I'll Love You More Than You'll Ever Know

I love me some Amy Winehouse, and today I learned that she covered this beautiful song by Blood, Sweat and Tears:

If I ever leave you baby
You can say I told you so
And if I ever hurt you
You know I hurt myself as well
Is that any way for a man to carry on?
Do you think, I want my loved one gone?
Said I love you
More than you'll ever know
More than you'll ever know
When I wasn't making much money
You know where my paycheck went
You know I brought it home to you baby
And I never spent one red cent
Is that any way for a man to carry on?
Do you think I want my loved one gone?
Said I love you

I love you more than you'll ever know, Amy Winehouse, and I wish the people in your life had been kinder to you while you were still alive.

RIP you unbelievably talented beauty.

Love is a Losing Game

There might be kind of a string of Amy Winehouse posts -- because the power of that movie and the music in it is running through my head non-stop.

This particular song, from closer to the end of her career, is also brilliant and sad:

For you I was the flame
Love is a losing game
Five story fire as you came
Love is losing game

One I wished, I never played
Oh, what a mess we made
And now the final frame
Love is a losing game

Played out by the band
Love is a losing hand
More than I could stand
Love is a losing hand

Self-professed profound
Till the chips were down
Know you're a gambling man
Love is a losing hand

Though I battled blind
Love is a fate resigned
Memories mar my mind
Love is a fate resigned

Over futile odds
And laughed at by the gods
And now the final frame
Love is a losing game

It can be. I wish that weren't the case, but it is. There are, of course, things we learn from these losses, and these are always the things we need to learn, but we have to be awake to these lessons. By the time her marriage ended, Amy was so disconnected from herself she couldn't take anything positive away from the loss...

What Is It About Men

I love Amy Winehouse's music, and I remember feeling that her death was tragic, though I didn't realize how tragic until I saw the movie Amy. I highly recommend it. It's a powerful tale about a brilliant songwriter and musician who had parents who didn't pay attention or respond appropriately to the warning signs that something was very wrong when she started throwing up all her food and getting high all the time.

Besides shitty parents, she fell in love with a man who wanted to get high as least as much as he wanted to be with her, so that didn't help matters.

This song is one of the first she wrote about this lover who eventually became her husband, and it stuck out to me during the movie as such a great example of her sophisticated lyrics and complex sound:

Understand once he was a family man
So surely I would never, ever go through it first hand
Emulate all the shit my mother hated
I can't help but demonstrate my Freudian fate
My alibi for taking your guy
History repeats itself, it fails to die
And animal agression is my downfall
I don't care 'bout what you got I want it all

It's bricked up in my head, it's shoved under my bed
And I question myself again: what is it 'bout men?
My destructive side has grown a mile wide
And I question myself again: what is it 'bout men?

I'm nurturing, I just wanna do my thing
And I'll take the wrong man as naturally as I sing
And I'll save my tears for uncovering my fears
For behavioural patterns that stick over the years

It's bricked up in my head, it's shoved under my bed
And I question myself again: what is it 'bout men?
My destructive side has grown a mile wide
And I question myself again: what is it 'bout men?

This song is from her first album -- and already she knows just how much trouble she's in. Over and over again in the movie you watch her vacillate between the music she loves and her love for the wrong man and getting high.

There is one point in the movie where she's feeling really done singing Back to Black on tour, but she doesn't feel like she has a choice about it. That, for me, was the biggest tragedy. That this incredible woman with all the money and fame and talent in the world felt that she didn't have a choice, and no one even tried to convince her that she did, in fact, have a choice.

Sorry, Amy. Sorry so many people let you down, including yourself. I wish you were still here with us making music, but at least you are no longer in so much pain. RIP my lovely.

Back to Black

I decided to set my alarm to get up early today and start a morning meditation and yoga practice. Although my alarm clock holds and plays an ipod, I haven't figured out how to tell it to wake me up with music rather than the buzzer. Lame, I know, but the sorta cool thing is, sometimes it just happens.

Today I woke up to one of Amy Winehouse's classics (she's such a beauty in this video, too):

We only said goodbye with words

I died a hundred times

You go back to her

And I go back to

Black, black, black, black, black, black, black,

I go back to

I go back to...

I love Amy Winehouse, and it makes me very sad that she died, but I was glad that she was the one to wake me up today. The last couple of days I've had a very powerful feeling that I'm capable of anything, including being an early riser, resuming my long-shelved meditation practice, and not letting the pain of the past drag me down any further, for starters.

As I laid there listening to her sing about love, drugs, loving drugs and dying a hundred times:

I love you much

It's not enough

You love blow and I love puff

And life is like a pipe

And I'm a tiny penny rolling up the walls inside

We only said goodbye with words

I died a hundred times

You go back to her

And I go back to.....

I could hear so much sadness and resignation in her voice, but I bet she had moments when she felt capable of anything. I'm not sure one could possess that voice and not have some pretty damn in-your-power moments. I sure wish she'd been able to stay in her power longer, but I know she must've been in an incredible amount of emotional pain, and in the grip of a really strong addiction, to keep going back to black the way she did.

Speaking of going back to black, I was out at a bar with a friend last night and there was a TV on right in my line of vision broadcasting a sporting event. Most of the time I'd be sort of offended by that or at least unhappily distracted, but this particular sporting event was glorious to behold: Serena Williams in a U.S. Open match. What an amazing athlete! What a beautiful woman! I love the juxtaposition of her proudly bared cleavage and her linebacker legs. She's redefining feminine beauty, and, along with her sister, what's possible for black women in the game of tennis. Or any other game, for that matter.

On my cushion this morning, I wrote in my gratitude journal for the first time since March. Both Amy's am serenade and Serena's sheness made the list today. 

Here's to feeling your power and embracing it and the many ways -- music, muscles -- that can inspire others...

Rehab

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

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

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

It's not just my pride

It's just 'til these tears have dried

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

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

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