The National's Boxer: Waiting For Winter to Leave

by editor Michele Catalano

The first National song I ever heard was “All the Wine,” from their album Alligator. It was 2009, and I was late to the band; everyone around me seemed to be deep into their music, which I ignored because I was entrenched in emo at the time. But I decided to hop in when presented with this song and the line, “I’m a perfect piece of ass, like every Californian.”

I laughed at that line, as it captured the California mindset so perfectly. My partner (eventual ex-husband) at the time had recently moved here from Sacramento, ostensibly to spend the rest of his life with me. He was very California-first, comparing everything on Long Island to his precious home state, where the sun always shines and every person is perfect. Because of that, I knew that I would at least try the band out. I opted for Boxer over Alligator, because that’s what my followers on Twitter were suggesting.

We met on a humorous web forum in January 2006. In-between shared jokes and memes, we had serious conversations about music and life. He was post-rehab and newly sober, and looking to start a new life. In August, he came to visit. In November, he drove across the country with his belongings stuffed in the back of his janky ‘93 4Runner. In April 2007, he moved in with me. Life was good. It remained good for a time.

About a year after I got into the National, things started to unravel. I clung to Boxer like a life preserver. I listened to “Apartment Story” over and over. That song held magic for me, embraced me with its declarations of love and commitment, with its sense of safety. In another internet life, I wrote this about “Apartment Story” for popdust:

Is it a love song or an ode to Seasonal Affective Disorder? No matter. It’s a love song to me, one that makes the otherwise dark, confining claustrophobia of winter seem like something to savor in lieu of taking part in life outside your door. Hiding out, maybe getting drunk and listening to records while you wait for some kind of unpleasantness to intrude on you, barring the door against not only the winter but the pretense of life, of going through the motions of facing the world as put-together human beings rather than the fractured people we are. Sleep in our clothes and wait for winter to leave has always struck me as romanticized agoraphobia, making “Apartment Story” a perfect love song for the frightened, the fractured, the weary and those we bring down into the abyss of our winters with us.

I imagined us huddled under blankets on the couch, just watching TV or listening to music, waiting for spring to come. That was pretty much a microcosm of our relationship at the time. I felt like I was always waiting for winter to leave.

He started drinking again in 2010, when job pressures and the social drinking pressure that happens when you travel with coworkers became too much for him to resist. Old habits die hard. At first it was social drinking. Eventually it became “7 a.m. reach for a beer” drinking.

Songs like “Fake Empire” and “Start a War” became mantras, replacing “Apartment Story” and its sense of safety with both wariness and weariness. I was tired and hollowed out, and I depended on the National to make me feel anything at all. I was dutifully ignoring most of what was going on in my life, as if not thinking about it would somehow make it go away. I’d go to the gym and put on something like MGMT and see how fast I could make the bike pedals go. But “You were always weird, but I never had to hold you by the edges like I do now,” from “Start a War" would still ring in my head, and I’d have to pack up and go out to my car and cry. I took to running instead, more for mental clarity than anything else. My repeated playing of Kanye’s “Jesus Walks” (sorry this was 2010, when he was still good) was always drowned out by my brain singing National songs (maybe my brain knew). I’d cry-run, and when I felt like I had purged enough for the day, I’d head back home with dread instead of anticipation.

The true magic of Boxer is that, no matter how sad it made me, I still felt compelled to listen to it. There was something in Matt Berninger’s voice that pulled me in, making me want to listen to what he has to say over and over again. He always sounds so tired, so weary. He’s unsure and questioning, his voice the embodiment of everything I was at the time.

My husband and I went on like this for a few years. Those years were fraught with sadness and bloated with episodes where he would quit drinking cold turkey and then have a seizure. For all of that, there was Boxer. For every attempt at sobriety that failed, Boxer was there for me. For every seizure, every hospital stay, every broken promise, every AA meeting missed, it was Boxer I comforted myself with at 3 a.m., when insomnia and sadness and terror kept me awake. It was Matt Berninger who sang to me about fake empires, about my mind racing in the middle of the night, about what is and what used to be. It became more than an album to me; it was a lifeline. It let me purge my emotions–something I needed to do–and let me reminisce about a love we used to have, when we would sleep on the floor and wait for winter to leave. It made me think we could have that again.

He got sober in 2017. He went to AA meetings religiously, sometimes three a day, and that’s when he started to float away from me. I told myself that I had to accept this if I wanted him sober. We carried on our lives like a couple who had never gone through a traumatic time together. We forgot every fight we had, every failed attempt at quitting, every setback. But we also forgot to learn any lessons from that.

There was never a point in this era when Boxer wasn’t in my top records. It became a part of my whole. I attached it to my heart and wore it like a pacemaker. With each play of it, though, I was brought back to earlier times, both good and bad. I thought maybe I should stop listening to it, but quickly knocked that idea out of my head.

He replaced alcohol with other things, mostly AA. But he had other things going on that left no time for me. Then the pandemic hit, leaving me at home for two months, instead of working. I became listless, depressed. I had nothing to hang onto, no one to whisper my dreaded thoughts to late at night. I had myself, though. And I had the National. I had Boxer.

You know by now there is no happy ending to this story. In January 2021, I came home from a visit to my sister’s to find that he had moved all his belongings out while I was gone. He had an apartment. He was leaving. I was stunned–perhaps naively so–and completely unprepared. There was no discussion, no talk of what exactly was wrong or what wasn’t right. He was just leaving. Immediately. Not even any talk of if he’d see our dog again. He was a disappearing act, leaving my life as deftly as he brought himself into it fourteen years ago.

Five minutes after he was gone, I did the only thing I could think to do that would calm me down. I pulled out Boxer, put it on the turntable he bought me just two months before, and sucked my breath in as I waited for “Fake Empire” to make its entrance. I didn’t cry then. I stayed motionless instead, moving only to flip the record. I stared straight ahead, practicing my breathing techniques, trying not to have a panic attack. Only after I listened to the album all the way through did I pick up my phone to text my sisters the news. When I was done letting everyone know that I had failed to maintain a marriage once again, I let myself cry. I pulled up “Apartment Story” on Spotify, hit the repeat button and let the song have its way with me.

I’ve stopped listening to a lot of music that reminds me of that time in my life. It causes me to revisit a pain I need to keep buried in my memories. I need other music, songs that help me build a bridge to the future, that take me from sadness to optimism. I never gave up the National, though. I never stopped listening to Boxer. There’s something within this album that sparks my soul, making me realize that it’s not quite yet empty in there. It reminds me that I once had a full heart, once had someone who loved me, who was a willing partner in sleeping through winter together. The subsequent things I found out about him after he left gave me the impetus to move forward. I accept the gifts Boxer has given me in the form of comfort and a heart that is resilient, that someday will fill up again.

Until then, I have the National, I have Boxer, I have words and music that at times lift me and at times join me for a cathartic crying session.

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