Solitude stands by the window

Solitude Standing / Suzanne Vega










Suzanne Vega’s second album Solitude Standing hit it big with Luka and Tom’s Diner. Both songs I dislike. I guess because they are too intimate, show too much of the personal side of things. Ironic isn’t, that a person who generally wants to keep their cards close writes not only a blog but often autobiographically? Yeah, well…  



More irony? One of my favorite songs for highly personal reasons is on this album.


Back in the day, when the dinos roamed and I was in high school foreign language class, we all had our “foreign language name.” It was prized and often it was what we called each other outside of language class. The French teacher and the Spanish teacher handed out versions of given names. John became Jean, Steven, Etienne, Richard’s were Ricardo’s. It was very dull and predictable. But the Latin teacher was brilliant. She named each student after a different god, goddess, nymph, hero, etc. No name was reused during the four year cycle of students or even longer. But most of all she had a knack to hit the name so perfectly it was as if she knew her students better than they knew themselves.


I took four years of Latin in high school (cough-geek-cough.) I really enjoyed it and liked the teacher a great deal. Latin was like a little family. A group of us that was slightly left of center, who for an hour four times a week could at least related to each other. We had a bond; we were all in Latin together. Our Latin teach was also the girl’s track coach, as a result, I spent three years on the track team, though I was abysmal at everything.


The result though was that my “Latin name” was quite a hit. Most knew me by it and I suspect there were some who knew my ‘Latin name’ and not my real one. My Latin name was Calypso. 


I do admit I’ve never been overly thrilled at that notion that my name sake trapped this guy on an island for years and wouldn’t let him go back to his wife. Grrrrrrr. And I often thought Odysseus was a complete jerk. Though I am a hopeless romantic. And …. it IS true that once you’re “in,” my devotion and loyalty is fierce. I am also a Pisces, and very partial to the ocean and all that is in it. Most people go to the sea, look out at that vast expanse, waves crashing and feel small. For me, it’s the place I don’t feel small. It’s the place I feel I belong, thus to be named after a sea nymph always seemed apt.


There were things I didn’t appreciate about my name sake, much like there are probably things I’d dislike about a sister. But she’s strong, she’s loyal, she does what she needs to; she’s family. I think the song, Calypso, understands that.