Everything's Not Lost

The ipod shuffled onto this number this morning, and as I listened, I felt a mixture of things. Sometimes it seems like Coldplay's songs are largely gratuitous crowd-pleasers, and this one is a great example of that. But my crush on Chris Martin helps me give him the benefit of the doubt, and when I started to explore the lyrics, I realized that the song, and its connection to my morning, were deeper than I originally thought.

Because, you see, I am wrestling with some demons of my own:

When I counted up my demons

Saw there was one for every day

With the good ones on my shoulders

I drove the other ones away

And unfortunately the good ones on my shoulders don't seem fully capable of driving the other ones away. Maybe building the good ones up is the way to go? It seems like that might work. I shall try it.

In the meantime, I'm happy to say that I feel anything but neglected and I'm keenly aware that everything's not lost:

So if you ever feel neglected

And if you think that all is lost

I'll be counting up my demons, yeah

Hoping everything's not lost

When you thought that it was over

You could feel it all around

And everybody's out to get you

Don't you let it drag you down

Singing out

Oh, oh, oh, yeah

Oh, oh, yeah

Oh, oh, yeah

Everything's not lost

Slow Motion

This morning as my alarm was going off, I felt as if the world was in slow motion. Once I roused myself enough to see that it was raining outside, I decided I'd stay in bed a bit longer, skip my yoga class, and practice at home instead. For the next hour or so, I occupied that not quite conscious place between wakefulness and sleep. My ipod was on in the background, and David Gray provided music and lyrics (and with the video, pictures) to describe my sleepy state:

While I was watching you did a slow dissolve

While I was watching you did a slow dissolve

While I was watching you did a slow dissolve

Did I imagine or do the walls have eyes

Did I imagine they held us hypnotized

Did I imagine or do the walls have eyes

Life in slow motion somehow it don’t feel real

Life in slow motion somehow it don’t feel real

Life in slow motion somehow it don’t feel real

Snowflakes are falling I'll catch them in my hands

Snowflakes are falling I'll catch them in my hands

Snowflakes are falling now you’re my long lost friend

Snowflakes aren't falling just yet -- but they're coming. I finally got my light therapy light out of the basement on Saturday. I used to suffer mightily from seasonal affected disorder, now I just observe that my energy level is a bit lower and my mood a bit darker. I attribute the fact that I suffer less with s.a.d. now than I did before to four main factors:

1) I have, and use, light therapy to help me get the (simulated) sunlight I need to feel good.

2) I am careful to do my yoga and get my aerobic exercise -- much of it outside, even in the colder months.

3) I am happier overall, have more love and more support in my life than I used to; but most of all:

4) I recognize that seasons are, that there is a time for budding and a time for dropping off, a time for warmth and a time for chill, a time when we are closer to the sun and a time when we are farther from it, and I do my best to be with all that.

Homeward Bound

I feel like I've had more than my fair share of frustrating parenting moments lately. I think the kids and I have fallen into some patterns that are less than positive and productive and to break out of them, I have to lead us toward a different space. This takes a lot of energy, but I think the reason for the painful times is to gather the strength needed to make the adjustments.

In the midst of a couple of tough days, I got to spend some alone time with my daughter. She chose our activity: going to the climbing gym. I couldn't have picked a more perfect reset button if I'd tried.

As her belayer, I provided her the safety, security and encouragement she needed to climb higher; as the climber, she got to demonstrate to herself and others her strength, her tenacity, and an appreciation for what she could accomplish when I was supporting her in a positive way. She expressed this appreciation repeatedly, and I felt gratified and humbled by the gargantuan task of raising such a strong, capable child.

Marveling at all this, I heard Simon and Garfunkel start to fill the climbing gym, and felt myself filling with gratitude about the home I've been able to create for myself and my children, and the one that my boyfriend and I are one day hoping to create for the four of us:

Homeward bound, I wish I was homeward bound

Home, where my thoughts escape, at home, where my music's playin'

Home, where my love lies waitin' silently for me

Tonight I'll sing my songs again, I'll play the game and pretend

But all my words come back to me, in shades of mediocrity

Like emptiness and harmony, I need someone to comfort me...

And I set the intention that above all else, our home would always be a place where we could all find comfort.

Have a Heart

I reckon frustration toward the ex is the reason this number has landed on repeat on the internal jukebox:

Hey!

Shut up.

Don’t lie to me.

Because this is what I feel like screaming at him when he asserts that the motivation behind his communications with me are all in the best interest of the kids. Certainly, he wants what is best for the kids. But he refuses to acknowledge his feelings or mine in a meaningful enough way that we could actually get to a space where we could put the past behind us and come together for the kids. Instead, he wants me to get past it already, and rather than change his behavior, I am expected to desensitize myself to it:

Baby, how can you say

You should be free and I should pay and pay

And you talk and talk about you and what you need

But sooner or later your love is gonna make me bleed.

Yes folks, we reached that point a long time ago, and:

Hey, hey, have a heart, hey, have a heart.

If you don’t love me, why don’t you let me go?

Have a heart, please, oh don’t you have a heart?

Little by little you fade while I fall apart.

Oh, oh.

...I reckon it is time for me to stop falling apart over this. I was reading a book of Rumi poems last night, and this one in particular struck a chord for me:

Where You Love From

Look inside and find where a person

loves from. That's the reality,

not what they say. -Hypocrites

Word!

One final note -- I thought this song sounded great on the internal jukebox, which played my version of Bonnie Raitt. But check this chick's version out -- so powerful!

Feels Like the First Time

I'm not sure what it is -- maybe the concentration of time spent with a man who was just starting to rock when this song was big -- but this is the second time this month that the internal jukebox has landed on Foreigner.

We've had our moments since his move to the heartland when we've felt a little more distant than we did on our long weekends together during the year we were apart -- which I think is inevitable given the work/kids/house that gets added to the mix in real life/same city romance. But then something will happen and I'll feel just like I did that first weekend all over again:

Feels like the first time

And it feels like the very first time

And it feels like the first time

It feels like the very first time

This time those feelings were brought about when, lying in bed together, he asked me how I was feeling. A little sad, I answered. "Hmmmm," he replied. "Why don't you float around in it for a while and let me know if you come up with anything you want to share?" This, coming from a man who used to respond to my sadness with wanting it not to be there, wanting to make it better, wanting to change it, felt miraculous, generous, spacious. Lying by his side, I felt free to be where I was and loved in a way that I'm just beginning to get used to:

And it feels like the first time

Like it never did before

Feels like the first time

Like we've opened up the door

Feels like the first time...

Lover, Lover

This song has been with me over the last week or so as issues with my ex and his new girlfriend have come to a head:

Well the truth, well it hurts to say

I'm gonna pack up my bags and I'm gonna go away

I'm gonna split, I can't stand it

I'm gonna give it up and quit and ain't never coming back

It's a lot to wade through, these feelings about another woman quite literally sleeping in my bed (we bought it together), living in my house, and caring for my children. Thank goodness I'm blessed with wise, compassionate friends, as well as an awesome lover who was able to help me have perspective on this situation when the feelings were at their most raw. He reminded me I'd never felt at home in that house, and that the bed she is sleeping in is the one I purposely left because I finally faced up to the fact that this was my experience and had been for years:

Woh-oh lover lover lover, you don't treat me no good no more,

Woh-oh, woh-oh lover, lover lover, you don't treat me no good no more...

What's more, the contrast between this lover and my ex husband is so stark they almost don't deserve to share the same term. Still, I am forever grateful for my babies, for all that I learned about myself during that time period, and for the freedom I had after I left to heal, fall in love with myself, and then wicked fall in love with such an amazing man this time around.

Here's the original from Jerrod Niemann -- I think this is one of those rare cases that I prefer the cover by Sonia Dada (selected by my internal jukebox and linked above)...

Good Enough

In my boyfriend's absence tonight, I had the good fortune of a date with a good friend, one with whom I can discuss in an intimate manner the ways in which, though we sometimes feel otherwise: we're good enough mothers, our kids are doing good (well) enough, and our husbands (partners) are good enough too:

Hey your glass is empty

It’s a hell of a long way home

Why don’t you let me take you

It’s no good to go alone

I never would have opened up

But you seemed so real to me

After all the bullshit I’ve heard

It’s refreshing not to see

I don’t have to pretend

She doesn’t expect it from me

Because my man and I are still in the honeymoon phase, I can relate more closely to her feelings about her marriage of thirteen years with feelings I remember having about my ex-husband than those I have about my current relationship, but on some level, we decided, being ok with something means deciding that it's good enough.

And the truth is, one human being can never make that decision for another. I can hear my ex-husband's pleas when I told him I wanted out of our marriage coming loud and clear through these lyrics:

Don’t tell me I haven’t been good to you

Don’t tell me I have never been there for you

Don’t tell me why

Nothing is good enough

But it wasn't good enough for me. And though I had to wade through some very lonesome terrain to get where I am today, I could always hear the universe singing some version of this verse of Sarah's beautiful song (written for an abused child):

So just let me try

And I will be good to you

Just let me try

And I will be there for you

I’ll show you why

You’re so much more than good enough...