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...

If You Don't Know Me By Now

This afternoon I had a conversation with my ex-husband about our kids -- about the school that they go to and whether it is the best place for our son to go to middle school. And I felt so grateful, talking to him, that he so clearly has the best interests of our kids at heart, and also that his beliefs about what is best for them are so in line with mine. Which is a happy surprise given that one of the things that didn't seem to work well for us was parenting together -- and I guess I'd assumed it was because we had different views. In the end, though, we didn't work well, and while it was tempting to blame ending up in that predicament on this thing that I did or that thing that he didn't do, I'm now convinced it just happened, and it's ok that it happened, because we served a huge purpose in each other's lives, even apart from the beautiful children we added to this world.

I was talking to a friend the other day who was second guessing whether he and his wife were a good match because of problems they are having now, after being together for 20 years. I don't think it's useful to assess whether a relationship was ever a good match because it eventually turns sour, but I understand why people do it. They're trying to make sense of something with their minds that's really a matter of the heart. And hearts don't respond to logic.

For me, this song, brought to you by my inner jukebox, captures both the futility of trying to apply logic to matters of the heart:

We've all got our own funny moods

I've got mine

Woman you've got yours too

Just trust in me

Like I trust in you

As long as we've been together

That should be so easy to do

And the heartbreak of feeling like the person you most want to understand you, just doesn't anymore:

Just get yourself together

Or we might as well say goodbye

What good is a love affair

When you can't see eye to eye, ooooh

But I disagree with the implied premise of the refrain:

If you don't know me by now

You will never, never, never know me, Whooooa

Because I think what breaks our hearts is not the possibility that our partner has never known us, but the loss that comes when someone who once seemed to understand you better than anyone else doesn't seem to know you anymore.

After he learned I loved the Simply Red version of this song, my then-husband bought me the CD of the original by Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes, which I now agree is the superior version. Seal also covered this song -- you can check out that version if you want to, but the music in the original! Get out the kleenex -- it's a heartbreaker even before Harold starts to sing!

True Colors

This song is working for me on a number of levels today. First, I'm sporting some of my favorite footwear -- cowboy boots -- everyone else calls them pink, but I see their true colors, and I say they're red! One of the reasons wearing these boots makes me so happy is that they help me show my true colors -- a big part of me is definitely a cowgirl -- so what if I what I rode today looked more like a bike than a horse? Someday, I was just telling my son the other day, I bet I'll have a ranch in Wyoming. The other thing about these boots that I swear is really just a happy byproduct and not my reason for wearing them is that the mens dig them. It isn't even always a happy by-product -- today when a guy at the coffee shop asked me out it was much more uncomfortable than flattering. I was chatting about it afterward with a friend who had overheard the invitation -- I told him that a guy I used to date warned me not to wear these boots if I didn't want to be hit on. My friend said he didn't agree -- I should be who I am and then just learn to deal with what happens gracefully. Though he didn't say it in so many words, he was encouraging me to show my true colors.

Sometimes I think my true colors scare people a little bit, and I'm not just talking about my footwear. I'm really trying to shake things up in the education policy world and I'm not doing it to be difficult, I'm doing it because I just can't abide failing yet another generation of kids who were promised that an education could lead to a brighter future. We're just not delivering on that promise for so many kids these days, and I refuse to believe that we can't do it better. Today. One of my favorite parts of MLK Jr.'s I have a dream speech is his repetition of "Now is the time!" I considered getting that tattooed on my wrist but my wrists are pretty small and plus, I really never stray very far from the space in which I can hear his words. These, too, are my true colors.

And finally, I'm feeling super grateful today for those in my life who give me the gift of seeing my true colors and loving me for the rainbow that I am!

Sing it Cyndi:

I see your true colors

shining through

I see your true colors

and that's why I love you

so don't be afraid to let them show

your true colors

true colors are beautiful

like a rainbow

Silent All These Years

It's funny how we humans can be confident in some arenas and totally lack confidence in others, or really articulate on some topics or with some people and much less so with others. Often the uncertainty, or fear, comes up either with something or someone new, or with something or someone that comes attached to the weight of something heavy from our past. To get to a place of certainty and confidence, we have to feel supported -- without that measure of safety -- growth is difficult if not impossible.

Because of the weight attached to some events in my past and my inability to feel and express myself freely when I was a little girl, it has always been harder for me to communicate in the context of a romantic relationship. And until recently, the combination of lacking certainty about myself and the lack of support being offered in the romantic relationships I was choosing added up to little growth in that department. This morning I felt the possibility of that shifting.

On my bike ride to yoga class, I heard these words sung by this powerful little woman:

Hey but I don't care

Cause sometimes

I said sometimes

I hear my voice, I hear my voice, I hear my voice

And it's been here

Silent All These Years

And, having arrived at class, as the teacher talked about feeling the earth's support beneath us and having that support allow us to let go, I felt grateful that I am no longer silent, and that I can feel the support of the earth and so many of its delightful inhabitants.

Shelter from the Storm

Maybe it's because it's getting colder outside, maybe it's because my daughter's class is studying homes and went on a field trip to a Habitat for Humanity site, maybe it's because I've recently both given and received a figurative shelter from the storm, but it's this number that's on repeat for me today.

You can check out Bob singing it live in 1976 in this video, but it sounds more like it does in my head in this one, where instead of watching Bob you get to check out a dismembered mannequin. A reasonable tradeoff?

Looking at the lyrics, it seems like maybe Bob was grappling with some Jesus themes along with the usual love, loss and hard times that all his songs seem to be about. These lyrics, for example, if read in that light, make for a racier bible story than I ever heard at church:

Suddenly I turned around and she was standing there

With silver bracelets on her wrists and flowers in her hair

She walked up to me so gracefully and took my crown of thorns

"Come in" she said

"I'll give you shelter from the storm."

Alas, looks like even the Jesus-infused version of Bob has to deal with loss -- check out the next verse:

Now there's a wall between us something there's been lost

I took too much for granted got my signals crossed

Just to think that it all began on a long-forgotten morn

"Come in" she said

"I'll give you shelter from the storm."

And once again, I'm reminded, and so I'm reminding you: better to have had the shelter for a night, or a month, or a year, or a decade, and then lost it, than not to have had it at all.

Only Girl (In the World)

During my workout this afternoon, I heard this song, and it brought back a memory of the early portion of my relationship with my now ex-husband. I think it was New Year's Eve, so booze was unquestionably involved, but I remember wanting him, and asking him, to tell me that he loved me more than he'd ever loved anyone else. I remember how much I (thought I) needed him to feel this way, and how upset I was when he said he wasn't sure that was true. I didn't know then something that Rihanna's song is very clear about -- that it wasn't about whether he said that or not, but whether I felt it was true:

Want you to make me feel like I'm the only girl in the world

Like I'm the only one that you'll ever love

Like I'm the only one who knows your heart

Only girl in the world...

And the fact that I needed him to tell me, well, that suggests to me that I didn't feel it, along with some insecurity on my part at that point in my life. Once I'd worked through all my stuff, I still didn't feel it, and that's when I knew it was time to move on.

Rihanna's pretty stunning in the official video linked above, but I also found two other really fun ones worth checking out: a beautiful instrumental cover by a pianist, and two hilarious black dudes musing about "RiRi's" new song.

Enjoy, my friends, and remember -- trust how it feels, not what they say or what your mind tries to tell you...

She Believes in Me

Last night as I was going to sleep, this song was playing in my head -- I probably haven't actually heard it in at least 25 years -- but out of the depths of my inner jukebox it came. We listened to Kenny Rogers a lot when I was a kid -- my cousins had his greatest hits on 8-track in their old-school van, and my Mom had the cassette tape. I remember at the time, when I heard these lyrics:

And she believes in me

I'll never know just what she sees in me...

The way I heard them, and perhaps the way he meant them, was that she believed in him more than he believed in himself, and saw things in him that weren't actually there. And at the time, in my own longing for love, that's exactly the place it was coming from -- believing that I just had to hope I'd find someone to feel and do the same for me.

Revisiting it now, I hear and feel something very different. The place I'm coming from now is one of letting the love in to help illuminate what's already there, inside me -- that other people can see not because they conjure it but because it's in me. I know it is, even when I'm all by myself, but I can see it and feel it even more vibrantly through the eyes of my loved ones.

And unlike Kenny's conclusion at the end of the verse that I cited above:

...I told her someday, if she was my girl

I could change the world, with my little songs

I was wrong

I know that I can change the world, or at least a part of it, but knowing that others believe I can too is a huge comfort in this time of uncertainty in my life.

The video linked above is pure Kenny, but if you're only going to watch one, I'd choose this one where he's accompanied by Lionel Richie -- they are a surprisingly super-sweet duo!

In My Place

I didn't set an alarm last night, but this morning it was as if I had: I woke up to a song playing inside my head. It took me a while to figure out what it was, because the lyric I kept hearing was "How long must I wait for you?" I googled that, and found Louis Jordan whaling on his trumpet. That definitely wasn't the sound I had going on inside this morning. Eventually I tracked down what I was hearing: Chris Martin & the other boys from Coldplay.

As I listened to the song again and read the lyrics, I knew why it had awoken me. Before I went to sleep last night, I unearthed some pretty heavy feelings about a dark time in my life and in my marriage. It was a tough place to be, and not unlike the one the lyrics describe:

In my place, in my place

Were lines that I couldn't change

I was lost, oh yeah

I was lost, I was lost

Crossed lines I shouldn't have crossed

I was lost, oh yeah

Yeah, how long must you wait for him?

Yeah, how long must you pay for him?

Yeah, how long must you wait for him?

And now, rather than ruminating over the price I paid or the amount of time I waited, I am going to sign off, do a forgiveness meditation, and continue to release any hold that place has on me. Because like the past tense in the lyrics -- that time is gone. I wait no longer.