Romeo and Juliet

I was in need of a sing-a-long number on my way to work this morning, so I got out an old CD mix and stumbled onto one of my all time favorite songs about heartbreak:

Love struck Romeo
Sings the streets a serenade
He's layin' everybody low
He's got a love song that he made
Well he finds a convenient street light
And he steps out of the shade and says something like
"You and me babe how about it?"

Juliet says, "Hey it's Romeo
You nearly gave me a heart attack yeah well"
He's underneath my window now she's singin'
"Hey la my boyfriend's back
You shouldn't come around here
Singin' up to people like that
Oh anyway, what you gonna do about it?"

Oh Juliet the dice were loaded from the start
And I bet
And you exploded into my heart
And I forget, I forget the movie song
When you gonna realize?
It was just that the time was wrong
Julie

For me there's something particularly cruel about the idea that love is right but the timing is wrong, but lucky for me, my favorite verse to belt out is up next:

We both come up on different streets
And they were both streets of shame
They're both dirty both mean
And yes even our dreams were the same
But I dreamed your dream for you
And now your dream is real so tell me honey
Now how can you look at me as
If I were just another one of your deals?

Oh, I used to scream that line when I was a young co-ed, and I'm pleased to report it was just as satisfying as a forty-something soccer Mom:

Now you can fall for chains of silver
And you can fall for chains of gold
You know you, you fall for pretty strangers
And the promises since they hold
Well you promised me everything
And then you, and then you promised me thick and thin
And now you just turn away and say
"Romeo I think I used to have a scene with him"

Oh Juliet when we made love you used to cry
You said, "I love you like the stars above
I'm gonna love you till I die"
There's a place for us, I know you know this song
Now when you gonna realize it was just that the time was wrong?
Julie I'm so in love
So in love yeah

Somehow, just because I read about it happening in a high school English class, I didn't really believe that when you love someone like the stars above, the timing might still be wrong:

But I can't do the talk
Like they talk on my TV screen
I can't do a love song
Not the way you sung it to me
I can't do anything
But I would do anything for you, oh no
I can't do anything
Except be in love with you

Yeah now all I do is miss you
And the way it used to be
And all, and all I do is keep the beat
I keep bad, bad company
And all I do is kiss you
Through the bars of this rhyme
When Julie I'd do the stars with you
Anytime

Then again, I didn't really think you could love someone that much, and now I know you can.

Thanks IG, for this fabulously satisfying song about a big, big love that wasn't fully realized on the material plane. Just in case that's how it goes down for me, I'm glad to know you and your song are here for me...

Tried To Be True

Early this morning, as my kids, my sister, and two of her kids slumbered, I got up and went to the 6:30am led Ashtanga practice. It's day 89 of my 90 day intensive, and I won't be able to go tomorrow since we'll be away at the farm overnight. During the 90 days, I took 50 classes and practiced yoga for nearly 70 hours, and I definitely feel a shift in my practice thanks to the increased level of discipline.

Accompanying me as I awoke this morning was a song, courtesy of the internal ipod, that seems to give voice to a part of me that appears to have some lingering questions about the relationship I recently gave up:

Did you try to be true?
What separates me from you?
What separates me from you now?

Did you borrow the soul,
The soul that you sell now?
What does your conscience tell you?
Where are the demons
Of your desire?
Why does my love destroy you?

Did you try to be true?
What separates me from you?
What separates me from you now?

I said I tried to be true.
What separates me from you.
I said I tried, tried to be true.
What separates me from you.
What separates me from you now?

Did you try to be true?
What separates me from you?
What separates me from you now?

So where is the fame,
Where is the fortune?
Where is the world that denies you?
Who is to blame,
When my heart finally forfeits
To a road that will only misguide you?

The Indigo Girls have long been my go to girl band for belting out a number with gusto, and this post Thanksgiving tune is no exception...

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.

Love Will Come to You

I think one of the hardest things we are asked to do as human beings is let go and trust rather than holding on for dear life. I know from my own experience that when I can let go and trust, I always get what I need, but I still don't like that feeling of floating in a sea of uncertainty when there is a perfectly seaworthy vessel I could just ride -- if it weren't so important that I learn to swim. But it is important. And I don't just mean know how to keep myself from drowning in the water -- I've got that covered -- I mean REALLY swim: beautiful, efficient, strengthening, lengthening strokes that propel me nearly effortlessly through the water. And it isn't just important because one day, that vessel won't be there. Even when it is there, and I choose to ride on it, if I can do so knowing my own capability in the water, I'll be that much more content a passenger.

Yes kids, that's what they call an extended metaphor. You follow?

Maybe a little ditty from these two chicks can help. I used to listen to them all the time when I was younger, and I found particular comfort in the refrain of this song:

I say love will come to you
hoping just because I spoke the words that they're true
as if I offered up a crystal ball to look through
where there's now one there will be two

This song touches on another theme I've been grappling with, which is how to keep my heart open even when things start to feel precarious -- working with that edge, as I tell my yoga students about the postures -- is where we have the most capacity to grow, strengthen, open... And so, while I think the end of this song is really beautiful:

And I wish her insight to battle love's blindness
strength from the milk of human kindness
a safe place for all the pieces that scattered
learn to pretend there's more than love that matters

This time around, I'm going to drink from that milk of human kindness, trust that the pieces of my heart are right where they need to be, safe or not, and not pretend for one single moment that there's more than love that matters.