Trouble - Cat Stevens

TROUBLE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9qkn7OlbM8

I have a friend (I will call them Trouble). I love them dearly but I have to pull back.  Simply put, misery loves company and I didn't sign up for the club.  I've tried to help you.  It is time to help yourself. Godspeed.




Trouble oh trouble set me free
I have seen your face
And it's too much for me
Trouble oh trouble can't you see
You're eating my heart away
And there's nothing left of me

I've drunk your wine
You have made your world mine
So won't you be fair
So won't you be fair
I don't want no more of you
So won't you be kind to me
Just let me go where
I have to go there

Trouble oh trouble move away
I have seen your face
And it's too much for me today
Trouble oh trouble can't you see
You have made me a wreck
Now won't you leave me in my misery

I have seen you eyes
And I can see deaths disguise
Hanging on me
Hanging on me
I'm beat I'm torn
Shattered and tossed and worn
Too shocking to see
Too shocking to see

Trouble oh trouble move from me
I have paid my debt now
Won't you leave me in my misery
Trouble oh trouble please be kind
Don't wan't no fight
And I haven't got a lot of time

Corinne Bailey Rae - Put Your Records On

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkEeNpWMvgk&feature=related

Put Your Records On...


I remember the days when I had my little case of 45s.  Complete with polka dots on the outside of Turquoise and lime green; my favorite colors to this day.  Watching the video of this song (linked above) I thought back to those times when you would ride your bike around the neighborhood.  Take your 45's to play on that little-record-player-in-a-box that every one owned.  It was the same one you listened to story albums on as a young child.  We were so low tech and sound quality was irrelevant.  If you could sing along, it was the best of times; nothing else mattered.  My sister will deny it, but there were a few Donny Osmond and Jackson Five sing alongs on our front porch. Sometimes with a coke bottle microphone.

Maybe sometimes, we've got it wrong, but it's alright
The more things seem to change, the more they stay the same
Oh, don't you hesitate.

I have a friend in my life that I can say would be the girl I want to go ride bikes with.  We went out recently to get a coffee and a wee bit of shopping. We found ourselves in a shoe store.  I found the cutest little sandals. But the best part of the outing was trying on some super heels.  We are old, well me older than her.  We are good sized women and we were being very casual in our very casual clothes.  My girl Sue decided we would try some on some really high heels.  We paraded and laughed...I almost wet myself (see I am older).  I look up and she is taking pictures.  It was a laugh like riding your bikes at ten and something funny was said.  It was so far away from a need or part of a plan. It was just a moment of pure unadulterated joy.

Girl, put your records on, tell me your favourite song
You go ahead, let your hair down
Sapphire and faded jeans, I hope you get your dreams,
Just go ahead, let your hair down.

These days of 50 seem to make me look back. There is definitely a nostalgia but I realize not in a sad wish-I -were-young-again way.  It is a desire to take stock, to put your ducks in a row.  You realize that life is not limitless and that which is a given today....loving on my dog, Sundays on the couch with D, phone chats with my sister, super heels with S... Those things might someday be a cherished memory.  My girl told me last week I was very philosophical that afternoon.  I realize am on quest.  It is time to figure out what things I want out of this life and go after them. 

So my past and my future are each very present in my today.  For my past, I often wish I could go back and just observe a day in my life to see what I would notice or remember. I can't help but think the most insignificant non-thoughts of the day would unravel me; because now I understand the constants of that life would someday leave me...forever (Albert the Cat, parents, grandparents, marriage, ability to do a cartwheel).

 And yet for my future I have to remember everyday seems mundane at the time you live it, but I need to pay more attention to be in the moment. I have learned to value it all.  I wanna live more days on my bike and just ride and listen to the birds and wonder what I will do until the street lights come on and it is time to go home.  Maybe, stop and put my records on...or play a little hopscotch in super heels with my girl S.

What I do know is ... I am going to figure it out.  I am gonna find myself somewhere (Africa?, Guatemala, Nicaragua?), somehow (service work, living abroad, off the grid?). Those things won't matter, what will matter is I am gonna live my life with my records on and maybe sometimes in super heels!

You're gonna find yourself somewhere, somehow.



un·a·dul·ter·at·ed    (n-dlt-rtd) KEY

ADJECTIVE:

1. Not mingled or diluted with extraneous matter; pure

"Put Your Records On"
Three little birds, sat on my window.
And they told me I don't need to worry.
Summer came like cinnamon
So sweet,
Little girls double-dutch on the concrete.


Maybe sometimes, we've got it wrong, but it's alright
The more things seem to change, the more they stay the same
Oh, don't you hesitate.


Girl, put your records on, tell me your favourite song
You go ahead, let your hair down
Sapphire and faded jeans, I hope you get your dreams,
Just go ahead, let your hair down.

You're gonna find yourself somewhere, somehow.

Blue as the sky, sunburnt and lonely,
Sipping tea in a bar by the roadside,
(just relax, just relax)
Don't you let those other boys fool you,
Got to love that afro hair do.


Maybe sometimes, we feel afraid, but it's alright
The more you stay the same, the more they seem to change.
Don't you think it's strange?


Girl, put your records on, tell me your favourite song
You go ahead, let your hair down
Sapphire and faded jeans, I hope you get your dreams,
Just go ahead, let your hair down.


You're gonna find yourself somewhere, somehow.


'Twas more than I could take, pity for pity's sake
Some nights kept me awake, I thought that I was stronger
When you gonna realise, that you don't even have to try any longer?
Do what you want to.


Girl, put your records on, tell me your favourite song
You go ahead, let your hair down
Sapphire and faded jeans, I hope you get your dreams,
Just go ahead, let your hair down.


Girl, put your records on, tell me your favourite song
You go ahead, let your hair down
Sapphire and faded jeans, I hope you get your dreams,
Just go ahead, let your hair down.


Oh, you're gonna find yourself somewhere, somehow

I Am Woman - Helen Reddy - 1972

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLV4BBmjnzM

I am woman, hear me roar
I was born in the early part of the 60's.  In 1972, the year this song was released I was 10.  Cutting my teeth on AM radio on a cool little transistor radio that I could wear on my wrist like a bracelet.  It had a psychedelic LOVE in the middle of it. I would walk around the block seeing the world beyond my street.  I would listen to Helen Reddy tell me I could do anything. I wasn't sure what that could mean but I knew I was thinking ..."the world is mine for the taking".  I could make a list as long as my arm of what I should have done early on.  I should have traveled, gone to med school, taken up a cause, fixed some broken piece of the world.  I didn't do any of those things.  I got married.  I learned to be a wife.  I learned to be a mother.  I learned to be a nurse. I learned to be divorced.  I learned to be myself.  So now at 50 ... I am ready to be who I am to be.  But I come to this place knowing that it took exactly the path my life has followed to have arrived at this destination. To land here as who I am. So I am happy to know that my path is what it needed to be.  I wished I would have known as that young girl that I could have counted on myself all along. I made some decisions I wished I didn't but in the end it is a peaceful place I find myself.
In numbers too big to ignore,And I know too much to go back an' pretend
I have lived to see over 18,000 sunsets.  I have spent 28 years parenting.  Decades married.  15 years, 2months, & 30 days orphaned. My numbers are too big to ignore.  I have learned some lessons, I have had a chance to see the goodness in them all. All these experiences add up to the here and now and I am happy.  I don't want the things I had at 30.  I am ready to live MY life.  I have no desire to be 20 again.  But I do desire to do the things on the path I didn't choose at 20.  But this time in my life I know what I can do. Don't get me wrong, I am not pretending to be 20, I am choosing to live with the freedom 20 might have held.  Now I can enjoy it.  I can savor it. I am not needing to rush ahead and start a family.  I did that.  I have two of the most amazing boys.  I am just craizy about who they are.  I love their friends.  I love their loves.  I love their children. I love that my ex helped me bring our children to this place.  I love that I can see him with someone else and be so happy for them both.  I can see myself with someone else and be happy too.    I don't need to go back, nor pretend.

'cause I've heard it all before & I've been down there on the floor, No one's ever gonna keep me down again.
Like every one with a few years of living I have had some tough days, dark nights, long cries, after short goodbyes. I've fallen enough to know how to pick myself up.  I know that no one, but mostly NOT me, will hold me down. I know I can ...now!

Oh yes I am wise
But it's wisdom born of pain
I guess that 10 year old self did not grasp that it would take some hard learned lessons before I would get to invincible  
Yes, I've paid the price
But look how much I gained
I have paid a price but not in a negative sense.  I have lived those days, hours, minutes and seconds.  I have put in the time to learn the value of living.  I have given my attention to the things that matter.  So as I get to this place, just as I stand ready to soar, my life is in order. I have held those that needed holding.  I have loved those that asked me to love them, the best I could.  And even those I had to quit loving, I still loved all the lovely things that made them, them. I have gained the understanding of forgiveness.  Oh how I have gained.
If I have to, I can do anything
I am strong (strong)
I can do anything.  I have learned that I can't literally everything.  But, I can be the link that joins two pieces together. The union that gets one step closer to the thing that needs to be done.  I am a part of something bigger than myself.  I am strong.
I am invincible (invincible)
I am invincible
I am woman
I am a woman.  A mother of sons. A sister of siblings. A wife (once removed). A girlfriend.  A nurse.  I am so blessed to be these things. I am woman.

You can bend but never break me, 'cause it only serves to make me more determined to achieve my final goal
It is because life has bent me.  It is because I have not been broken that I know I can count on myself. I can plan what I want to do, not what I think I can do. I went to Africa.  All by myself.  I knew no one.  I waited for a man to meet me and take me to an orphange.  The whole thing got craizy and I found myself a long way from home with no one at hand. I gathered myself and made another plan.  I took off to the coast and lived an amazing life (well a summer) like I was a global hopping superwoman and a little part craizy mother fucker.

and I come back even stronger, Not a novice any longer
'cause you've deepened the conviction in my soul
Africa taught me that I can do most any thing. I came back stronger.  I learned so many things.  I went from novice to learned on so many levels, but mostly inside myself.  It has taken me two years to get what meeting that challenge meant.  It has caused a shift in my soul, in my conviction,  in my hopes, in my dreams.

I am woman watch me grow, See me standing toe to toe, As I spread my lovin' arms across the land
I hope in this wonderful garden I have planted myself  that I will continue to grown and make myself ready to travel to other countries and live and work and be who I am.  I am thinking I am made for a true adventure. I hope to grow brave enough to be true to the adventure.
But I'm still an embryo, With a long long way to go, Until I make my brother understand
I am new at this faith in myself place.  I am not ready to fly away yet...but I am trying to make my way.  But my brother will never understand.  LOL He, like Superman, will never get it and they love me any way.

I am woman
I am woman.  I am a happy, peaceful, honorable, kind, forgiving, nuturing, woman.
I am invincible
I am invincible.  I am a constant, steadfast, stable, unbroken woman
I am strong
I am stong.  I am a solid, durable, determined, resilient woman
I am woman
I am woman.  I am.

Sweet Baby- Ted Hawkins

http://new.music.yahoo.com/ted-hawkins/tracks/sweet-baby--2005525
I am so glad you're mine

I don't know if anyone else does this but sometimes when I hear a song I think "this is a song I would want someone, fill in the blank...  (Son, sister, boyfriend) to put on a mix for me".  In this case, it is the song I would want my Superman to put on a mix tape to me. The words or feelings of the song seem to be exactly, well mostly what I hope that person would say to me.  This is one of those songs.

Sweet Baby,
 I consider this my song, not our song, but mine.  But I am ahead of myself.  Me and my Superman have both recently discovered Ted Hawkins.  We were hanging out at his house late one Saturday, the house stereo tuned to Bluesville.  Cocktails, not our first or last for the night, were cold in our hands.  Maybe it was a little-dancing-going-on-in-the-kitchen, kind of Saturday night. We heard our first Ted Hawkins tune and have been listening to him since...
No one can love you the way I do...
Under other circumstances that line would be so cliche' and not the one I want to hear.  I wouldn't be letting this song tell my story.  But, my Supe is Superman for a reason, HELL for a lot of reasons.  That is why this song tells my story, his story, his story with me. Well, actually maybe my view of him in my story. But back to the line...NO one can love me the way he does.  He makes it so easy for me to love myself.  Sometimes I look at him and I see this beauty in his face.  It is like the beauty of his smile is a reflection of what he sees in me. I get all wrapped up in that look.  That look that so clearly says, I am enough. Maybe I am even reaching being more than just enough....
And I can prove it cause I am gonna stay here alone with you
I can't really adequately explain my present without touching on my past.  I spent 3 decades with cheater.  The lies fuck up your soul.  Not just the lies they tell you, but more so the lies you tell yourself to keep standing there. Somewhere on that craizy (yeah I know it is spelled wrong.  I add the i  for an emphasis.  It places a little insanity in the middle of crazy)  but, in that craizy mess of days, I lost all trust, even in myself.  I was never enough.  I KNOW I wasn't enough for HIM. By the last decade of my marriage, I knew that no matter what he did, even if he changed, I would never believe it was for real.  He could never prove it to me.  The damage was done; I thought for always.  It was a given that I never really expected to trust anyone.  But along came Superman.  He would walk me over the minefields of healing, slowly and with encouragement. He has stayed...and he is alright with it being ONLY ME.  Yes, Supe proved to me the one thing I needed to know, that I am enough for him to stay here, ALONE, needing no others but me.
So I can kiss you,
In our story this is a question. Yes, he can kiss me.  That was how it started...I looked at him and said would you like to kiss me.  Well a kiss is never just a kiss. : )  I think I told him that too!
I Can't resist you, Again, such a cliche', yet not.  He can't resist me... not like some big fairy tale in the sky.  He can't resist me because we have agreed to write our own story.  We date (years, not months), we are committed but we maintain our separate lives.  He can't resist me because I am the only woman I know who can care and nurture him and yet see him maybe twice a week, never talk on the phone, and be glad to go home when I am ready to run my own world. Really we have a sweet deal.  Who can resist that LOL. I've lost my head over you, did you mean it when you told me you love me so
This go round, we are older.  We aren't looking for a repeat of the kind of commitments we needed in our youth. Our hearts aren't what is really on the table here.  This time we, or at least me...I lost my head not my heart.  I play my heart a little closer to the chest these days. I have told him I love him...not the "I love you"declaration floating out there.  But I tell him I love him ...so,  as in, I love you so because you are kind.  I love you so because I you like me. Some times I worry he won't understand, this isn't about holding back, but not cluttering the landscape with ties that bind.  I am past being "bound". He doesn't judge me because I don't have the "I love yous" of my early years.
Do you like it? You better believe I'm gonna let you know
Yes, I like it.  I like it cuz you do let me know.  You have said I am your addendum and that is perfect to me. You let me know at every turn that you are real in word and deed.
Now don't you dig me, tell me one more time
Yes, I DIG you, hell I like you!  Dig is old school.  We are old school.  We are New, Old school.
Ain't you glad you're mine?
Simply...YES
Does it feel good when I hold you in my loving Arms?
Yes it does.  Those arms are lovingly kind.  Love does not hurt, is what I know in his arms.  Being in his arms is safe.
Why do you tremble  when I am giving up all my charms...
I tremble because he gives all his charms to me, just me, only me!
Come and hold me darling, You're my desire
You ask me to hold you, I like not having to do the asking. In an unwritten dance, I hold you.  I hold your feet to the fire and remind you that you are among the living.  He in returns desires me. He wants me. Me, Just me!
Girl you set my soul on fire
That I know...wink wink, giggle giggle.  Who said this whole thing has to be about a lesson, or righting wrongs.  I know I got fire....it is MY superpower.
Did you see me dancing close to that beautiful girl? RU jealous, Betcha you're the maddest girl in the world.
If you were anyone else, I think I would be mad.  MAD that you were chatting with a friend at work.  MAD you talk about some one too much.  MAD that I have to look for hints in every exchange with you that you're about to pull the rug out from under my feet. MAD...MAD even when there is nothing to be MAD about.  Living with a cheater makes you like that. It starts our with you're getting MAD and ends up with you being MAD, Craizy MAD
Don't you worry darling, I would do nothing at all, that would cause your tear drops to fall
I know that...GOD I know that.  He has proved it over and over.  He has proven it with who he is.  He proved it long after the need to prove it had passed  This is life with a Superman.  He doesn't make you cry...and Cry and CRY
I am so glad you're mine.
And this line is the icing to my cake.... he is GLAD I am his. And that is why this is the song I would want him to put on my mix tape.  It is what I hear him say without words. On a mix tape it would tell me he wanted to know I heard what he was saying.  It is all the things he has said...in word and deed.  This is my song.  This is what I hear him sing to me in the everyday give and take of our lives....I am so glad!  I am so glad he is mine.  I am so glad,he is glad, he's mine.

SoulShine-Govt Mule

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXbsq3C4LZM&feature=related
Let your soul shine...
Soulshine, it's better than sunshine
It's better than moonshine, Damn sure better than rain.

I love this song, it is about hope.  I love the memory of the first time this song laid it's self on my life.  It was January 2009, the House of Blues, Houston.  I was with Superman, but I didn't really get that yet.

The song begins...
When you can't find the light,
That got you through the cloudy days,
When the stars ain't shinin' bright,
You feel like you've lost you're way,
When those candle lights of home,
Burn so very far away,
Well you got to let your soul shine...

He got the tickets from his children.  It seems they had decided to nudge him.  He was 2 years on the other side of a 30 plus year marriage that ended while the rest of the world was still racing for a cure. He asked me if I would like to go. It was so much more than that really.  He wanted to know if I would like to go as his date; stay the weekend. I said yes.  I said yes to the possibility of possibilities.  Possibilities I thought were past tense in my life.  For less heroic reasons, I was also 2 years on the other side of a 30 year stint.

He would tell his children he had asked someone and she had said yes.  I hope that they know I understood the small papercut they felt on their souls as they smiled a response on the surface to the news.  He said he told them it was a weekend date. This news lead the oldest of the sons to ask when they could meet her.  I suffered a little minor papercut myself when he told me he responded there is no "her".  At the same time I was equally relieved that this was not a declaration of coupleship.  I wanted to be a her, but only in his eyes.   This wasn't about the world seeing me with someone.  This was about me seeing me with someone.  Not just someone, but someone who wasn't the him of 30 years.  

Having navigated the weeks that would lead to our House of Blues night we packed our bags and headed south.  I know we had packed our hesitations along with our hopes.  You don't get to the other side of 30 years of a different life without a few scars whether your battles were heroic or not.  But I managed to contain those thoughts and I left home with the glimmer of hope. 

Just like my daddy used to say
He used to say soulshine,
It's better than sunshine,
It's better than moonshine,
Damn sure better than rain.

That weekend he opened doors for me literally and metaphorically.  I smiled a lot that night and I loved the band that somehow I had grown up not knowing.  He would show me his Gov't Mule and I would show him my ability to celebrate the beauty of life without reservation.  This ability to celebrate life was one I learned from my father. I had forgotten the beauty of being in proximity of a man who believes you are enough.  A 2nd lesson I had learned at my father's knee.  I had become tarnished in my now-over previous tour of duty.

I grew up thinking that I had it made, Gonna make it on my own
Life can take the strongest man, make him feel so alone
Now and then I feel a cold wind  Blowin through my achin bones
He said "Boy, it is the darkness before the dawn
Sometimes a man can feel this emptiness, like a woman has robbed him of his very soul
A woman too, God knows, she can feel like this too
And when your world seems cold, you got to let your spirit take control.

So for a weekend I wasn't who I had been most recently, but a glimmer of who I would later become.  Superman would hold my hand and I would allow myself this space. I realized I didn't need promises from him or to follow a path well worn by others.  It was a lovely weekend. I have several clear memories that it has taken me until now to see.  To see, that in the House of Blues in Houston, on a cold winter's day, I would take the first real step to leaving my blues behind.  I didn't fall in love, he didn't save me.  I wanted neither.  Simply, he gave me a moment that allowed me to listen to his band and to hear the distant echo of my fathers love. He helped me remember the faint feeling of being enough.

Oh, it's better than sunshine, it's better than moonshine, Damn sure better than rain
Yeah now people don't mind, we all get this way sometime

Gotta let your soulshine, shine until the break of day.