I've Been Loving You Too Long

I love this song. It's beautiful, and it's the best take I know on why people stay in relationships, including marriages, way beyond the point where their needs are being met:

I've been loving you too long to stop now

You are tired and you want to be free

My love is growing stronger, as you become a habit to me

Oh I've been loving you a little too long

I dont wanna stop now, oh

So why do people stay, even when the day-to-day experience is characterized by slow movement in opposite directions:

You are tired and your love is growing cold

My love is growing stronger as our affair [affair] grows old

...which isn't easy for either person? Because letting go is hard.

But I'm here to tell you that 1) You don't ever have to stop loving someone, you just sometimes need to learn to live without the physical manifestation of the closeness and make room for the possibility that someone else can give you that; and 2) When you emerge on the other side of the really difficult process of letting go, the new love that awaits, informed and strengthened as it is by the loss, means that no matter how long or how awful the period of time was that you spent in the phase when the love had grown cold, you get to bask in the hot sun again.

The original is totally brilliant, and so many fabulous artists have covered it. For me, maybe the most poignant of these is Ike and Tina's version.

And yes, I see the irony that yesterday's post was focused on the upside of staying together and today's is showcasing the downside... Here's hoping after twenty years with this one I'll be singing still the one and not about his love growing cold!

You're Still the One

I know. I'm as surprised as you are by this pick -- but it was an unconscious one. The last couple of days, these lyrics have repeatedly run through my mind, and I didn't even know what the song was or who was singing it:

I'm glad we didn't listen

Look at what we would be missin'

They said, "I bet they'll never make it"

But just look at us holding on

We're still together still going strong

Now for us, it went down a little bit differently. I mean, I am surprised that we've made it as far as we have -- I wouldn't have predicted when we met that we'd fall in love and then have a long distance relationship for nearly a year culminating with a cross-country move (which is coming right up for him) so we could be together. But the only "they" saying we'd never make it (with the possible exception of his ex-wife) were the voices inside my head -- everyone else I know has been cheerleading this relationship the whole time it has been going on -- sometimes helping drown out the voices of my fears that repeatedly tried to tell me it wouldn't work, it'd just end the same way my first marriage did, etc. etc.

I'm super grateful for the cheerleaders, for my man's ability to embrace a new love, and my own willingness to work through all those fears, especially when I contemplate what we would be missing if it had gone the other way...

Black

Oh Eddie, I don't know if you've ever looked or sounded more beautiful than you do in this live recording of Black, one of your most compelling songs, and the one that came on when I switched on my ipod after getting off the phone with my man this morning.

There's still a little part of me, the part that feels the ache that can't, in this moment, be satisfied as it was this past weekend, that could feel what Eddie seemed to be feeling as he began to sing:

Hey... oooh...

Sheets of empty canvas, untouched sheets of clay

Were laid spread out before me as her body once did.

All five horizons revolved around her soul

As the earth to the sun

Now the air I tasted and breathed has taken a turn

But mostly, like I did when I heard Dido yesterday, I marked the change in my life from the time when my friends and I used to blast this song and scream at the top of our lungs:

I know someday you'll have a beautiful life,

I know you'll be a sun in somebody else's sky, but why

Why, why can't it be, can't it be mine?

It's kind of strange - even though it was such a painful place in terms of heart space, in many respects I recall that early 20s time in my life fondly. One reason is that my friends and I also had a lot of fun, of course -- but the other is that as lonely as it was, that unrequited space felt like home -- it was what my heart knew how to do -- where it felt comfortable.

I may not have as much of that glorious hanging out time that college offered anymore, and more sadly, I may have lost some of the friends with whom I shared that time, but I'm soooooooooo grateful for the growth that has allowed me to reclaim the full expanse of my heartspace and get comfy there. I've never known more contentment.

White Flag

Heard this one from Dido in my car this afternoon and I had the experience of marking a change in myself through my response to a song.

There was a time in my life when I often listened to it on repeat -- both inside and outside my head. It was after I'd split up with my husband and reconnected (by phone and email) with my first love. These lyrics describe sort of a combo of what I felt then and what I'd felt periodically over the years while we were both in serious relationships with other people:

I know you think that I shouldn't still love you,

Or tell you that.

But if I didn't say it, well I'd still have felt it

where's the sense in that?

I promise I'm not trying to make your life harder

Or return to where we were

I will go down with this ship

And I won't put my hands up and surrender

There will be no white flag above my door

I'm in love and always will be

I even remember emailing him the lyrics, and I remember his response, which I think came in a phone call, though I wouldn't swear it, but I can hear him saying it: "Yes, the lyrics are apt." And then he went on to say that he didn't particularly like Dido and well, to make a long story (that has already been chronicled in this blog) short, I think I did want to return to where we were, and when we finally saw each other again last summer, we did, in a lot of ways. But not in all the ways, and that mostly has to do with the fact that the girl I was when we fell in love has grown up and changed in a lot of productive ways that just really make it impossible, and undesirable, to go back to that space.

So today when I heard it, I thought about what it used to bring up for me, and I thought how now it brings up feelings about my new(ish) love, and the cataclysmic shift in me that was required to get to where I am with him now, which is feeling, believing, thinking, hoping we're in love and always will be...

Touch Me

Woke up this morning with Jim Morrison's voice in my head, which doesn't often happen, but the internal jukebox knew what it was doing. Today is the last full day we get to spend together for a month or two, and as hard as I try to avoid it, the desperation kicked in a bit with that realization this morning.

It's different this time -- the desperation, that is -- than it has been with previous visits. This time I'm not worried about whether it's going to work out or not, because I know it will. It's just the simple fact that I'm going to have to go without the physical contact for multiple weeks that really sent me into Doorsland this morning:

Come on, come on, come on

Come on now touch me, baby

Can't you see that I am not afraid?

Now, I'm gonna love you

Till the heavens stop the rain

I'm gonna love you

Till the stars fall from the sky for you and I...

Like a Rolling Stone

I ordered up No Direction Home on Netflix before I headed out East this weekend. My man and I both really dig Dylan, and I thought it would be fun to watch it together. As it turns out, we didn't get much of it watched -- not because it wasn't good -- but because we had other priorities in our limited time together.

We did watch the beginning though, where Bob talks about the fact that he never felt like his home, or his hometown, were really home. He said he always felt like he belonged somewhere else -- like home was somewhere to get to, not somewhere to return to. I so get that.

In the chorus of this amazing song, he asks a series of questions. They are aimed at a woman, likely a woman who broke his heart (or at least left a fissure in it):

How does it feel?

Aw, how does it feel?

To be on your own?

With no direction home?

Like a complete unknown?

Like a rolling stone?

But I can answer them, both from the perspective of a child whose home wasn't particularly comforting, and from the perspective of a divorced mother-of-two who decided to leave the home she'd created for herself and her birthed (rather than birth) family.

It feels like shit, a lot of the time. It feels astoundingly lonely. But on the other hand, it feels better to have no direction home than to have a home in name but not in feeling. And it feels better to be a complete unknown than known as someone other than you truly are.

And the thing about a rolling stone, as opposed to, say, a tombstone, is that it's on the move. Which gives it the opportunity to arrive in a very different space, a space that feels like home.

That's where I've found myself, for the first time in my life. I have no doubt that to find myself there required me wanting to be there -- but that was only half of it. The other half is being lucky enough to find someone capable of loving me so completely as to feel like I get to come home every time I hear his voice, or, when I'm really lucky like I am this weekend, every time I feel his touch...

I'm So Excited

It could only be The Pointer Sisters for me today. It has been three whole months since I've seen my boyfriend, and tonight I'm getting on a plane, bound for his arms:

Tonight's the night we're gonna make it happen

Tonight we'll put all other things aside

Get in this time and show me some affection

We're goin' for those pleasures in the night

I want to love you, feel you, wrap myself around you

I want to squeeze you, please you, I just can't get enough

And if you move real slow I let it go

I'm so excited and I just can't hide it

I'm about to lose control and I think I like it

I'm so excited and I just can't hide it

And I know I know I know I know I know I want you

Fishin' Blues

Tonight the four of us -- my ex-husband, me, and our two kids -- went out for sushi for our son's birthday. These dinners just keep getting easier -- in fact, this one was downright pleasant. As we walked out of the restaurant, our daughter said: "I like this. It's like you're married again!" I smiled at her and said "I think it's like we're a family, it just looks a little different than it did before." She accepted that, saying "That's what I meant."

On the way to school this morning, I walked with my son, (re)telling him the story of his birth. He listened intently, and then when we got closer to school, he said: "Ok Mom, can we cease this conversation now?" Yep, he used the word cease. Love that kid.

Part of the story I (re)told him was one that I've told here before, too, about how his father sang to him and calmed him down after his traumatic birth. This was one of the songs he sang:

Betcha' goin' fishin' all o' da' time

Baby goin' fishin' too.

Bet yo' life, Yo' sweet wife

Catch mo' fish than you.

Many fish bites if ya' got good bait,

Here's a little tip that I would like to relate.

Many fish bites if ya' got good bait.

I'ma goin fishin', Yes I'm goin' fishin,

And my baby goin' fishin' too.

To Zion

On this, the night before my firstborn's birthday, I'm always cast right back -- it's now been 12 years -- to the feelings of excitement I had as my contractions started getting closer together and we started preparing to go to the hospital. Belly all swollen and only two ways to get the baby out -- neither of which is easy on the mother's body -- is nature's way of making sure mamas know just how big the event that's coming is going to be for them. And yet, nothing could ever have prepared me for the escalation of every emotion that I felt when my son was born.

In my estimation, the beautiful Lauryn Hill comes closest to capturing this experience in this song she wrote for her son, Zion. I know some can't appreciate her tying the experience so closely to God, but I think you can substitute there whatever source of goodness you believe in:

Now the joy of my world is in Zion

Now the joy of my world is in Zion

How beautiful if nothing more

Than to wait at Zion's door

I've never been in love like this before

Now let me pray to keep you from

The perils that will surely come

See life for you my prince has just begun

And I thank you for choosing me

To come through unto life to be

A beautiful reflection of his grace

See I know that a gift so great

Is only one God could create

And I'm reminded every time I see your face

That the joy of my world is in Zion

Now the joy of my world is in Zion

Now the joy of my world is in Zion

Now the joy of my world is in Zion

How to Save a Life

Heard this song tonight in the car, and now that we are home, both my daughter and I are walking around singing it. Looking up the lyrics, it seems I could've used it to describe the tragic end of Pollock's life as well. His mistress and her friend try to talk him out of getting into the car that night, and the friend, who ends up dying, protests most vehemently:

As he begins to raise his voice

You lower yours and grant him one last choice

Drive until you lose the road

Or break with the ones you've followed

He will do one of two things

He will admit to everything

Or he'll say he's just not the same

And you'll begin to wonder why you came

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend

Somewhere along in the bitterness

And I would have stayed up with you all night

Had I known how to save a life

World Keeps Turning

Something (could've been procrastination) led me back to this site last night. When I got there, the one that struck me most was this one:

Still have her. Just miss us.

It was in the heartbreak category, and indeed, this seems to me heartbreak of the cruelest variety. Then again, I've experienced that variety of heartbreak. The heartbreak depicted in Pollock, a phenomenal movie about a complex man, his art, and his love(s), I have never experienced. First he's really horrible to his wife, drinks way too much, and cheats on her, and then she leaves him during which time he takes up with another woman, starts drinking even more, and eventually dies in a drunk driving accident, killing another woman as well. Ouch. His widow, left behind with finality this time, goes on to paint some of her most brilliant work, as this song closes out the soundtrack:

On our anniversary

There'll be someone else where you used to be

The world don't care and yet it clings to me

And the moon is gold and silvery

Who knows where the sidewalk ends

Well the road will turn and the road will bend

They always say he marks the sparrow's fall

How can anyone believe it all?

Well the band has stopped playing but we keep dancing

The world keeps turning the world keeps turning

On his hand he wore the ring of another

And the world keeps turning the world keeps turning

Yes it does. And apparently it's turning in such a way tonight as to show us a more brilliant than usual gold and silvery moon. My kids and I are off to check it out in our Madison sky...

Finish What Ya Started

I'm a great procrastinator. I have a paper to write, which means I can find a million other things to do, including writing this blog. Better make this a short one.

It's not every day (thank God) that Eddie Van Halen's voice enters my brain, but it's here today. Looking at these lyrics, it seems as if my paper is anthropomorphised as Eddie himself, and it's singing to me:

Come on baby, finish what you started

I'm incomplete...

...Right on time, you will arrive

By keepin' the dream alive

It's alive and it's kicking

Inside of me

So come on baby, please

Come on baby, finish what you started

I'm incomplete...

Alright, alright. I hear you. Off to work on the damn paper!

Heart of Gold

Spent some time this evening with my kids and the cats that still reside in my former marital household, and that put me in the mood for some vintage Neil Young:

I want to live,

I want to give

I've been a miner

for a heart of gold.

It's these expressions

I never give

That keep me searching

for a heart of gold

And I'm getting old.

Keeps me searching

for a heart of gold

And I'm getting old.

What I didn't understand when I entered my first martial household was that the heart of gold I needed to find first was my own. Without full custody of it, I reckon I would've gotten really old searching for one in someone else...

Amazing Grace

Although things have calmed down significantly in Madison, the theatrics still continue, to some extent, on both sides of the aisle.

This morning during a legislative panel discussion one actor prone to hyperbole asked in exasperation why the current leadership couldn't see "what even Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles" can see!?

As the universe would have it, the person who had stepped up to the microphone and was patiently waiting to ask his question was also blind, and he called out: "Even I can see!"

It was a pretty classic moment, and just about everyone in the room, regardless of their political viewpoint, cracked up laughing. I reckon that it's that common ground, that human angle, that we have to try to stay with to break out of our current morass:

Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,

And grace my fears relieved!

How precious did that grace appear

The hour I first believed.

A little more grace, a lot less finger-pointing. What a sweet sound that would be!

Fix You

The first time I heard this song was at a concert at my kids' school. Two children in the school had recently lost their mother, and the choir dedicated this song to them. It was heartbreakingly beautiful, as it is in the concert video footage linked above:

And the tears come streaming down your face

When you lose something you can't replace

When you love someone but it goes to waste

Could it be worse?

Lights will guide you home

And ignite your bones

And I will try to fix you

Today I heard it during the cool-down portion of my functional fitness class, and I got to thinking about trying to fix people. And you know, it's fascinating. I used to think it was problematic that I tried to fix people that I was dating. And it was, to some degree, because I needed to fix them in order to get them (theoretically) to a place where I could love them. And that never worked, not even once.

This time around, it isn't that I met someone who didn't need any fixing. For one thing, that's not possible -- we're all wounded. And it isn't that I didn't want to fix him. It's in my nature to help people heal their hearts and bodies -- if I didn't bring that to a relationship, I'd be leaving out a pretty beautiful part of myself. The difference this time around is that our relationship started from a place where I helped fix his divorce wounds, and that was great for both of us. But then I fell in love with him, all of him, and the fixing happened as a result of the love, not in preparation for it. And when it happens that way, fixing someone (and getting fixed by someone) is a pretty damn beautiful thing:

Tears stream down your face

I promise you I will learn from my mistakes

Tears stream down your face

And I

Lights will guide you home

And ignite your bones

And I will try to fix you

Across the Universe

This morning the ipod shuffled immediately to this song, and I stopped in my tracks to listen to it. Ok, so it wasn't tough to get me to lie back down on my bed so soon after I'd gotten off it, but really, it mesmerized me. The version it played was Fiona Apple's cover, which is pretty awesome, but I'm not sure the original could ever be topped:

Words are flying out like

endless rain into a paper cup

They slither while they pass

They slip away across the universe

Pools of sorrow waves of joy

are drifting thorough my open mind

Possessing and caressing me

As I listened to this verse, I couldn't help thinking about the devastation wrought by the earthquake in Japan. (And watching this video accompanying The Beatles, some of the images resemble some of the horrifying video footage I've watched of the quake and tsunami.)

But hearing this part, for the first time, I heard it, I think, the way it was intended:

Jai guru deva om

Nothing's gonna change my world

Nothing's gonna change my world

Nothing's gonna change my world

Nothing's gonna change my world

Which I think is that notion I attribute to Buddhism that we can always be ok in whatever external world presents itself as long as we are ok in the internal world. And if you're not feeling that internal okness, I recommend putting this song on repeat:

Sounds of laughter shades of life

are ringing through my open ears

exciting and inviting me

Limitless undying love which

shines around me like a million suns

It calls me on and on across the universe

Yes, every version of it I've heard is pretty magical, including Rufus Wainwright's...

A Little More Love

I don't know if it's the time change, the late night phone calls, the champagne at bookclub last night, or some other unidentifiable reason -- but this afternoon during my "work time" at the coffee shop I was having a really hard time staying awake. I had some decaf coffee (I know that sounds like part of the problem, but I don't do well with the caffeinated variety), and then I had a diet coke, and still, I felt sluggish.

Until they played this number, that is:

Cause it gets me nowhere to tell you no

And it gets me nowhere to make you go

Will a little more love make you start depending

Will a little more love bring a happy ending

Will a little more love make it right?

Will a little more love make it right?

ONJ always lights me up. She was truly one of the brightest spots in my childhood, inspiring me to get up on my table, shine my desk lamp onto myself, and belt out numbers like this. At the time, I didn't have an answer to the question she poses in that verse, but this afternoon I answered with a resounding affirmative.

As an added bonus, you can check her out in all her 80s glory. Enjoy!

Delicate

I was in a Damien Rice mood today, and when I fired up this album and heard the words to this song this afternoon:

So why do you fill my sorrow

With the words you've borrowed

From the only place you've known

And why do you sing Hallelujah

If it means nothing to you

Why do you sing with me at all?

I had a couple of reactions. One was the truth in the fact that when we hurt other people, we tend to do it from the part of us that has been hurt, and not from the place that feels secure in the world or in our own skin.

And the other was a heavy-hearted joining in his questioning of why people go along with things in which they do not believe. I suppose they, or maybe I should say we again here, because I'm sure I haven't managed to completely avoid this in my own life, are under the (mistaken) impression that they "have to" because of a desire to be liked, or fit in, or keep the peace, even if keeping that peace means losing some of the precious peace that can only be found within oneself when one's actions are in alignment with one's beliefs.

Taking Chances

On my way to an 0ff-site meeting today, I called my friend to see how she was doing in the absence of her eldest daughter and her husband (who are off on a ski adventure together). I got her voicemail, left a message, and then promptly got on the phone with my man. She called me back while I was still on the phone, leaving me a voicemail, and saying she had missed my call because she was singing this song (the Glee version) at the top of her lungs, thinking about me and my man, the chance we'd taken, and how great it is working out. Now it is a Celine song, as my friend sheepishly admitted in her voicemail, so the lyrics are generally cheesy, but some of them are apropos for how we got started:

You don't know about my past and

I don't have a future figured out

And maybe this is goin' too fast

And maybe it's not meant to last

But what do you say to takin' chances?

I said yes to jumping on a plane and flying out to NH for a weekend for reasons not unlike these:

I just wanna start again

And maybe you could show me how to try

Maybe you could take me in

Somewhere underneath your skin

And that isn't a bad way to describe where we went that first weekend together. Still, with all those miles between us and Madison being less than the most attractive place in the country to live for my back-country-skiing lover, there were times when we both thought it wouldn't work. We couldn't put it down, though, at least not for very long:

Hey now, hey, my heart is beatin' down

But I'm always comin' back for more, yeah

There's nothin' like love to pull you up

When you're lyin' down on the floor, babe

'Tis true. There's nothing like love to pull you up -- and it looks like this love is gonna be enough to make two people join their lives, even under relatively complicated circumstances.

What do you say?

What do you say?

Sure glad we said yes!

Day is Done

What happened at the end of the day at the Capitol yesterday feels in some respects difficult to comprehend, but then again, that's a feeling I've had for weeks. This song, both the music and the lyrics, brilliantly express what I (and I'm sure others) feel about what happened yesterday (and today):

When the day is done

Down to earth then sinks the sun

Along with everything that was lost and won

When the day is done.

When the day is done

Hope so much your race will be all run

Then you find you jumped the gun

Have to go back where you begun

When the day is done.

When the night is cold

Some get by but some get old

Just to show life's not made of gold

When the night is cold.

When the bird has flown

Got no-one to call your own

Got no place to call your home

When the bird has flown.

When the game's been fought

Newspapers blow across the court

Lost matches sooner than you would have thought

Now the game's been fought.

When the part is through

Seems so very sad for you

Didn't do the things you meant to do

Now there's no time to start anew

Now the part is through.

When the day is done

Down to earth then sinks the sun

Along with everything that was lost and won

When the day is done...

Last Kiss

I'm up in the wee hours this morning after going to bed early, and although I'm not happy about being awake, I am happy to report that the voice going through my head when I woke up was Eddie's. As I came to, I realized the song he was singing was providing the soundtrack for my dream:

Oh, where oh where can my baby be?

The Lord took her away from me...

It wasn't a good dream, but it was about my baby not being here. When I woke up, I saw that he was not in fact, here, but also remembered that he is there. After a tough day yesterday, before I went to sleep, he'd done everything he could from far away: listened, provided perspective, loved me anyway, and told me a couple of cute stories that reminded me of some of the reasons I'm happy we're together.

I think I'll try to go back to sleep now, grateful that the separation we're experiencing isn't as drastic as the one I was dreaming about or that Eddie is singing about here:

I held her close, I kissed her our last kiss

I found the love that I knew I would miss

But now she's gone, even though I hold her tight

I lost my love, my life that night...

Mother

While I was away, my son had a difficult time on a few occasions. This is never easy for me, especially from so far away, but now that I'm back, I'm reminded just how difficult it can be when I'm right here. Finding the line between loving and smothering, knowing what to talk to kids about when, knowing how to help them or when to help them and when to just listen, it seems just about impossible to get it right at the moment.

These guys no doubt mean this song metaphorically as well as literally, but the lyrics sure hit home for this momma:

Hush now baby, baby, don't you cry

Momma's gonna make all of your nightmares come true

Momma's gonna put all of her fears into you

Momma's gonna keep you right here under her wing

She won't let you fly, but she might let you sing

Momma's will keep Baby cozy and warm

Oooo Babe

Oooo Babe

Ooo Babe, of course Momma's gonna help build the wall

It's probably not about getting it right, anyway. It's probably just about showing up, doing the best I can, and keeping my heart open...

Manic Monday

Here's another reason to get on my guitar playing/songwriting career sooner rather than later: there's not much out there to express the feeling of getting off a red eye and going straight back to work. It was not, in fact, just another Manic Monday, but that's the best I can do.

Knowing that I always have a hard time with transitions, and that I work in a pretty stressful environment, it seems peculiar that I would have set myself up for such a rough landing. I know why I did it, on one level: I got my ticket with miles so it wasn't as convenient a schedule as I would've liked, and then I didn't have enough vacation to take an additional day.

But I can't be late

'Cause then I guess I just won't get paid

These are the days

When you wish your bed was already made

Hmmm. Since my own feelings on this Monday go a bit beyond wishing my bed was already made, it gives me something to think about in terms of intentionally pushing myself back into corners that I already know will be really uncomfortable. On some level, that's a choice. My choice. It may be time for a new decisionmaking process...

Rhythm of Love

This song's been drifting around in my head since before I arrived in Hawaii this year, and yesterday my friend and I heard it on the radio in the rental car. It's the last day of my trip, and I'm feeling a whole bunch of things this morning, but mostly, gratitude. This year, I have many of the same things to be grateful for as last year -- a sense of calm brought about by the ocean and five days of yoga with other open-hearted people -- but this year I'm feeling extra grateful, because I've got more to go home to than I am leaving here, and that's not how I felt a year ago. In part, that's because I spent my last few hours on the island last year saying goodbye to my windsurfer.

And it was goodbye -- we only knew each other's first names, and when he asked about keeping in touch, I refused. In part, I made that decision in the same spirit in which this song was written:

And long after I've gone

You'll still be humming along

And I will keep you in my mind

The way you make love so fine

We may only have tonight

But till the morning sun you're mine all mine

Play the music low and sway to the rhythm of love

Plus, I told myself and my friends, not living for the emails or phone calls and then facing the inevitable dwindling would ensure that I'd always remember our time together for what it was - a transformative meeting of souls and bodies -- but not try to make it into something it wasn't likely to be (ok, so I happen to have a close friend who made a 14-year age difference and an intercontinental relationship work, but let's face it, that's not the norm). "I know myself," I remember saying, "I'm a junkie. I'll just be jonesin' for it all the time." So I cut it off, in a move that felt strong at the time, but with a year's distance, feels more like fear. If I wasn't willing to keep in touch, how could he reject me?

So I went home, and for days, I did my gratitude meditation in the morning, and when prompted to picture someone I love, someone who opens my heart, I'd picture his strong body on his board, and the way he'd told me it made him feel, and I would cry, cry, cry. I'd remember him saying, when we were in bed together: "Sarah, your mouth is smiling, but your eyes are not." And then I would cry some more. I didn't just cry, though. I also broke up with the guy I'd been dating for eight months, the guy who'd never noticed that my eyes weren't smiling. How could he? His own eyes were dead. He didn't have that passion for life that my windsurfer had.

During those meditative moments, I'd recall his tenderness, and vow that while I might not get to be with him, I could use the knowledge of the way his way of relating to me felt to help guide me to a more fulfilling relationship.

And I did, in part, until the same wounded girl tried to cut off her love with her New England flame for the same reason -- to avoid getting hurt again. Luckily, I had a bunch of good friends to keep me honest, friends who knew that talking myself out of love was something I do to protect myself but not something that ultimately serves me. That, and I'd seen the way my eyes looked in the mirror when interacting with my current love: more alive than ever before. And that's worth staying open for -- even if it did mean the possibility of getting hurt.

It's a good thing, too, because one night with him just wouldn't do -- I reckon I need a whole lifetime with this one...

A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall

This morning I woke up to a hard rain falling, and the sound of Bob's voice inside my head, one of my top picks to provide the soundtrack for my life:

And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard

And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

As I've written about the past few days, some hard rain's fallen for me psychologically on this trip. And as I'm wont to do lately, I've talked at length with my man about my feelings. It wasn't the first time that I was feeling bad, and he tried to cheer me up, and then I felt like he wasn't just letting me feel what I am feeling. There is some truth to that, and he owns his part of it, but as we worked our way through it, I realized that mostly, my response to his not wanting me to feel sad was a result of an emotionally fraught trigger from my marriage. See, things were great while I was happy, and they started to fall apart when I was depressed, and whether it's fair or not, I walked away with a wound that understood that I'm only going to be loved if I am happy.

It's so good to be in a relationship where when he says: "I think you're overreacting to this" I can say: "Yeah, I am, in fact what I'm reacting to isn't this at all but an old wound" and then have him reassure me that he's not going to leave me if I'm sad, but he is going to care for me extra tenderly during those points and try to help me get back to happy. As he reminded me, that's how we got started -- he was sad; I listened compassionately and then pointed out the choice (and maybe provided an incentive) to feel better.

As usual, Bob's poetry has more for me than just the chorus -- in this verse he sings about meeting a man who was wounded in love -- and I'm damn glad to be at a phase of my life where that's the man that I met -- because I think our prospects for dealing with the hard rains that are sometimes gonna fall are a lot brighter given our combined experience on marriage #1:

Oh, who did you meet my blue-eyed son?

Who did you meet, my darling young one?

I met a young child beside a dead pony

I met a white man who walked a black dog

I met a young woman whose body was burning

I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow

I met one man who was wounded in love

I met another man who was wounded in hatred

And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard

And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

If, like my roommate this week, you like Bob's songs better when he isn't singing them (blasphemous though it is!), you might want to check out Edie Brickell's version of this Dylan classic -- it comes in second of the versions I found -- or Jason Mraz, whom I've awarded the bronze.

Blister in the Sun

This morning's yoga session started with partner foot massages, and when I finished with my friend's feet, she exclaimed: "Wow - thanks! It felt like your hands were as big as the whole room." I do, in fact, have big hands. This song was an anthem of my youth for that reason, and I still have fantasies of a man standing outside my window on a summer night playing it on the guitar and singing it to me:

Let me go on like I

Blister in the sun

Let me go on

Big hands, I know you're the one.

I'm happy to report that I'm back to loving my big hands today, and all the rest of me, and my fellow travelers. Whatever that badass massage therapist shook loose needed to come out, and I'm damn glad it did come out in time for me to enjoy a day or two of my vacation. I even got a little color today -- though my dermatologist would be happy that although I got a little bit red, I did not, in fact, blister in the sun...

I Want Your Hands On Me

The other day I texted a photo of myself at the beach to my man and his reply was "I want my hands on you." Yeah, I'd like that too, but it isn't going to happen this week.

It might not surprise you to learn, however, that it inspired a song... my internal jukebox fired up this repetitive but apt number:

Put'em on, put'em on, put'em on me

Put'em on, put'em on, put'em on me

Put'em on, put'em on, put'em on me

Put'em on, put'em on, put'em on me

Put'em on, put'em on, put'em on me

Put'em on, put'em on, put'em on me

Put'em on, put'em on, put'em on me

Put'em on, put'em on, put'em on me

Put your hands on me

Put your hands on me

Put your hands on me

Put your hands on me

Put your hands on me

Put your hands on me

Put your hands on me

And then I heard it again this morning as I braced myself for my massage. Yep, you read that right. But it wasn't your typical massage - it was a 3 1/2 hour lomilomi massage -- and I had a short but significant list of things I was hoping to work through. Work turned out to be the operative word.

It was really hard work. Lots of breath practice, breathing into tight spaces that she kept uncovering with all this really vigorous bodywork and stretching, lots of tough feelings arising. Ouch. Although it didn't feel good, I have to trust that I released some things that needed to be released and that the experience will help me move through some of the stickier places in my psyche and everyday life.

Afterward, I went for a swim in my beloved ocean, but even that wasn't exactly the respite I'd hoped. The surf was really strong and once again I felt like I was getting pushed a little harder than I wanted to be pushed and I had less control than I'd have liked. Getting tossed around out there, I reminded myself what my massage therapist said this afternoon -- maybe I don't need as much control as I thought I did.

A few minutes later, I emerged, and miraculously, I still had both pieces of my bathing suit. I also had a smile on my face for the first time all day...

The Climb

After a beautiful hike in a Eucalyptus forest this afternoon, the radio once again came through with a totally apropos, if totally cheesy, tune:

There's always gonna be another mountain

I'm always gonna wanna make it move

Always gonna be an uphill battle

Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose

Ain't about how fast I get there

Ain't about what's waitin' on the other side

It's the climb

And it isn't just appropriate because I was climbing on a hiking trail. I am, even here on this beautiful island, struggling with being ok with what is here, now. I'm going to try to take Miley's words to heart on this one, that it ain't about what's waitin' on the other side -- it's the climb. From that perspective, I must say, the climb was pretty damn enjoyable...

I Can See Clearly Now

Ahhhhhhhh. So here I am. Finally. After a very long journey filled with delays, I arrived just in time to crash and rest up for my 7am yoga class this morning. It's a relief to be here in a lot of ways, but it doesn't feel the same as it did the last two years. I think the main difference is at that point I wanted the aloneness and the anonymity of coming on a vacation largely by myself (though surrounded by friendly fellow yogis). This time around, while I still love being in a tropical place, I find myself wishing I was here with my kids and my man. I see this as largely a good thing -- before, I craved separation, now, I'm craving togetherness.

One of the fun things about Hawaii is that the radio always seems to play the right tune at the right moment, and yesterday, as we drove out of the rainforesty part of the island where we are staying and into the sunny part, we heard:

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone,

I can see all obstacles in my way

Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind

It's gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)

Sun-Shiny day.

On Maui, it's pretty much always raining somewhere and sunny somewhere else, and I feel like that's a more realistic metaphor for life than the total absence of rain Johnny is singing about here:

I think I can make it now, the pain is gone

All of the bad feelings have disappeared

Here is the rainbow I've been prayin' for

It's gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)

Sun-Shiny day.

Look all around, there's nothin' but blue skies

Look straight ahead, nothin' but blue skies

Laying out this afternoon, it was a part sun, part shade situation. Just like life. And although I much prefer the sun, the shade has its place too. And it isn't so bad, especially when I can just be with it, instead of fighting against it...