Hey There Delilah

I don't think the radio gods & goddesses could've picked a more perfect song for me today, day one of in-person-total-loving-turned-long-distance-question-mark:

Don't you worry about the distance

I'm right there if you get lonely

Give this song another listen

Close your eyes

Listen to my voice, it's my disguise

I'm by your side

Oh it's what you do to me

Oh it's what you do to me

Oh it's what you do to me

Oh it's what you do to me

What you do to me

I'm not sure though, whether giving this song repeated listens will make me feel better or worse.

Here's what I do know: a new year is dawning and I'm pregnant with possibility. It ain't a baby, but it's a start!

When I'm Sixty-Four

Probably one of the hardest things to confront in new love after a divorce is the fear that despite the fact that it feels like something you can trust, something you can believe in, you're coming off an experience where something you once trusted and believed in blew up in your face, or died a slow death, or whatever metaphor fits. Doesn't really matter -- none of them are pretty.

You want a guarantee that it won't happen again. You want the answers to all the questions the Beatles pose in this classic:

When I get older losing my hair,

Many years from now,

Will you still be sending me a valentine

Birthday greetings bottle of wine?

If I'd been out till quarter to three

Would you lock the door,

Will you still need me, will you still feed me,

When I'm sixty-four?

But there are no guarantees. It just takes time to get to the point where it feels worth the risk. I'm there now -- but six months ago -- I wasn't. I don't think it is something you can rush, despite the desire to do so since it sucks so much to be in that lack-of-faith space. The surprise for me is that I didn't get there alone. I didn't get there through therapy. I didn't get there by talking to friends. Don't get me wrong -- all those things helped. But what really did it was opening myself to love again...

Hold On

It was inevitable that at some point during the visit, we'd have to confront the tough questions about what comes next. As it turned out, I think we did a pretty damn good job of mostly staying in the moment while also taking the opportunity to contemplate what future moments might hold for the two of us both separately and potentially together. For me, those discussions were often tearful -- and so today I dialed up my main-man for wallowing -- Tom Waits -- who had this beautiful offering to give us both some added comfort:

Hold on, hold on

You really got to hold on

Take my hand, I'm standing right here

You got to hold on.

Sometimes, I reckon that's all you can do. Lucky me, after holding on for what sometimes seemed like an eternity on my own after my divorce, to get to hold on with another soul, at least for a little while...

Medication

Thank goodness for Modest Mouse -- hearing this song today saved my blog from an official Huey Lewis and the News post.

Love-as-a-drug was a big theme I discussed with my visitor today, prompted in part by a still-in-bed-at-noon reading of a short story in the New Yorker by George Saunders -- an excellent, if a bit trippy, author. The story explores, among other things, how feelings of love can be brought on (and taken away) by drugs.

Love and lust do seem like drugs sometimes, and maybe they even are, to some degree. Maybe the key to being able to continue to enjoy them is, as with other drugs, to come to them from a place of knowing you are on solid ground and feeling good without them -- so that enjoying them is just an enhancement rather than something that feels necessary for survival.

I don't know, but I'm damn grateful for this recent opportunity to touch the place MM is singing about in these first two lines:

This is the part of me that needs medication

This is the part of me that believes in heaven

Where No One Stands Alone

I've got a good life. I've got two beautiful kids. Countless beautiful friends. And the resources -- financial, intellectual, physical, emotional, spiritual -- to truly enjoy both the big and the little things in life. Technically speaking, I don't need a romantic partner to enjoy much of what makes my life satisfying.

Take movies, for example. I love movies. I enjoy taking in a movie by myself and completely surrendering to the experience, and I've got some fabulous movie buddies who are only too happy to enjoy them with me and then analyze them afterward over a cocktail and some tasty victuals.

But can all that take the place of the feeling of getting to see a great movie intertwined (I'm talking hands, arms, legs and heads here, just to clarify, not serious PDA) with a lover? I'm going to have to say no.

As featured in the trailer linked above, this powerful little song written by Mosie Lister seems to come down on the same side as me on this issue:

Like a king I may live in a palace so tall

With great riches to call my own

But I don't know a thing

In this whole wide world

That's worse than being alone

Hold my hand all the way, every hour every day

Come here to the great unknown

Take my hand, let me stand

Where no one stands alone

Now granted, it isn't possible to hold someone's hand every hour every day, and at times, we all stand alone (with the possible exception of those who believe Jesus is always with them).

And I'll also grant you that it is possible to have had that powerful feeling with someone and then lose it -- my ex-husband and I used to love seeing movies together, and one of the messages I got that it was really over came to me while watching a movie.

Yes, that sucks. And it's really, really hard to get over the fear that it might just go away again if you let yourself love again. It is the great unknown -- but I reckon all of life is -- and it's so infinitely sweeter shared with a lover.

Crash

You've got your fading and you've got your crashing -- and sometimes, you're lucky enough to find someone with whom you get to do both at the same time. Which is fabulous, in many ways, but it makes for some really inattentive blogging. Over the last six days, I chose and saved a song to blog about -- but never got around to actually writing and posting them.

Now, with my lover back in the arms of his beloved Northeastern U.S. mountains, I've got a latte and my favorite sea salt and dark chocolate almonds by my side, and I'm in need of every bit of therapeutic goodness that writing does for my soul.

I don't have a lot to add to Dave's lyrics -- they do a pretty damn good job of describing my feelings on the first full day of the visit. I only have to take issue with one lyric -- it ain't just a boy's dream, Dave. I dreamed it too, and then, I got to live it:

Sweet like candy to my soul

Sweet you rock

And sweet you roll

Lost for you I'm so lost for you

You come crash into me

And I come into you,

I come into you

In a boy's dream

In a boy's dream

Touch your lips just so I know

In your eyes, love, it glows so

I'm bare-boned and crazy for you

When you come crash

Into me, baby

And I come into you...

A very merry Christmas, indeed!

Fade Into You

I am one lucky woman. I've had a fabulous day today celebrating Christmas with my kids and my parents. So many thoughtful emails, texts, calls, cards and gifts have arrived. And to top it all off, I have a man on his way to visit me who told me that Fade into You is the song he'll be hearing tonight when I pick him up at the airport:

I want to hold the hand inside you

I want to take a breath that's true

I look to you and I see nothing

I look to you to see the truth...

For a grown-up like me, the opportunity to fade into another person for a few days is the most exciting gift I can imagine unwrapping -- Thanks, Santa!

Christmas Lights

So many Christmas songs, but this is the one that is speaking to me tonight, because it seems to be about the mixed bag that Christmas can be. It's true -- the lights are pretty -- and they can help light a fire within:

Oh Christmas lights

Light up the street

Light up the fireworks in me

May all your troubles soon be gone

Those Christmas lights keep shining on

But on the other hand, they sometimes seem to illuminate what's missing along with what is here:

Those Christmas lights

Light up the street

Maybe they'll bring her back to me

Then all my troubles will be gone

Oh Christmas lights keep shining on

As for me, I'm not really missing anything that isn't already here or on its way. But I am feeling overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the task of preparing for this magical holiday. I've got a few more tasks to complete tonight -- I'm celebrating with my kids tomorrow -- and before I go to sleep, I think I'll sit and enjoy those christmas lights for a few more minutes and see if I can feel more of the magic and less of the mayhem...

Better Days

I heard this beautiful holiday song in the car yesterday, and as the Goo Goo Dolls launched into it, I was with them 100 percent:

And you ask me what I want this year

And I try to make this kind and clear

Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days

Cause I don't need boxes wrapped in strings

And designer love and empty things

Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days

It's true. As happy as designer jeans make me for a fleeting moment, they don't come anywhere close to the gift of love. I didn't always have that understanding, so I'm especially grateful to have it now. With this understanding, I feel quite sure that if we could all come back to our heart space, we would find better days.

This week I was fortunate enough to be able to have a conversation with someone who has been tremendously successful at doing very similar work to what I was trying to do by bringing yoga to teachers in schools -- support teachers from the inside out. We talked about the challenges ahead in education reform and he recommended I read a book called Love and Power. I love that someone has written a book with that title, and I definitely intend to read it. I'm hopeful that it has tips to help ensure actions come from that vast, all-powerful heart space.

Speaking of vast, all-powerful heart spaces, for the Christians among us, Christmas is a natural time for moving back into that space. But even for those who do not celebrate the birth of a savior on Christmas Day, the holidays offer a reset button in the form of a New Year. So whether it's Christmas or New Year's that puts your finger on the button, let's make sure we reset it to love for 2011:

Take these words

And sing out loud

Cause everyone is forgiven now

Cause tonight's the night the world begins again

And it's someplace simple where we could live

And something only you can give

And thats faith and trust and peace while we're alive...

If I Could Turn Back Time

Heard this song today, and as Cher sang out:

If I could turn back time...

I thought: "I wouldn't." And I marveled that, at least for today, I have no desire to turn back time or change the past. I feel content being in the here and now, with all of its complications and (seeming) lack of perfection.

This might not seem like a big deal, but coming from a woman whose favorite movie was once Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which is all about erasing the past -- it's a pretty big deal.

I wouldn't have said the same thing a year ago, and I may not be saying the same thing tomorrow. But for now, I'm going to enjoy being right here in this moment, content with everything, just as it is...

Rehab

I was contemplating using a holiday song today since Christmas is getting so close -- and I probably will over the next few days. But when my ipod fired this feisty number up this morning, it spoke to me. For the past couple of years (since this fully loaded ipod came into my life) it's been a song that makes me reach over and crank up the volume, but this is less because of the subject matter and more just because I happen to love Amy Winehouse's emphatic wail. She seems to inspire strong feelings -- people seem to either love her or think she's pretty ridiculous -- and somehow, I feel a kinship with her.

Anyway, this morning as I was flitting around trying to make sure I was all lined up to do the 50 things on my list for today (made longer and more complex by holiday preparations), this song came on and I really heard the rehab part. It reminded me, once again, how hard the holiday season is for a lot of people. I was first introduced to this concept when I started going to Alanon -- up to that point, I thought everybody else was happy during holidays and it was just me that felt overwhelmed and weighed down by the ghosts of holidays past. I'm so grateful to that program, because it creates a space for people to be real about the really ugly parts of their lives - -and the unburdening that comes from sharing this and knowing others feel the same way goes a long way toward allowing people to co-create more joyful holidays in the present.

I remember when my sister first suggested to me that my Dad was an alcoholic and I should go to Alanon -- I was 15. I finally walked through the door of my first meeting when I was 34. What took me so long? Well, part of it is a very human piece of not wanting to reveal the messy feelings to others that Amy articulates here when she talks about her resistance to rehab:

It's not just my pride

It's just 'til these tears have dried

The other part is that it was a club to which I had no desire to belong -- and I guess somehow I thought if I didn't admit how profoundly I was affected by being raised in an alcoholic home -- it would somehow not be true. But in fact, all of my relationships were being affected by the past and without having an understanding of how this was happening, I really didn't have a shot at getting beyond it.

Probably the most profound lesson I learned in that program was how to check in with myself about what I am feeling and then understand that I always have choices about how to deal with those feelings. I was talking to a friend today who has also come to this get-to-know-your-feelings space later in life about just how huge this revelation is.

Take, for example, how I treat holidays now. I go out of my way to do all the things that help keep me feeling good -- yoga, acupuncture, meditation -- I am clear with my family about what my boundaries are -- and, to the best of my ability, I express my needs and surround myself with people who are willing to hear what I'm feeling and respond accordingly. And as you can imagine, this makes for a much more peaceful holiday season...

Wishlist

One of my partners in crime last night was kind enough to create a playlist for her ipod that we fired up during the journey to and from our party destination this weekend, some of which she'd taken from these pages, and some of which will be showing up here in the future posts. That's one of the things I'm enjoying most about this blog -- how it encourages people to share their music with me.

Anyway, so we're driving along this morning, and one of my friends was telling a story when this song came on, causing me to exclaim: "Pause the song or pause the story, but please don't talk over my Eddie!" Fortunately, all three of us find something sacred in this sound, so after my friend finished his story, we drove across the winter scape while this song transported us somewhere else entirely.

So many things I love about this song, but first and foremost, its sound. 

And as usual, I don't just like the sound, but the lyrics he is singing. There are those that are seasonally appropriate:

I wish I was a sentimental ornament you hung on

The Christmas tree, I wish I was the star that went on top

Those that just work for me -- evoking a powerful image:

I wish I was the full moon shining off a Camaro's hood

And those that are brilliantly simple, yet forcefully resonant messages:

I wish I was as fortunate, as fortunate as me

No more wishing over here, if I can help it. I am, in fact, as fortunate as me. Thanks Eddie!

It's the Girls Night Out

You know those things in life that you talk about doing all the time but then never quite get around to doing them? You can always find a reason not to -- too busy being the primary reason. So it was for months when it came to taking a road trip to visit a friend who, though she lives in the Dells, has stayed in Madison after work to party with us many times. She's been asking us to come basically since we met her over a year ago -- and today we made it happen.

When we first started planning the trip, I thought it was going to be a girls thing -- but then we decided to bring the lone dude from the group that we're all really close to too.

When this number started cranking up on the internal jukebox as I got ready to go, I hesitated before settling on it, since, as I explained, it wasn't just a girls night after all. But then on the drive up there, when our (honorary wo)man held his own in the girliest of conversations, I decided it was fitting.

I really dig a dude who can hang with the ladies, you know? Especially a dude who, later in the night, joined me on the karaoke stage in a rousing rendition of Sweet Child O' Mine. I hadn't had enough booze to sound like Axl, and he didn't sound much like him either, but it was our night to play indeed:

It's the girls night out

N-n-night out and there's

Nothing you can say, baby

It's the girls night to play

Our night to play

Don't wait up for me...

Faith

My friend called me up yesterday morning, and I shared with her some confusion I've been trying to work my way through. The confusion stems from two things I'm working on cultivating that are seemingly in conflict with each other. I think George is struggling with these in this song, too, or at least, it started playing (in my head) right after my conversation with my friend.

On one hand, I am trying to live in the moment and fully enjoy the present without letting the past pull me back or the future pull me forward. That goal leads me to the enjoyment of the temptation George sings about here:

Well I guess it would be nice

If I could touch your body

I know not everybody

Has got a body like you

At the same time, I am working to cultivate faith in love. I really think that more than any other element, this is what I didn't have going in my first marriage. And I'm beginning to think that it's a prerequisite for a happily ever after type union.

But how, when it comes to my exploration of new love, can I manage to both remain in the moment and have faith in love at the same time? Doesn't the faith in love part necessitate a contemplation of the future? Nope, said my wise friend. "Faith in love requires believing that two people come together for a reason, to love each other. Maybe that leads to happily ever after and maybe it doesn't, but if it doesn't, it doesn't have to erode your faith in love."

I hear what she is saying, but it scares me a little bit. Ok, a lot. There's a huge part of me that is with George on this:

But I've got to think twice

Before I give my heart away

And wants to shut down when it encounters the uncertainty created by being in the moment rather than talking/thinking in a way that involves more certainty. (Not that there is such a thing as certainty, anyway!)

But then I go back to the other thing I'm working on, and affirm:

Yes I've gotta have faith...

Tangled Up in Blue

Last night I was reminiscing a little bit more about my outspoken British boyfriend, which explains why I woke with this song in my head. It was such a long time ago now, but it seems like yesterday that he played it for me in his dorm room, singing along with Bob:

Early one mornin’ the sun was shinin’,

I was layin’ in bed

Wond’rin’ if she’d changed at all

If her hair was still red...

I like to think that when he hears this song now, he thinks about me, too -- and I'm guessing he probably does. Besides the general excitement of being with him -- he was in a band, he was super funny, he had a really sexy northern-England accent (of the un-moneyed variety), he spent a few hours in "the clink" one night for assaulting someone that he caught looking at my ass (at the time it seemed romantic, now it seems like a sign of a rage disorder brewing) -- we had a really great connection. He came to visit me in the States after I got back home, and we had some good times; I have one particularly fond memory of being up at my cabin, out in the sun on the dock with his guitar, helping him write songs. But he started distancing himself from me pretty much from the moment he got here, declaring: "I'm not going to be waitin' by me mailbox every day, Sarah, just livin' for your letters. So you can forget about that."

Yep, the summer of '92 was the last time I saw him in the flesh -- but to this day I get a little bit of the same excitement when I see someone who shares his essence. My friend and I have long referred to these as "TW sightings" -- TW are his initials.

And although I would quite like to see him again -- I have some regrets about stones left unturned -- it is probably better that I both carry with me and continually encounter these positive aspects of him in others -- since the chances that I would still be able to see and enjoy them in him are not good. My friend told me she saw him a handful of years ago. He'd become a bobby (police officer) and was humorless and unfriendly, at least the night she saw him. That broke my heart a little bit.

More years have passed now. Maybe, like me, he's got his joy back now, or maybe he's still tangled up in blue. I don't know. I'm hoping for the former -- and enjoying Bob's variation on our story:

She turned around to look at me

As I was walkin’ away

I heard her say over my shoulder,

"we’ll meet again someday on the

avenue,"

Tangled up in blue.

Just the Way You Are

My daughter is starting to discover pop music, and when I heard her singing this song, I was really grateful for its message. I tell her all the time that she is beautiful, but as these lyrics articulate, there's a huge difference between hearing someone say that and believing it yourself:

Yeah I know, I know

When I compliment her

She won't believe me

And it's so, it's so

Sad to think she don't see what I see

It's hard to imagine the hottie in this video having moments of self-doubt, and yet, I don't think anyone is immune to sometimes having difficulty with their reflection in the mirror.

Why is it so much easier to relish all the features of someone you love and so easy to find fault with ourselves? Part of it has to be lack of self-love. I also think part of it is cultural. I've been recently reunited (thanks Facebook) with some dear friends from the year I lived in England (1991-1992).

One of the most striking things about British culture for me was that it is significantly less superficial -- and there isn't so much emphasis on weight. I gained 20 pounds the year I lived there and I remember one of my British boyfriends proudly proclaiming to me: "you're alright looking and you've got a belting personality!" and fully believing that was a compliment. At the time, I believed it was, too. When I got back home, I was appalled and repulsed by my body and immediately started trying to change it. Some of that was positive -- I wasn't healthy, I didn't have as much energy - but some of it was negative -- suddenly I was back to equating being thin with being attractive or accepted or desirable.

One of my long-lost British buds posted this on my Facebook wall the other day: "Gosh! You look just the same!" And my first thought was: "Is she crazy?" And then I marveled at that ability to look and see a person's essence -- not whether or not they have one less chin -- and set the intention to cultivate that ability in myself:

When I see your face

There's not a thing that I would change

Cause you're amazing

Just the way you are

Daytime Friends

My book group had a rousing discussion last night of Graham Greene's The End of the Affair. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. Masterfully written, it deals with all of the big questions of belief, faith, love, lust, commitment, marriage -- you name it. We talked a lot about what love is, and about whether one can love someone and not be jealous if they are with someone else. Most agreed this was not possible -- that to share the intimate space you occupy with your lover with another without being jealous just doesn't work.

For my part, I've tried to be a grown-up participant in an open relationship, believing I had the magnanimity to be ok with it, and was unpleasantly surprised to find myself wicked jealous. The lone (brave) man in my group thinks he would be ok with it too, and wondered if maybe my reaction would be tempered with time and repeat experience. It very well might be, but I'm also not sure that sharing my man is something I particularly want to get good at. Another friend with experience with open relationships says that the key is not to know. But then something is necessarily lost in terms of the intimacy with said loved one, and then we're back to square one.

What is love? What is a successful marriage? What is the right thing to do if your needs aren't being satisfied within your marriage? The Catholic church has one answer, and Dan Savage another. I'm not really sure where I fall, except that I know I cannot abide deception. Without honesty, I don't think you can have intimacy. At least not in a meaningful way.

Contemplating all of these questions, the song that played internally was one from waaaaaayyy back -- probably because it was the very first song I heard that dealt with some of these same issues. I was 6 when "Daytime Friends" was released, and my Mom being a Kenny Rogers fan, I remember hearing this song playing often in our house:

Daytime friends and nighttime lovers -

Hoping no one else discovers

Where they go - What they do -

In their secret hideaway

Daytime friends and nighttime lovers -

They don't want to hurt the others

So they love - In the nighttime -

And shake hands in the light of day.

And I remember not really understanding it - wondering what did they do in their secret hideaway? Now that I'm 39, and I know exactly what two people do in a secret hideaway, the lyrics that particularly strike me are these:

And when it's over - there's no peace of mind

Just a longin' for the way things should have been.

And she wonders - Why some men never find

That a woman needs a lover and a friend.

The woman in the book, whose name is also Sarah, definitely doesn't have a man who understands that -- so she goes outside her marriage to find it. Is she right to do this? Is she wrong? I don't know. I only know that this Sarah is entirely capable of choosing a man who can fully embody both roles...

Kingsport Town

Yesterday a big old winter storm blew into town and seemed to hit me on both a physical and emotional level. Today I'm feeling grateful that once again, there's a song that articulates my pain -- written, as they so often are, by Bob Dylan -- and performed hauntingly by Cat Power:

The winter wind

Is blowing so strong

My hands have got

No gloves

Wish to my soul

That I could have

The boy I’m dreaming of

And it's an especially good thing, on these dark, cold nights of the soul (oops, I mean of December) that I've got music to help keep me warm...

(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman

Today is a day upon which, for many years, I celebrated the birth of an incredible man. Why should this year be any different, just because we're no longer married?

This song came to me as the tribute to him for several reasons:

1) He was the first man to truly make me feel like a natural woman.

2) He loves this song, and used to sing it to me frequently. He has a beautiful singing voice, and can even hit all the high notes.

3) This song was co-written by Carole King and was recorded on Tapestry, the first album he ever purchased. This, I think, is one of the most awesome things about loving someone -- learning these little facts about their lives.

It's true -- he stopped making me feel like a natural woman -- but all of the things that made him marriage material for me are still there -- with a little extra sprinkling of wisdom and yeah, a few more wounds. May this be the year he finds someone else to whom he feels like belting out this beautiful song...

I'm afraid youtube lacks a recording of my ex-husband singing this song, so you'll have to make do with Aretha Franklin, Mary J. Blige, or Carole herself, back in the day...

Like a Prayer

On the last night of Hannukah, we had some friends over for dinner, one of whom was surprised to learn that I celebrate the holiday even after leaving my Jewish husband (who didn't heavily identify with the religion of his heritage anyway). I explained that I really get that ritual and tradition are huge for kids, and I feel like this is part of the traditions of their ancestors so it's worth carrying forward. Plus, I really like it.

At the same time, without a devout faith, our celebrations of both Hannukah and Christmas can feel a little devoid of meaning and sometimes start to feel overly commercial. I try to explain to my kids that for me, these holidays are about getting to spend special time together doing fun things (which can include but isn't limited to playing with new toys). Most of the time I think they get it. And hopefully they can feel it -- because that's so much more important than hearing someone say something anyway.

What I'd like to understand myself, and teach my kids, is the importance of having faith. It doesn't have to be faith in a deity, but I do think it necessarily involves faith in something you can't readily see or explain, which I think includes love.

Probably the most wondrous part of having children for me was immediately coming to understand and have faith in love beyond what I had ever felt or understood to be possible before they were born.

I know there is no more powerful force, but as I work to embrace this powerful force in my lovelife, there's more opportunity for my old wounds to get in the way.

The ipod shuffled onto this number this morning, and listening to it, I've decided that having faith in love is what I want most to cultivate this holiday season and into the new year. I'm going to have a perfect opportunity to practice this, with a man arriving on Christmas Eve to spend part of the holidays with me. And not just any man. A man for whom it is true that the very first time I heard him say my name, it felt like home:

Life is a mystery, everyone must stand alone.

I hear you call my name and it feels like

Home

Remembering that moment and all that has transpired since, having faith in love doesn't seem so hard. And I don't feel like I'm standing alone, either...

Love Takes Time

Earlier this week, when I showed up at Speed to teach my yoga class, the instructor before me was cooling down her cyclists with this tune playing in the background. It's been with me ever since -- I mean it comes and goes, but it hasn't gone away.

How to explain this? It could just be the insipid lyrics and catchy, pop tune. But I'm inclined to think there's more to it than that.

Feeling into it this morning, this is what I'm getting: although the healthiest, loveliest part of me knows that love is abundant and I'm just as worthy of it as anyone else and that all I need to do is be clear about what I want and it will come, there's another less lovely, less healthy part that sometimes likes to have its say. And that part tends to use language like "I shouldn't have..." and "What if I hadn't..." and "Maybe if I just..." and other such phrases that feed into the idea that things need to happen a certain way, what I do controls (or helps control) what happens, and that there are right and wrong choices and if you make the wrong one, you're left alone with only your regrets to keep you company.

Seems to me that is largely the voice that Mariah is listening to here:

Love takes time

To heal when you're hurting so much

Couldn't see that I was blind

To let you go

I can't escape the pain

Inside

'Cause love takes time

I don't wanna be here

I don't wanna be here alone

Sorry, Mariah. Although you and your voice are beautiful, your message doesn't help reinforce the beliefs I want to have about the world and what is possible in my own life. I have to trust that if I let go of someone, yeah, I might be lonely, and I might be blind to what is coming next, but I can have faith that if I'm following my heart, love will find me in no time.

Sweet Child O' Mine

When this fave o' mine came on in the car today, both kids simultaneously asked me to change the station -- complaining that they didn't like the screaming. Really? Is it possible not to like Axl's screaming?

I'll tell you who's screaming I don't like -- mine. But this morning, the combination of a mom who hasn't been as focused on her serenity and a sweet child o'mine -- a 10-year old boy with long hair that he sometimes refuses to comb -- made for a not-so-pretty scene in the bathroom before school.

Walking to school with my daughter, I told her that I didn't like it when I scream (she said she doesn't either) and that I'd grown up with a screaming mother and really don't want that for my kids. "Well," she reassured me, "Daddy doesn't really scream, but he does say the F-word." Yep, we all have parenting moments of which we're not proud. It's part of the deal.

Tonight, long after he should have been asleep, my son came downstairs while I was working on this post and the song was playing in the background. Funny how much more curious he was about the song and its singer when it meant putting off bedtime. I didn't mind too much, though -- after the way our day together started out, I can't really think of a more satisfying ending than having a moment where I could bury my face in his shoulder-length locks while singing:

Her hair reminds me of a warm safe place

Where as a child I'd hide

And pray for the thunder and the rain to quietly pass me by

Whoa, oh, oh, sweet child o' mine

Whoa, oh, oh, oh, sweet love of mine...

This Woman's Work

I woke up early this morning, head pounding after one two many two-hearted ales (which for me means two) last night, with this song floating through my subconscious and landing in my conscious mind.

I think it's here for a couple of reasons. One, I've been recently made aware of the need to allow more feminine energy into my life, and was led last night to a yoga class that was taught by a woman who is powerfully harnessing her goddess energy. That woman has found her work. I can only imagine what would have happened if I'd walked into her class a year ago -- I wouldn't have been able to stay present to it and absorb it the way I did last night. (Though my level of discomfort might have something to do with the multiple imbibing that took place during my meal out after the class.) That's alright though -- I don't have to do it all at once -- baby steps...

Which is a good segue into reason number two. Before I got married, I always saw myself with four children, but I married a man who wanted only two. We compromised on three, but by the time we had our second child I was feeling the need to close the baby factory for repairs.

It's back in action now though, and the universe has been letting me know in big and small ways that I can indeed have another baby -- all I have to do is put it out there that that's what I want -- so that's what I'm doing. And I'm trying to do it not by having regrets about the past or by needing to control the future:

Of all the things we should've said,

That were never said.

All the things we should've done,

That we never did.

All the things that you needed from me.

All the things that you wanted for me.

All the things that I should've given,

But I didn't.

Oh, darling, make it go away.

Just make it go away now.

Sometimes I'm more successful at doing that than others -- and once again I see where the second ale came in last night -- my very own little effort to make it go away...

Why

Yesterday I had the somewhat surreal experience of sitting at a cozy coffee shop in front of a fire explaining why I got divorced to someone who herself went on a couple of dates with my husband while separated from her own husband, to whom she has since returned. Yes indeed, that was one complex sentence -- but modern love is pretty damn complex.

Why, she asked, did we decide to split up? There were a couple of levels of discomfort for me in this conversation -- one of them being the difficulty in finding authentic words with which to answer honestly but not in a way that villainized my ex-husband -- and the other being the difficulty in hearing another woman say: "I just couldn't leave my child(ren)."

In response to the second, I said, simply: "I can understand that. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do."

And in response to the first, well, I tried to explain that what it came down to, for me, was the fact that when we were first together, he SAW me -- in that beautiful way that enabled me to be an even better version of myself -- and then it seemed to me that he wanted to keep seeing that exact same person, and when that wasn't what he saw -- when I changed -- he, out of fear, disappointment, old wounds -- who knows? -- but for whatever reason he stopped being able to really see me in a way that felt life-affirming to me.

This song was huge for me when I split up with my husband -- and apparently I'm not alone -- Annie's introduction in this video talks about how this song resonates with people who've been through a divorce.

I love all the lyrics to this song and have, on numerous occasions, screamed them, tears streaming down my face, usually while driving in my car -- but this part of the song contains the real emotional catharsis for me:

And these are the years that we have spent

And this is what they represent

And this is how I feel

Do you know how I feel?

'Cause i don't think you know how I feel

I don't think you know what I feel

I don't think you know what I feel

You don't know what I feel

Train Song

Listening to music last night before I fell asleep, this somber tune came on, and I was instantly transported into the magical world of Tom Waits.

As I listened to the chorus:

Well it was a train that took me away from here

But a train can't bring me home

I thought just how profound a statement it was. Just having finished the memoir about drinking, it seemed particularly fitting -- and though I've ridden the train taking me away from me driven by booze, I've also jumped on a few other trains in my life -- the most addictive of which, for me, has been men.

Obsessing about them has been really effective at keeping me from feeling and dealing with my own stuff, but as Tom says, that never led me back to me.

As I've worked to put down this obsession, making more room for real experiences (most of which exceed my fantasies since most of those were based, at least in part, on my previous experiences), I am finding myself again.

Still, I find that even a relatively healthy relationship with a man can lead me away from me -- and the more willing I am to jump on the train that brings me home -- which for me is most often yoga, meditation, running, rest -- the more at home I am in my own skin, the better I feel, and the more I have to give to others...

Flashdance... What a Feeling

This song has long been a perennial favorite, and from time to time I've used it as my "theme song" to help motivate me to live the life I want to be living, even if it means making some significant leaps from the one I find myself living:

First, when there's nothing but a slow glowing dream

That your fear seems to hide deep inside your mind

All alone I have cried silent tears full of pride

In a world made of steel, made of stone...

But I've never had the pleasure of understanding it on the literal level until Saturday night, when I went to see my friend's creation -- a dance theater production -- and performance:

Well I hear the music, close my eyes, feel the rhythm

Wrap around, take a hold of my heart...

I felt so lucky to have, literally and figuratively, a front row seat to the manifestation of the pictures in her head coming alive. And while I get to observe this friend's strength, creativity, grace, and beauty in other aspects of her life, it's never quite so purely expressed as when she's on the dance floor, taking her passion and making it happen:

What a feeling, bein's believin'

I can have it all, now I'm dancin' for my life

Take your passion, and make it happen

Pictures come alive, you can dance right through your life

This is the gift of the artistic world, I reckon: It allows us to witness this power in others and get in touch with the fact that we all have that same power within us, we just need to find where we can most purely express it.

I Had A Real Good Mother and Father

My relationship with my son has always felt, despite his own particular set of challenges, pretty easy -- solid -- steady. Not so with my daughter -- we tend to have higher highs and lower lows. She's like a little version of me -- and sometimes I want nothing more than to embrace that version wholeheartedly, and other times it involves me having to face something in myself that I may not really want to face. If I don't, though, she'll just show it to me again.

I noticed something with her today that I've noticed before, but today was the day I was ready to really take in the lesson, you know? And here's what I noticed: The more welcoming I am to my own parents, the closer my daughter seems to feel to me. Or maybe the easier it is for me to feel close to her? Or both? It's probably both. I know it's all connected.

And so, for her, for the little girl in me, and for the grown-up woman and mother I am today, I'm forging ahead into what has been, at times, a precarious relationship with my parents.

I love this Gillian Welch song, and I know that whatever pieces of history I could bring up as evidence that its title does not hold true for me are only some of the pieces. When I'm willing to look at the whole picture -- I see two human beings doing the best they can do in this life.

So while Gillian laments the loss of her parents, having already passed on, and hopes to meet them in heaven:

I know that if I can not meet them on high

Then how lonely I will be

For what good is my journey

If I miss out on eternity

I'm going to keep trying to meet mine right here on Earth, knowing, as my daughter reminds me, that embracing them is, to an extent, necessary in fully embracing myself.

For what good is my journey, if I can't do that?

Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby

My babydaddy's out of town at the moment, and my kids requested to take care of the pet menagerie at Dad's house in his absence. Since they're too little to go it alone, that means I'm on the hook for taking them over there, to my former marital home. No big deal, I thought. Enough time has passed, and besides, I've recently found love in other places.

Now granted, I was feeling angry when we arrived. Somehow the festival of lights had become, for my kids, all about what gifts they get, and that didn't sit well with me. Neither did the fact that they really didn't eat the dinner I made them and protested mightily when I asked them to clean up the mess they made making me a Hannukah present (what kind of present is that?).

Even so, walking through the house, I really wasn't prepared to burst into tears as I looked at all the pictures, particularly of our firstborn when he was a wee lad. Pictures, mind you, that I'd lovingly framed for our family. Sigh.

The song that came back to me as I fell to the floor and cried (the kids were off with their pets so I was free to let it all out), was this one:

Is you is or is you ain't my baby?

The way you're actin' lately makes me doubt

Yous is still my baby-baby

Seems my flame in your heart's done gone out

A woman is a creature that has always been strange

Just when you're sure of one

You find she's gone and made a change

There is, of course, a layer of meaning related to the fact that I is no longer his baby. But the main reason this song is so strongly tied to my feelings about my former husband goes back to the day our son was born. He had a very traumatic birth, and his grayish-blue body was rushed to the NICU almost immediately after he came out. I had lost a lot of blood and was pretty out of it, so it was my husband who went with him. Later in the evening, my sister and my mom managed to get me into a wheelchair so they could take me upstairs to see my newborn baby. When I got there, his Dad was rocking him steadily while he sang:

Is you is or is you ain't my baby

Maybe baby's found somebody new

Or is my baby still my baby true?

He was never one for children's songs, and this Louis Jordan number really charmed our distressed babe. When he tried to hand our son to me so I could hold him, he started to cry in such a heartbreaking way that I just handed him back to his Dad and listened and watched while he sang, heart bursting with love and sadness and gratitude. Which is not unlike how I feel right now...

We are the World

This morning I had the pleasure of starting my day by having coffee with a beautifully brilliant and brilliantly beautiful young friend (I told you I'm prone to using superlatives but take my word for it -- he's deserving of them). We talked about his career trajectory (which he appears to be launching while still an undergrad), my career trajectory (which I didn't launch quite so earnestly but which is evolving in pretty awesome ways nonetheless), politics, the fate of America, not being responsible for your partner's happiness in a relationship, delayed gratification, why so many people start out idealistic and end up jaded -- yep, we left very few stones unturned.

The theme we returned to -- more than once -- was that the only real solution to many of this country's problems is to do a better job than we currently do at educating our populace. Having enjoyed a couple of months of underemployment, I'm about to dedicate myself full-time to that task. And I'm going to do it by being willing -- no, insisting -- on finding common ground with all the parties involved -- no matter their political or interest group affiliation.

I can think of no better lyric to underscore this sentiment than Cyndi Lauper's portion of the original We are the World tune, written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie:

Well, well, well, well, let us realize

That a change will only come

When we stand together as one...

I love this song. I love so many of the artists who participated in the original -- Stevie, Kenny, Tina, Michael, Bruce, Bob, Ray -- and I love the sheer magnitude of all of these artists raising their voices together, knowing they could make a difference (their cause was aid to Africa).

Twenty-five years later, some musicians -- many from the current generation -- remade this song to help motivate people to come together in the wake of the earthquake in Haiti. I don't recognize as many of these artists as I'm sure my coffee date from this morning would -- but it occurs to me that the difference between he and I -- and the difference between the artists in the original and those in the remake -- is just on the surface. Underneath, we want the same things: a peaceful country to both live and believe in, the satisfaction of making a difference, and love.

Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough

No, no, no.

Sitting on the meditation cushion this morning, the lyrics to this song paid me a visit, but rather than just listening, I felt the need to argue with them:

There's a danger in loving somebody too much,

and it's sad when you know it's your heart you can't trust.

There's a reason why people don't stay where they are.

Baby, sometimes, love just aint enough.

No #1: I don't agree that you can love someone too much -- only that you can, in the process of loving someone else, forget to love yourself enough to make sure that your needs are being met.

No #2: I don't agree that it's ever your heart you can't trust -- the problem is that we're sometimes too afraid to hear what it's saying. (Later in the song, that lyric morphs into "and it's sad when you know it's your heart they can't touch" -- now she's speaking my language -- yes it is. But this we can control by keeping our hearts open.)

No #3: I don't agree that love is sometimes not enough -- and this closely echoes No #1 -- only that it's sometimes not distributed in a way that serves everybody involved. But it's always enough.

How does one love another without losing oneself? I think this song came to me this morning because I'm contemplating stepping back into a professional role similar to one where I almost completely lost myself. The prospect scares me, and leaves me wondering if it is possible to be super passionate about something but still remain sane and grounded. To want an outcome, and work tirelessly toward it, without taking on the stress related to trying to control that outcome? To sleep peacefully at night even while embroiled in difficult situations during the day?

I feel like what I've been learning, recently, when it comes to love, is that to refuse to engage when my heart is saying yes is a recipe for unhappiness, even if it means having to deal with a greater level of vulnerability. Perhaps the same is true of my work in the world?

Who Is It

True confessions time: when I say "my ipod" I mean the fully loaded ipod that a dear friend gave me shortly after I split up from my husband. My life was seriously devoid of good music at that time, and she'd just inherited a newer one from her (then) boyfriend. It was never clear whether it was a loan or a gift -- although, whether I get to keep it or not, it has most definitely been a gift. It has made possible moments like this one, where I'm not quite ready to get out of bed, and I have the luxury of reaching over, turning on said ipod, and having all kinds of little surprises come out.

Like this one from Bjork, a woman who possesses not only a beautiful, distinctive voice, but unparalleled visual artistry to boot. Looking at the lyrics of this unknown-to-me-until-this-morning song, it seems she is talking about Jesus or a God of some sort:

His embrace, a fortress

It fuels me

And places

A skeleton of trust

Right beneath us

Bone by bone

Stone by stone

But when I hear this part:

If you ask yourself patiently and carefully:

Who is it?

Who is it that never lets you down?

Who is it that gave you back your crown?

Another layer of meaning emerges for me. I was chatting yesterday with a friend about choices we've made about boyfriends in the past and we talked about this propensity to stick it out with someone even when it is so clear that they don't make you happy. Why do we do it? Could be that mammalian desire to be next to someone, could be that perpetual promise of unrealized potential, could be a failure to be honest with ourselves or to hear others when they attempt to be honest with us... And it's probably a combination of all of those things.

In any case, I'm doing it differently this time around. And part of that means an honest assessment of whether a relationship makes me feel like the best version of myself, or leaves me feeling frustrated, as I have in the past, in the wake of broken promises and emotional distance.

I get it, she is talking about God -- but when it feels right, there's something very God-like about love, even, or maybe especially, as considered in human form:

He demands a closeness

We all have earned a lightness

Carry my joy on the left

Carry my pain on the right

Closeness. Lightness. Sharing of joy and pain. These are the new definition of love for me...

Closer to Fine

I have a tendency toward the superlative -- and one of the ways that manifests itself is with me thinking, quite often, as a song comes to me to blog about: "this is one of my all-time favorite songs!" I don't know how many all-time favorite songs one person is allotted, (and if I did, I'd insist on having at least one more), but this song has to be on that list. I can't really overstate what these two seemingly self-assured, free-to-be-themselves women meant to me when I was trying to figure out what kind of woman I wanted to be. When I was listening to them often, in my late teens and early 20s, I didn't have any idea who I was in a lot of ways, and worse, I was too afraid to sit still or stay sober long enough to find out.

But they spoke to me -- and through all the booze and the self-consciousness that were so characteristic of that time in my life -- I heard them. Even if I couldn't ground myself in what I learned from their songs in my own body or in my own life, I believed in their truth, and that in itself was a comfort.

Those hard partying days are up for me right now because I'm reading Caroline Knapp's Drinking: A Love Story. It's an excellent book -- chock full of insight into why so many people choose to drink (heavily) and, more specifically, why so many women choose to drink to feel more comfortable with their sexuality. The answer? Because it works -- temporarily, at least.

Though I was often hungover myself while listening to this song, my two favorite lesbians nailed in this verse what we're often looking for but can never find in a bottle:

I stopped by the bar at 3 am

To seek solace in a bottle, or possibly a friend

And I woke up with a headache like my head against a board

Twice as cloudy as I'd been the night before

I went in seeking clarity...

These days, I am closer to fine. Because now I know that all the clarity I need is within me -- sometimes I access it by writing, or talking to a friend, or going for a run in the woods, or meditating -- and if clarity's not on the top of the priority list -- I like to change it up -- I can enjoy a tasty beverage and it's accompanying glow - not because I need it, but because I want it.

Fumbling Towards Ecstasy

I can think of at least 5 reasons why this song came up on my internal shuffle this morning:

1) Like the electronic variety, sometimes my own shuffling mechanism seems to get stuck on a particular artist;

2) Spending time with my Aunt and Uncle this Thanksgiving, I heard how the cousin who lost his wife when I lost my friend is doing, which brought up the many songs I shared with her, this one included;

3) On my brother-in-law's new 55 inch television, I was exposed to larger-than-life NFL for so many hours on end that I'm still thinking in football metaphors;

4) I can think of no better way to describe what I'm doing, and really, what all of us are doing in this life when it comes to learning to love than fumbling towards ecstasy; and

5) Sarah's lyrics are as close to an anthem as I can imagine for where I am on my own path at the moment:

All the fear has left me now

I’m not frightened anymore

It’s my heart that pounds beneath my flesh

It’s my mouth that pushes out this breath

And if I shed a tear I won’t cage it

I won’t fear love

And if I feel a rage I won’t deny it

I won’t fear love...

She's Already Made Up Her Mind

When I heard a couple of days ago that my neighbors will soon be joining me in the world of divorce and parenting children in two separate homes, I felt a mix of emotions, the first of which was most people's initial reaction to my own similar news: say it ain't so. Having been on the receiving end of many such reactions, I checked myself and managed not to say something like that which, for me, just made it harder.

Still, I can't deny it. It's what I felt when I heard the news. This even though I know that all four of the people directly affected by my own divorce are happier now. We humans want to keep things wrapped up in tidy packages as often as we possibly can -- and if our own lives can't be wrapped up neatly -- we still crave the tidy packages in the lives of others. I guess it all comes down to my favorite answer: non-dualism. It doesn't have to be one or the other. It isn't either tragic or a positive thing for all parties when an unhappy marriage breaks up: it's both.

I don't know the story of their breakup, but I have both noticed and read about a common theme -- more women are leaving their marriages than men -- one statistic I saw put it at 3 to 1. I've been thinking a lot about this, and plan to keep thinking about it. It looks like the next immediate career juncture for me is going to be related to education policy, but eventually I'm thinking about leading retreats for couples that would have a radically different approach than couple's therapy -- which, as you may know, is notoriously unsuccessful at saving marriages, even when that's the overwhelming desire from both spouses. I don't have it all figured out yet, but I reckon that a big part of it would be getting to the couple before, as the incredible-at-vocalizing-the-melancholy Lyle Lovett puts it, she's already made up her mind:

Now there is nothing so deep as the ocean

And there is nothing so high as the sky

And there is nothing so unwavering as a woman

When she's already made up her mind...

Stayin' Alive

As if to help with my holiday preparations, this tune started playing on the internal sound system yesterday evening. In a lot of ways I think of this as a happy number -- it's the kind of song that gets people of all ages out on the dance floor. And in a lot of ways I feel pretty happy about the fact that it's Thanksgiving, and, except in the years that I actively resisted, the fact that Thanksgiving means getting together with extended family. But not in every way.

I've been working hard over the past few years to shed all the yucky associations from my childhood -- and the Thanksgivings of my youth are right up there on the list of the top five yuckiest parts of being me as a kid. Growing up in an alcoholic home, holidays meant that Dad drank too much, Mom got stressed out, and kids were expected to stay at the (tense, uncomfortable, shame-laden) table even longer than we were at normal meals. The aftershock of that has left me with zero desire to cook a turkey, any of the fixin's, or even to sit down for a meal at all.

In my mid 30s, I went to Alanon meetings for a period of time, where I learned that my feelings about this holiday were really common for people who grew up in the same environment, and I saw firsthand how, for the people who had it worse than I did, or who for whatever reason didn't survive with as much of their spirit intact as I did, quite literally felt that staying alive was the best they could hope for over the holidays.

Being confronted with all this pain was profoundly depressing, yes, but it also helped reveal to me that I have choices -- I can choose to stay mired in that, I can choose to cut myself off from my family and from the Thanksgiving tradition so many others are embracing, or I can redefine the holiday for myself.

This year, I'm happy to say I'm choosing option three, which, today, means feeling profound gratitude for my children and my niece, who were here to snuggle with me this morning; all my beautiful people who are with me in spirit if not in body; and my own combination of courage, willingness and yes, desire to embrace my extended family this afternoon and sit down at the family table.

Oh yeah, and let's not forget, John Travolta in his prime:

Whether you're a brother or whether you're a mother,

you're stayin' alive, stayin' alive.

Feel the city breakin' and everybody shakin',

and we're stayin' alive, stayin' alive.

Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive, stayin' alive.

Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive...

All I Really Need

Today was friends and family day at my kids' school, and part of the day's events included a sing-along, which pretty much guarantees water works for yours truly. The simple truth of this one really got me going:

All I really need is a song in my heart

Food in my belly and love in my family

All I really need is a song in my heart

And love in my family...

That is all I really need, and probably all anyone really needs, but tonight I'm sending out love to those who aren't getting what they need in one category or another. Me, I'm feeling fortunate to have all I really need -- and I'm extra grateful that Frost the dog unwittingly recorded a video to illustrate this sweet song...

Closer

These Scottish lads are such a treat, and although it was another of their fine tunes that my ipod played this morning, it's this one that has my number today. It so beautifully expresses the jumble of feelings involved when we invite someone to come closer.

The whole song is great, covering in the first verse the inevitability of having to deal with each other's "unfinished parts" (otherwise known as baggage), whether we do it consciously or unconsciously, and the distancing that naturally comes with that at times:

I've had enough

of this parade

I'm thinking of

the words to say

We open up

unfinished parts

Broken up

it's only love

And then from the beginning of the chorus, an expression of faith about what this new love could contain that stretches all the way to a promise that I'm not convinced we can ever really make, as tempting as it is to say and as wonderful as it is to hear:

And when I see you then I know

it will be next to me

And when I need you then I know

you will be there with me

I'll never leave you

Followed by the invitation, which sometimes comes out more like a plea, to come closer:

Just need to get closer, closer

Lean on me now

Lean on me now

Closer, closer

Lean on me now

Lean on me now

After which comes the inevitable feeling that at times the other person isn't quite close enough, whether physically, emotionally, sexually, spiritually:

Keep waking up (waking up)

without you here (without you here)

another day (another day)

another year (another year)

Sure is complicated -- but so worth at least getting out there and inviting what we want to come closer and seeing what comes up in ourselves...

One More Cup of Coffee

My ex-husband, a movie buff, always used to say that my taste in movies is "actor-driven," meaning that if I like the actors in a movie, I'll be more likely to want to see it, and more likely to like it. True statement, but based on my selection of The Ballad of Jack and Rose at the library this weekend, I may be ready to revise that. Because even though watching and listening to Daniel Day-Lewis on the screen is a delight for me that is pretty much unparalleled by any other actor, and even though Catherine Keener is one my all time faves, and one of the women I contemplated to play me in the movie of my life (at least in the scenes when I'm older and less joyful than I am now -- which come to think of it, won't work, because I'm not planning to go backward in terms of the amount of joy I have in my life -- so as I get older I'll have more of it, not less), they couldn't save this disturbing movie for me.

But you know what almost did? This song playing during one of the final scenes. I have always loved this song, even if I've never really understood it/put it in context beyond the desire to linger just a little bit longer with a lover. But it really seemed to have been written about the wacky experiences of the characters in this not-so-fine (in my opinion) film.

The video linked above features Bob, face painted like a mime, singing his original version, but you can also check out these fine covers: Frazey Ford (formerly of The Be Good Tanyas, her voice possessing a definite hint of Dylan) and the better known one by The White Stripes.

As for me today, I think I'll have one more cup of coffee before I go -- though it isn't a lover I'm languishing over with my coffee this morning, but my friend's chocolate Guinness cake -- and I'm decidedly not headed to the valley below...

I May Know the Word

Yesterday I had the first chunk of time to myself that I've had in days. It seems like there are a million things I want to do with this open space that's created when my kids go to school, or back to their Dad's, especially now that I've quit my job, but I'm finding it difficult to organize myself to do them. Particularly the larger tasks, like writing a book. It's frustrating, because it writes itself in my head all the time, but it's so much harder to sit down and do it. Why is that?

Last night, I did what I so often do when I feel like this -- I put on some music and I started with a really manageable task: cleaning up the kitchen. There's something so satisfying for me in making that little room all shiny and put back together properly. That's got to be a metaphor. As I cleaned I listened to one of my favorite old CDs: Tigerlily. I hadn't taken it out in years, and I've certainly never been struck by this song quite as hard as it struck me last night:

I may know the word

but not say it

I may know the truth

but not face it

I may hear a sound

a whisper sacred and profound

but turn my head

indifferent

I may know the word

but not say it

I may love the fruit

but not taste it

I may know the way

to comfort and to soothe

a worried face

but fold my hands

indifferent

I may know the word

but not say it

this may be the time

but I might waste it

Indifference, which Wikipedia defines as the suppression of emotions such as concern, excitement, motivation and passion, is not something I associate with myself, but there has to be an element of that going on here. If so, I'm putting out the same call Natalie does at the end of the verse cited above:

Something move me

Someone prove me wrong

Before night comes

with indifference

And I'm adding this: If I know the word, let me say it, and let me say it in a way that can benefit others. I know this is the time. Don't let me waste it.

The Blower's Daughter

I've spent a bunch of my life judging myself or others for "needing" to be in a relationship to be happy -- for wanting that loving feeling "too much." I'm here to say I'm done with all that. Guess what, people? We're mammals. We feel better closer to each other. It's warmer, literally and figuratively. Guess what else? When the warmth goes away with the person we're married to or in a relationship with, we're going to seek it elsewhere. Can we work really hard to prevent that from happening? Sort of. We can work really hard, but sometimes we can't see what needs to happen to fix it, in ourselves or in the other person, and I think we need to cut ourselves some slack as a species and stop holding ourselves up to some cultural expectation that often involves staying in a space where the love's no longer flowing.

In the best of all possible worlds, when we find ourselves in that space, we tell our partner it's over before we put out the mating call again. But this learning how to love, both ourselves and others, well, it often involves not the best but the worst of all possible worlds -- especially when we become driven by a fear that love is scarce -- and feel we need to possess to feel secure.

As hard as I tried after I left my husband, I couldn't stand to hear about him dating other people. Until I started to let the love in from another man, and then I was suddenly cool with it. At first I judged myself for that, too. But I get it now. I was just afraid that love was scarce, that I'd given up my chance for it. Once I knew that wasn't true, I felt so much more able to let him go.

Damien Rice's haunting voice was one of the most powerful parts of a powerful movie grappling with this subject: Closer. And in this song, he arrives at the same conclusion I do here:

I can't take my mind off you

I can't take my mind...

My mind...my mind...

'Til I find somebody new

The First Cut is the Deepest

This song has been with me over the last few days, but it took listening to it during the predawn hours that are so often most filled with clarity for me to understand what it was here to say.

About two weeks after I had my second child, I lapsed into a depression so deep it threatened to swallow me, a place so dark I could not even find my own husband. I was scared. I was (or at least I felt) totally alone.

Then one day, in that lonely state, I was driving in my car when I heard Sheryl Crow's cover of this song:

I would have given you all of my heart

But there's someone who's torn it apart

And he's taken just all that I got...

And I started thinking about my first love, which at the time I thought was that first deep cut. I reached out to him, hoping he could still see me, even in that dark place. He did. And thus began the emotional affair that I'm going to guess remained so (rather than full-blown) mainly because there was an ocean between us -- I certainly didn't have the strength at that time to throw back the life preserver he represented.

Quite a few years and a lot of healing later, I now understand that the first cut came, as it does for so many of us, not when I was a teenager falling in love but when I was a small child. And as I work to shed any part of those childhood experiences that hold me back from giving and receiving the love I want in the present, this song -- and in my mind it's most often Rod Stewart's version of Cat Steven's original -- still resonates:

I still want you by my side

Just to help me dry the tears that I've cried

Cause I'm sure gonna give you a try

And if you want, I'll try to love again

Baby, I'll try to love again, but I know

The first cut is the deepest, baby I know

The first cut is the deepest...

Just Breathe

Driving in my car yesterday, this song came on just as I was pulling into my destination's parking lot. At first I was bummed about the timing -- why couldn't it have come on while I was driving? And then I recognized the opportunity I had to do exactly what my man Eddie was inviting me to do:

Stay with me...

Let's just breathe.

Such great advice. And while there are few things I like to imagine more than staying with Eddie, or any man who proves to be a physical incarnation of what I feel in my bones every time I hear Eddie's voice, the message I'm getting this morning is to stay with myself and just breathe.

Staring some not-so-easy feelings in the face these past few days, in meditation today I recognized and felt grateful for the grounding I now feel in my own body on this earth. Being grounded in my own body allows me to know I'm going to be okay regardless of whether I'm able to access an external source of support in any given moment. And having found this freedom in myself, I'm able to share it with my loved ones, of which, like Eddie, I am blessed to have many:

Oh I'm a lucky man, to count on both hands

the ones I love...

And I don't have to be experiencing a physical incarnation (a hug, an email, a phone call) to feel and be able to trust that love. Just look how much love I've gotten from Eddie through his songs all these years, without a single physical encounter!

On My Honor

Last night I found myself objecting to the term "honorable" used to indicate that one should behave in a certain way, when a lot of the time, I think that the best way to honor ourselves is to question how we "should" behave. Then this morning in meditation, I was visited by a song that I wasn't sure would be on youtube, but lo and behold, I found a version of it being sung by Girl Scouts at a campfire:

On my honor, I will try.

There's a duty to be done and I say aye.

There's a reason to be here for a reason above.

My honor is to try and my duty is to love.

Hearing this rendition, I was filled with the mixture of emotions that Girl Scout memories bring -- nostalgia, for one -- but also, on a deeper level, a sense that what I learned from songs like this and other troop experiences both reinforced parts of me that were good and wise and helped externalize the authority about what constituted goodness and wisdom. I don't think the latter is a good thing, but I do think it's a really common message that we give kids: you're good because I say you are, not because you feel and know the goodness in yourself.

For me at least, the fact that the messages I received about how I behaved didn't always match what I knew to be true inside has made for a confusing sorting out process that I've had to undertake as an adult. Yes, my honor is to try and my duty is to love -- but I also have a right to sit one out when I have good reason, and doing so may well be honoring myself -- and similarly, sometimes people's behavior warrants a response other than love, such that, at least in the moment, my duty to myself might well dictate the opposite emotional reaction.

The Buddha taught that it is wise to internalize the authority, so that we are all the ultimate judges of what honors us and what our duties are -- and I find so much more space to breathe in that teaching than I do in those song lyrics...

I'll Be

This was one of those mornings when I woke up with lyrics in my head and then had to do a little research to figure out the associated song. Turns out it is a song by Edwin McCain, whom I've never (consciously) heard of, although my subconscious must've been grabbed by the song enough to file it away and then bring it up on the early am internal shuffle today:

I'll be your crying shoulder,

I'll be love's suicide

I'll be better when I'm older,

I'll be the greatest fan of your life.

Why this song, this morning? I have a couple of thoughts. The lyrics range from confusing (what does "I'll be love's suicide" mean?) to effusive:

The strands in your eyes that color them wonderful

Stop me and steal my breath.

And emeralds from mountains thrust toward the sky

Never revealing their depth.

Tell me that we belong together,

Dress it up with the trappings of love.

To that rare combination of confusing, effusive, and a little disturbing:

I'll be captivated,

I'll hang from your lips,

Instead of the gallows of heartache that hang from above

And I was just saying last night how grateful I am to be in a space now (yes, in many ways i feel like i'm better when i'm older) where I can be really effusive without feeling embarrassed or self-conscious. That makes for much more unrestrained joy, which makes it even easier for me to both be and embrace another as the greatest fan of my life...

Baby Don't You Break My Heart Slow

This song came back to me in a dream-like state, which is fitting, because I recall it from my days of watching Calista Flockhart and her imaginary dancing baby on Ally McBeal.

Taken as a whole, I think the song is a really lovely little discourse on long-term love relationships that eventually go awry. Hearing it, I can access both the positive feelings about my own 13-year relationship:

I like the way you wanted me

Every night for so long baby

I like the way you needed me

Every time things got rocky

And the feelings related to what I wish we'd done differently:

But I'd rather you be mean than love and lie

I'd rather hear the truth and have to say goodbye

I'd rather take a blow at least then I would know

But baby don't you break my heart slow

Because, although I'd put it a little differently than Vonda does, I think the meanest thing we can do to ourselves and to the other person in a love relationship is lie - to ourselves or to the other person -- even though it is so often the path of least resistance that we humans want so badly to be walking.

I don't really believe my now ex-husband and I could have done anything differently, because I think we all do the best we can all of the time with what we've got to work with, but hopefully I've learned some significant lessons that I can carry forward into the next relationship. And I think for me, the biggest lesson is one in being willing to see what's happening in the present, feel my feelings (even the ones I don't like), and then speak from my heart about them without trying to steer either of us toward a specific outcome. Even if that means having to say goodbye...

Forgiveness

Over the last few days, I've been dealing with some really uncomfortable feelings that came up in an exchange with a loved one. And as I so often do, I tried to deal with those feelings in some way other than just to feel them: set conditions, create distance, etc. I then began to feel remorse for the way I'd reacted, remorse that insisted on hanging around even after I'd asked for and received forgiveness. Which is when I realized that maybe the person I most needed to forgive was myself. Because even when we behave in ways of which we are not proud, we usually have a reason. And when the reaction is out of proportion to the current experience, often it is because it carries with it anger, fear or pain from a previous experience.

Grappling with all this, I went to my beloved youtube and searched "Forgiveness." That's how I found this beautiful song, by this equally beautiful woman who was nice enough to keep me company throughout much of the 90s:

And you ask for forgiveness

You’re asking too much

I have sheltered my heart in a place you can’t touch

Don’t believe when you tell me your love is real

Because you don’t know much about heaven boy

If you have to hurt to feel

Besides just being really lovely to watch and listen to, this song has a couple of nuggets that resonate with me. One is her line about not knowing much about heaven if you have to hurt to feel. I've been there, and I've watched (and still watch) others who are there, and it's such a painful place to be.

The other nugget is related to why it is so difficult to get out of that painful place of needing to hurt to feel -- and that is sheltering one's heart in a place the one who hurt you can't touch. To some extent this is important for self-preservation, but on another level, it is only when the heart softens that it is in a position to feel love...

November Rain

This fall in Wisconsin has been one of the sunniest and warmest that I can ever remember. That might be partly related to my own considerably sunnier and warmer feelings about the world these days, but we also have had really phenomenal weather. But it couldn't last -- we knew it couldn't -- and, much to my chagrin, the shorter days and colder rains are setting in.

Thank goodness we have Axl (accompanied by Elton John, no less), to remind us that the cold November rain, its accompanying darkness and the desire to go inward, won't last either:

Sometimes I need some time on my own

Sometimes I need some time all alone

Everybody needs some time on their own

Don't you know you need some time all alone

And when your fears subside and shadows still remain, oh yeah

I know that you can love me when there's no one left to blame

So never mind the darkness we still can find a way

Nothin' lasts forever even cold November rain

You're My First, My Last, My Everything

Such dangerous territory, these feelings about which Barry so powerfully sings:

The first, my last, my everything

And the answer to all my dreams

You're my sun, my moon, my guiding star

My kind of wonderful, that's what you are

I know there's only, only one like you

There's no way they could have made two

You're all I'm living for

Your love I'll keep for evermore

You're the first, your the last, my everything

Because almost without exception, no one is going to be anybody's first, last and everything, the answer to all their dreams, their sun, their moon, and their guiding star, and if there are exceptions to this, I'm pretty convinced they aren't healthy. So why do we crave that feeling so much? Why do we feel so euphoric when we think we've found it, in the arm's of a lover, and so devastated when we realized that we haven't really found something all-encompassing after all?

In her book, Necessary Losses, Judith Viorst talks about this being a totally natural human tendency that stems from having once been in a womb, a womb that was warm and safe and had all that we needed, and then cast out. On one level, not usually conscious, we walk around trying to find another womb to crawl into -- and when we find one it feels so good -- but of course, it can't last. Just as a mother couldn't be pregnant forever, we can't be someone else's everything for long, and in neither case would we want the opposite to be true. But understanding that doesn't make being cast out of the womb, literally and figuratively, any less painful...

Respect

Tonight I went to the annual dinner of a conservative think tank. I was invited this year, for the first time, because I recently wrote a paper for them outlining what I view as the needed education policy reforms in my home state of Wisconsin (which, in case you're not up on this, changed from blue to red in this past election). It is safe to say I was in the minority in the room, which can be a bit of an uncomfortable feeling. The keynote speaker was the Governor-elect, and the only person in the room besides me that I recognized as having worked for our outgoing Governor was the security guard I'd seen when I had meetings with the Governor at his residence. Speaking of the Governor's mansion, the Gov-elect told a funny story about being bummed about having to spend his Saturday raking leaves rather than bow-hunting and being reminded by a friend that he won't be raking any leaves for the next four years. He's not likely to be doing much bow hunting, either, if he's anything like our current Governor -- the job basically requires you to work almost all of the time.

And while I by no means agreed with everything the Governor-elect talked about last night, I really believe that in order to solve some of our most intractable problems, urban education being one of them, we're going to have to come together and work with people whom we may have previously viewed as being on "the other side" or even "the wrong side." And I think Aretha's got it right -- the key ingredient to having this arrangement work, whether it's a man and a woman or liberals and conservatives, is respect.

Right now, I think that respect is lacking from both sides of the aisle. Against my protest, my son thinks nothing of calling the candidates he doesn't support "idiot," and as I was driving home, I saw a giant billboard that said "How's all that Hope and Change working out for ya?"

So this is my challenge, both to myself and to anyone else willing to take it on: even when we don't agree with someone's else's views or decisions, can we look not for the differences but for the commonalities? Can we then see if we can use this common ground to work toward goals that we all share -- like great schools for our kids? If we could spend less energy on blame and suspicion, might there be more room for solutions?

Cinnamon Girl

One of the joys of writing this blog is that some of my people have started to communicate with me in song. This morning one of ones most fond of that mode of communication sent me this song, which brought back a delightful memory of a day before I was officially marking them with music.

I was in Seattle visiting a friend, and I'd taken my red-haired freckled self to a coffee shop for a latte. I was over at the doctor-up-your-cup-just-the-way-you-like-it station putting a little cinnamon on said latte when a tall, dark stranger suddenly belted out:

I wanna live

with a cinnamon girl

I could be happy

the rest of my life

With a cinnamon girl.

It was awesome and had I not been married at that time, it would have been a great start to a fun fling, if not a lifetime of cinnamon enjoyment.

Though it isn't quite like a stranger in a coffee shop, watching Neil belt it out is pretty satisfying too...