Everything - Ben Harper

I have been in a crazy assed mother fucking place these last 48 hours.  I have slept little...very little.  My feelings are on my sleeve.  FUCK that my heart is on my sleeve.  I am lost and found all in the matter of a nano second.  The only thing that is true to me right now is my music.  I sit here and this the most wonderful man I ever met (besides my father) isn't true and I thougth he was.  I think it is time to let him go.  is true, I just had to come to a place to need him and then find my way to trust that he could be who he was sure he already was.  But that isn't even the reason for this post. I am just trying to say what a crazy place I find myself.

I have been mad at everyone I love.  I am mad that an email BAMMED me so unexpectedly.  It was a sucker punch. I am mad that at 2:30 in the morning without a soul in sight I hear the D word.  I am mad that I did not have enough inside to even see that the sender of that email had been sucker punched and BAMMED a million times more than me....  I am mad at myself that I could not see past my own hurt.  And I am really mad that a man I thought was different,  isn't.  I am gonna face this alone...again, alone.  Okay I was wrong...He stood up a million times better than I thought possible.

Again not the reason for this post....just explaining why this song moved me this am to a torrent of tears from someone who doesn't cry.   I have spent another night walking the floor good for a moment, not good for a bit.  NOthing I can do about it.  And then just about as dawn breaks this song comes on. And the first line gets me...

"Behind all of your tears there is a smile.  Behind all of the rain there is  sunshine for miles and miles."

Yes...yes there is .

"You mean everything to me"

Yes, yes you do.

Over these last couple of days you have been "my first thought in the morning".  You have been my last thought "before I rest my eyes"

Yes, yes you have.

You mean everything to me, yes you do. 

I just love her so much and I sorta lost sight of that for the last couple of days.  Running the shit through my head, but not my heart.  The long and short of it, is it will be a long ride and yet a shortened one. The only thing I know, is I would not change a thing.  I would walk this walk with her.  I would chose her all over again.  I would face being disappointed by a man I didn't think would dissappoint me. (But it turns out I didn't have to...He was my rock!)  I would .... I would .... I would.   She means everything to me and behind our tears, hers, mine, her sisters, my sisters, our friends... we would because of the smile behind it all.  She is the smile. The laughter, the deep converstations, the adventures and the tears I would, we would all over again.  Except for Chicken Shit.  I already forgot his name.  (That was because Chicken Shit only existed in my mind.  I pushed him away without ever giving him a chance to "hold me up".  But he did and I let him.  I think that was my final letting go of my past.  It was an ephiany, a shift, a goodbye and a hello moment all in one.  I under-estimated him and myself...Lesson learned, I won't do that again). 

So I stand here knowing it is time to pick myself up, set my head clear and find the direction she has set... It is time to move past tears...there are still smiles and tomorrows in our future.  There is still sunshine for miles and miles.

Comes A Time

Comes a Time -Neil Young 1989

So my day started early today.  I had coffee with a friend.  I knew there was something coming when she made the request. I made her this sorta silly un-promise in a kinda non-conversation one spring night before things changed.  I had agreed to let her lead into something neither of us really understood the depth of.  She had cancer.  I feared losing her and I spent a weekend crying until I could come up fighting ...yet following.  So I didn't ask why she wanted to have coffee at 7 am on a Monday morning.  She isn't a morning person.  I was on to her, but I was blind sided anyway.

As life often is; a variety of troubles had to add to the mix.  Life though lovely is always complex.  Well she weathered those days and did it most graciously.  Or maybe it was that she kept a distance, taking the worst of it on her own.  The news recently was good and I let go of the long sigh I had been holding in. I let my guard down a tiny wee bit.  I hold my big cards close to my chest. She, I learned today is a big card. I am losing her and in a way to cancer.  I think her experience this spring set in motion the things she thought she'd like to do and moved them to the category of things she was going to do. I guess she woke up and decided to quit sleep walking through life (as we have discussed we are both prone to do). She has decided the time has come to direct her days, not to just pass from one to the next.  I see now that she gets that you can never really start over in the same old place.  So she is going to move several states away and be deliberate with the minutes and hours in a day, not the weeks and months of routine that had been adding up to a year.   It will hurt to let go, but it will hurt more to hold her. 

So as I thought of letting go today, I had some sad thougths. But I think the sadest part was feeling like I had lost an anchor to where I live.  It is no secret, I am not really at home here in this place.  It is rural and country and bible belt in bush country.  It is not me.  I can take the country, but not here.  Today it was like one of the ropes holding me here snapped.  I think that is the hard part.  She made here tolerable.

I had to drive to my Superman's house to borrow his old red truck to move some furniture around.  So I drove over after work and we were sitting on the couch and I told him...you are what holds me here.  Now any that know me, know I have struggled with my feelings for this man.  But today, I realized I learned my own lesson from cancer.  If you have someone you love, love em.  It doesn't matter what you call it, it doesn't matter what you say.  Just be true.  So as I told him, he said that is a lot of responsibility you are laying  on me.  He didn't say it like he was trying to widdle out of something, but like he understood I felt bound to him by my own thoughts.  I told him it wasn't no responsibility, just how I felt. He smiled but I knew he would.

So today in this craizy (yes, that is deliberate) roller coaster ride... I have let go and held on. It seems..."comes a time when we are drifting, comes a time when you settle down ... comes a time...comes a time.

I wish you the best Sister Friend...Anchor girl!

Life by the Drop - Stevie Ray Vaughn

Life by the Drop - Stevie Ray Vaughn

I love this song and it holds a very important story in my life.  One I haven't shared. But on this my 50th birthday, It is one of my most special songs. This song is the story of the day I found out I could live MY life.  So no details on this chapter, but I share the song that moved me. Lana, I don't know how you got lost, but I could not turn 50 and not think of this song.  Only you know the story. Peace be with you.


God Danced the Day You Were Born - Guy Forsyth

Thought, if you believe in God, a God, Any God...then your life was a gift.  It occurs to me that I would never want to squander such a beautiful gift.  Love the life you live, it is a GIFT.

Stop Children What's That Sound - CSNY

When I was 15 or 16, I stripped and waxed a liquor store, including bathrooms to get this Album.  You can't be my age and not have this song take you back.  It was a radical time.  It seemed scary at times.  Now what seems scary is that I don't hear teenagers caring about much of anything.  They are so busy being tethered to an electronic device that they are consumed by their own lives.  That is my rant as a newly old person.  But to be honest I wouldn't strip and wax a floor for 20 albums.  Maybe I am younger than I think LOL

Watching the River Run - Loggins and Messina

I can remember listening to this song in my late teens, just as I was beginning to realize that school days don't last forever.  I would soon learn that those friends would fade too.  This song is the hope of love starting new, "Don't feel alone anymore, when we are together I got a lot".  It also waxes nostalgic... "Further and further from the things that we have done, leaving them one by one".  I think my life is at the part where it says... "listening and learning and yearning, run river run".  I am willing to wade out in the water and let it take me where it wants.  Run River Run!

I Only Want the Things That Matter - Guy Forsyth

I wrote a post on this song some months ago, I was not comfortable with it and hit delete.  But I am ready now.  I have taken a step I did not think I had in me.  I now see with out the step, I would not be who I want to be.  SM Thank you for giving me your GRACE....It's pure SOULSHINE!


Turning 50 needed more than one song.  I put in one per decade...and even that was a paring down.

Summertime - Janis Joplin & Guy Forsyth

Summertime - Janis

Summertime - Guy

I live in Texas.  We have had a record setting summer. We are on our 25th straight day over 100 and and have accumulated an additional 10 days or so that hit the century mark for the summer...so far.  Add to that a record setting drought and it has been one hot and hard summer.  The headline in the local news about a week ago said "A Hurricaine might be a good thing for the Texas Gulf Coast"....say what???  Leaves are falling off trees and grass has long been withered. 
One might think it has been officially summer for a while now and I might agree, but it was officially SUMMER this week at my house.  Every year you reach a period sometime in late August when you can climb in the shower and never turn on a drop of HOT water, and still feel like the water is too warm.  That day was Tuesday of this week.  Now really what does one do if you sweat in the shower?  Seems to defeat the purpose.  The hard part is September is still truly a summer month.  I think September is the hardest.  Having grown up well north of my present location, September is the month you start to get cool mornings and a few cool days.  NOT in Texas.  September is like a 2nd August.  Which reminds me of a Texas weather joke...There are two seasons in Texas, Summer ........and January.  
This is our cabin fever time.  We all race to the comfort of our AC.  We don't want to go out.  Grocery shopping is a drag, lugging all that stuff to and fro to the car and then again into the house.  Besides who wants to eat when it is this hot?
I have had my fair share of Sonic Strawberry fresh fruit slushies and have come to love those frozen peach margaritas they sell at the grocery store.  I keep a big old thick stem glass in the freezer.  I grew up drinking RC colas at my grandmothers house out of that glass.  They came out of soap powder boxes. It seems to add to the treat! Holding that really cold glass adds to the heat relief.
Hurricanes, heat and frozen drinks...it MUST be SUMMERTIME

Why Walk When You Can Fly - Mary Chapin Carpenter

I remember listening to this CD during the winter, a cold one in Kentucky.  The kids were still young.  I worked part time and I was happy being a mother.  It was the first thing I found that I loved beyond my limits. That was a simple sentence, yet when I saw it as it appeared, I was hit by the depth of the of it deep inside. I loved those cold days where we stayed in our jammies all day.  We fought Gargoyles and watched old Abbott and Costello movies on VHS. I made lunches that had shaped sandwiches and laughed watching the two of them be BOYS. My sanity was to have music floating throughout the house.  I seldom do country, but this CD seemed to settle well.  Winter music is so different from summer music or spring.  Fall is also distinct. But Winter always was a little slower, a little deeper.  I don't remember what I thought in response to this CD, but it does stir me now.  I came across it by doing some online reading.  The good thing of no TV is that I do spend more time finding things to enlighten myself.  No I am not searching for self help, but just reading about sailing or how to bake a tart.  Sometimes I write things in my BB to look up later.  One on the list right now is "Are there fewer lightening bugs now than when I was a kid?".  So in a meander of some other searches I came across this song and decided to listen to it. I was thrown back to the days of my early parenting years.  Today, I can hear the words and have time to listen and think about who I am.  Who I want to be.
I think this song says it so well.  I know that in the coming months I think my new yardstick question will be "Why walk when you can fly".  I have been trying to think about a radical shift in how I live.  I spend without thought.  I am taking care of business, but my life is not leaving me room for my passion. I want to travel.  More than anything I value experiences.  It is my passion.  I am not talking staying in a hotel.  I want to have a more organic experience.  SO this song reminds me...With the rest of the time you are given, why walk when you can fly".  Do I really want the vase or do I want to have 8 dollars to travel. Do I really want a 40$ pedicure or Nicaraguan summer? I don't know what I will do yet.  It is on my mind.  This song helps me think about it with a point of view.  I don't want to take when I could be giving. So I guess I have some thinking to do.  Some more reading to do.  I love the line in the song, "In this world you have a soul for a compass, and a heart for a pair of wings".  So really, does that vase give me anything? I have to think what do I want, really want.

The last lines of the song make me think.  It was 20 years ago I was raising children listening to this song as background noise in the middle of happy chaos.  Now it reminds me it is time to be in a new happy chaos. 
"There's a star on the far horizon
Rising bright in the azure sky
For the rest of the time you're given
Why walk when you can fly"

Theme Music - Tree of Life

 

I went out tonight to see Tree of Life with one of my friends.  I need to see it again.  I have come home and my head is tossing information back and forth to find my take on a movie that is more like a book.  I say like a book, because it seems littered with themes and signposts to help the viewer question themselves as they decide what they saw, felt, wondered.  Each viewer will see something different, ask something different.

My friend did not care for the movie.  For me it was perfection.

Clearly the beginning lays out that we have two main thoughts on life.  We have God, Grace, and Love, (Creationism) and on the other we have Nature, Challenge and Logical Rhythms (Evolution). How you build your story will be up to the viewer based on their own lives and emotional path currently.  The music above is the same.  It has rhythmic circles, followed by billowy slowed passages, that come together in the end, intertwined.  Finally,as in the music,  Jack finds the balance between his logical constructing self and his emotional self...granting himself forgiveness. Grace. Love. God (Concept Fluid). 
I wasn't sure about how his brother died.  My friend seem to think he killed himself.  I should have asked her why she thought that.  I had drank a lot and I must confess although riveted...I had to sneak out for a ...slight break.  Maybe I missed something.  I thought he had been killed at war.  I assumed that as it looked like the man delivering the envelope wanted to leave it and go.  I assumed he knew it was "the telegram".  I need to see the movie again now that I grasp it. I have so many things I need more thought on. Oh how I loved the way the film conveyed the pure love of a first born in the first months of life. It made me remember the awe of my love as a new parent. The film leads you to lay your own memories out sparking your own heart.

The use of water was interesting.  The beautiful waves seemed full of life and promise.  The same water brought death to a child.  The views of the heavens in all the glory of Hubble photos sat next to the radiant sunflowers growing afield. Are these proofs of a wonderful God, or has nature wrought its self in perfection?
And lastly the movie seems to beg the viewer to question what does the choice of Grace or Nature mean to the individual.  Making one look at their own circumstance for answers. If Grace is the path, we are part of something bigger than ourselves.  We are created in the image of love and love flows through our lives (the mother).  If we choose nature, we live in circles that spin out of logic, and challenge.  We are somewhat insignificantly thrown in the mix.  Random. Cold. (the father).  The film seems to suggest Jack finds his balance.  But first he had to look at his self and ask... am I who I want to be.  His father has to come to terms with his own choices.  It reminded me of the the song
Cat's Cradle", his son had grown up just like him.  He had no great love or compassion for him.

Ahhh but these are just a few of the conversations taking place in my head. I have got to see this one again.  Only I think I will wait until it comes out on Netflix.  I want to see it with out the background slow snore heard in the theater. 

And to my GF....you can pick the next one.  : )

What I so wonderfully loved about this movie is that it has made me began a dialogue with myself.

Losing My Touch - Keith Richards

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

Losing My Touch

I love this song.  I know it is melancholy, but it is beautiful.  It is one of those songs that just sounds lovely.  Sometimes when down, I might go down that other road, but most of the time I just hear the beauty in this song.

I love the gravely-ness of Keith Richards.  I can also see how aging to a rock star might lay a heavy layer on ones being.  Knocking on 50's door myself, I can't help but identify with the reality of aging.  I for one see it in good ways.  I am losing my touch with a lot of things, but most of them I am glad to lay down.

I don't want to be 20 forever.  There was so much to learn, some of it, much of it the hard way.  Things were always needed.  Acquiring would be the word of that decade.  At 20 I was already years into a marriage.  I would become a mother twice.  I would go back to school and earn a nursing degree. Bought my first car, followed by a  house.  It is a blur.  NOW I know that.  I apply that to today and I try to remember I don't have to run anymore and that I want to be in the moment.  I learned that from my 20's.

I was 30.  That decade is the biggest blur in my life.  I remember little specifically during those years.  I lost my parents near the beginning of that decade.  I raised kids, worked as a nurse in critical care and thought ...well I thought a lot of things.  I listened to none of the truths in my heart.   Instead I listened to my pride, my vanity and my ambition.  I don't have to be ambitious anymore and I want to just do a good job.  Knowing that takes the pressure off myself to be perfect.  That pressure has made me an ugly person at times.  At 50 I can bring my art of nursing to my job and let the rule makers rule. I care more and worry less. I learned that from my 30's

There was 40.  40 had some good points at the beginning.  The kids  were almost grown.  Money was stable.  I started the decade good but push came to shove.  He pushed and shoving off seemed an appropriate choice for me.  In the middle there was years of fighting, screaming, hating, holding on.  The intensity was brutal most of this decade.  It was a crazy roller coaster ride.  So at 50 I seek sanity in myself and those around me.  I have learned, I don't like the roller coaster as much as I once did.  I learned that from my 40's.

So yeah, I am losing my touch.  I am embracing the calm.  Call it old, call it what you want.  I call it happiness.