The next day, June 13, I received an email from a reader who had noticed and photographed some graffiti on a wall on August 30, 2022:
Later, on February 21, 2023, this reader again photographed the same wall. The "carry that weight" tag had been painted over with this much larger piece:
The reader identified the figure in the bottom left, who is pointing his finger and saying "bang," as Spike Spiegel, a character from the anime Cowboy Bebop. Researching that anime led the reader to a review -- published exactly one year earlier, June 13, 2024 --"See you later, space cowboy," by Christian Yeung. Here's the final paragraph of the review:
It’s an emotional rollercoaster, which ends with the final words ‘You will carry that weight’. What is that weight, you ask? Well, there’s only one way to find out! So buckle up and please, you don’t need to love anime, but just appreciate a good story to enjoy the masterpiece that is Cowboy Bebop.
The email ends with, "That makes a probable link between Spike and the tag... and I had no idea for, what, almost three years?"
Very early this morning, June 17, I published "Caroline, times never had the effect you'd expect," which discusses two different "Caroline" songs and notes that, since Carrie can be a nickname for Caroline, there may be a link to the "Cary Yale" post. In a comment there, Debbie again brought up the Abbey Road medley:
Also the word/name Carrie as a nickname or diminutiveof Caroline as in "Carry" that Weight,which has been in the sync stream of late along withGolden Slumbers. Which, weren't you 'slumbering' whenyou had the Carrie dream?
When I read the above comment, I was in a coffee shop, and the music playing in the background was "Calling Out For You" by L. M. Styles. Here's the chorus:
Restless heartPlease find your homeBack to the startWhere I’m calling out for youYou don’t have toCarry that weightMy every part isIs calling out for you
This last one isn't directly about "carry that weight," but in the "Caroline" post I noted that both the "Caroline" songs included references to hand-holding -- "hands touching hands" and "hand in hand." At 4:00 p.m. today, I noticed a Junior Ganymede post in my blogroll called "Handholds." It's a poem about the hands of his father, his mother, and Jesus Christ. Posts on that blog don't have specific timestamps, just dates, but my blogroll said it was posted "14 hours ago" -- so around 2:00 this morning Taiwan time. My own "Caroline" post was published at 2:38. Assuming that my blogroll would have rounded anything after 2:30 to "13 hours ago," the JG post must have been published just before my own post.
The "Handholds" poem ends with these lines:
My Savior’s hands are run right through.Times are when reaches down and grabs mine, pulling mefrom the rough chaos of the waterinto light and air.
Reaching down and pulling someone up out of the water would involve carrying their weight, at least for a moment.