Middle Cyclone, by Neko Case (2009)

This tornado loves you

Long hours at work (plus two hours of commuting each day), busy lives with growing children, and the unspoken approach of middle age conspired to bring my marriage to a low point in 2010. We recovered, but in the process of recovering, I learned that my wife possessed qualities that I needed to emulate to be a better partner.

One of those qualities was fierceness.

Being fierce doesn’t necessarily mean that you feel fierce. But you wake up anyway, put on your uniform, and go face down the waves of oncoming hordes. Then you come home and contend with middle schoolers and homework and housework until you drop from exhaustion - and then you wake up and do it again. The last word you would use to describe yourself is “fierce” or “strong,” but then you see someone who needs your help, and you get up and don’t rest until you have helped them.

That’s fierce.

When you live in a world that requires that kind of fierceness, you can sometimes forget how much power you have - and power can be destructive when it isn’t focused and tightly controlled. Unfocused power can make you a force of nature.

I don’t know how I found my way to Neko Case as an artist - but after I heard this song two years ago, I marveled that I hadn’t found my way to her music before - when I was living this stuff. I know what it feels like to be caught in this kind of tornado - to be destructive in your passion, to be shocked by your power, to be driven to do more only to see your efforts push away those you love most.

This album, Middle Cyclone, turns on those ideas - that nature is what it is, and that we act surprised when we get hurt by it. The game is to figure out whether you are the force of nature or the victim.

I'm a man-man-man, man-man-man-eater

But still you're surprised-prised-prised when I eat ya

~ “People Got a Lotta Nerve”

There is a lot of catharsis in this collection of songs. Realizations and confrontations, built around some solid country-pop melodies and belted or crooned by Case’s clear, strong voice. At no point are you ever sure which direction Case’s wind is blowing - one moment, she is terrorizing the countryside, the next she is devouring an unsuspecting diver, and at any moment, she could reveal the vulnerable, scared, and lonely person inside.

Not that she ever does, exactly - it’s just that she could.

I can't give up acting tough
It's all that I'm made of
Can't scrape together quite enough
To ride the bus to the outskirts of the fact that I need love

~ “Middle Cyclone”

And after thirty years, I still see that same force of nature in my wife. The same nature that can turn and bite, or blow your house down - but is doomed by the poison of everyday living. It can be dangerous to unpack all of these metaphors, but it is even more dangerous to leave them unexamined.

What I do know is that this tornado loves her - and I learned that I needed to make her believe me.

So far, so good.