attached and learning how to count on a partner, rather than his own fingers, that strikes a chord with me. Is "attachment" a word commonly described with that nervous period of "falling for someone"? Because, it's always the word I use that no one else seems to. Attachment is exhausting, scary and difficult for someone who has a chronic illness. With being so different than my peers growing up, but having a body that could fail me, I never felt right accepting outside help. It spiraled into this possibly-unhealthy streak of fierce independence, where I could only count on my own mind to save me from myself. Is it fair to subject a partner, or anyone else, to the suffering caused by a disease they don't even have? Morton realistically captures depending on and falling for someone else, despite all the misgivings, when you've never really been able to depend on your own body or would expect anyone else to.

If Common Sentiments is the prelude to Typhoon's love story, Post Script is the all-depressing, but tragically pragmatic finale. I'm almost willing to assert the song as the most beautiful and fitting album-ending song out there. No matter what, I can only love within the confines of my chronic illness. In Post Script, Morton describes how he'll do anything and everything to make sure his partner gets the love they deserve. The thoughtfulness cannot be returned. How can someone love the part of an individual that will eventually rip them away? His partner isn't obligated to love him unconditionally, as they would also have to love the disease that will be his downfall. Honestly, I find it fair if someone with a chronic disease will never experience unconditional love. It's the compromise we make for likely being the first to leave.