Hiding My Heart

My friend posted an album of Brandi Carlile covers on FB. There were a few good ones, but the best one of a song I haven't already posted about was this one:

This is how the story went
I met someone by accident
Who blew me away
Blew me away
And It was in the darkest of my days
When you took my sorrow and you took my pain
And buried them away, buried them away

I wish I could lay down beside you
When the day is done
And wake up to your face against the morning sun
But like everything I've ever known
You'll disappear one day
So I'll spend my whole life hiding my heart away

I spent a LOT of my life hiding my heart away. So grateful that phase is over.

Sing it Brandi:

Dropped you off at the train station
Put a kiss on top of your head
Watched you wave
And watched you wave
Then I went on home to my skyscrapers
And neon lights and waiting papers
That I call home
I call that home

I wish I could lay down beside you
When the day is done
And wake up to your face against the morning sun
But like everything I've ever known
You'll disappear one day
So I'll spend my whole life hiding my heart away
Away, yeah

Very, very soon, I'll get to lay down beside my love. A year ago I wasn't sure that would ever happen again:

Woke up feeling heavy hearted
I'm going back to where I started
The morning rain
The morning rain
And though I wish that you were here
On that same old road that brought me here
It's calling me home
It's calling me home

I wish I could lay down beside you
When the day is done
And wake up to your face against the morning sun
But like everything I've ever known
You'll disappear one day
So I'll spend my whole life hiding my heart away

No I won't. Instead I'll spend the rest of my life grateful to finally get to be with my love...

The Things I Regret

Selfie with one of the beautiful birthday girls this weekend!

On the way home from practice this morning, I was so happy to hear my girl Brandie belting out this new number:

Ohhhhh ohhhh ohhhh oh-o-oh
Ohhhhh ohhhh ohhhh oh-o-oh

There’s a hole in my pocket where my dreams fell through,
from a sidewalk in the city to the avenue.
There’s a leak in my dam ‘bout the size of a pin,
and I can’t quite remember where the water’s getting in.

But when you’re wearing on your sleeve,
all the things you regret,
you can only remember what you want to forget.
You feel it tugging at your heart,
like the stars overhead,
‘til you rest your bones on the killing bed.

Let them roll over me.
Let them roll over me,
when I doubt you.

Let them roll over me.
Let them roll over me,
when I doubt you.

With the weight of the world resting on my back,
and the road on which I've travelled is as long as it is cracked.
But I keep pressing forward with my feet to the ground,
for a heart that is broken makes a beautiful sound.

I love me some Brandi in general, but that last line really got right to me. I had a call this weekend with a woman who delivered the unsugarcoated truth about where I am in my life and where my work is going forward. And there's a lot of work, some of which I'm really not sure how to go about doing. Like learning to receive, understanding that money is neutral, and finding more of a balance between being in my mind and being in my body.

I feel like I've been working at all of those things, but maybe that's part of the problem. Maybe it's about surrender rather than working? I don't know, but I'm trying not to take my to-do list as an indictment on my current station in this life:

I walk through my days like a ghost in a dream,
but the field carries on and my past follows me.
It’s hard moving on from the things you done wrong,
when they play in your head like an old fashioned song.

But when you’re wearing on your sleeve,
all the things you regret,
you can only remember what you want to forget.

Lonely miles,
without you.

Lonely miles,
without you.

Let them roll over me.
Let them roll over me,
when I doubt you.

Let them roll over me.
Let them roll over me,
when I doubt you.

Let them roll over me.
Let them roll over me.
Let them roll over me.
Let them roll over me.

Let the ground keep my faults.
Let the water be my home.
Let the dust hold my soul,
like a holy rolling stone.

Yeah. Let that happen. Maybe that'll help...

What Can I Say

A friend sent me this song yesterday:

Look to the clock on the wall
Hands hardly moving at all
I can't stand the state that I'm in
Sometimes it feels like the walls closing in

Oh, Lord, what can I say
I'm so sad since you went away
Time, time, ticking on me
Alone is the last place I wanted to be
Lord, what can I say

What can I say? I love Brandi's voice, so I pretty much always appreciate her songs. When I first played it, there was a huge part of me that wanted to say "I used to feel like that, but not anymore!" even though it isn't entirely true. I want to be over this loss, I really do, but I'm not yet.

I can honestly say that I'm not in the grip of it like I was. Although I do feel the way she sings about feeling here sometimes, I also experience other feelings. There's more space around the grief, and that in itself is huge.

I'm also trying to address the loneliness that I brought into my last relationship so that it isn't with me either when I'm alone or in another relationship. It's a big job, and a tough job too:

Try to burn my troubles away
Drown my sorrow the same way
Seems no matter how hard I try
Feels like there's something just missing inside

But I understand now that the something that is missing is a part of my own wholeness. It doesn't really have anything to do with any man, and it's me that has to address that piece.

Part of the reason this loss is so complicated for me is that the New Englander was the person, more than anyone else in my life besides my own children, who helped me move toward wholeness. So giving him up while on this path just felt wrong and counterintuitive to me. But he has his own path, and it must feel right to him because that's what he's chosen. Besides, although being with him facilitates my healing, it does feel like there's some of it that I have to do on my own:

Oh, Lord, what can I say
I'm so sad since you went away
Time, time, ticking on me
Alone is the last place I wanted to be
Lord, what can I say
Oh, Lord, what can I say

The line "alone is the last place I wanted to be" doesn't really feel true for me -- there are many aspects of being alone that I enjoy -- but again there's a complication in getting used to this period of aloneness that I've never had to deal with so profoundly. And that is just how much every part of me enjoyed being with him:

How many rules can I break
How many lies can I make
How many roads must I turn
To find me a place where the bridge hasn't burned

I don't know if the bridge between us has burned. I was talking to my spiritual teacher on Sunday and she told me that the New Englander has served me well in terms of calling me home (that's her terminology for looking deeply at oneself/doing your own work) and he continues to do that for me, even in the absence of communication. She said it may be that part of what feels so wrenching about letting go is that part of me knows there is still more he has to teach me, and I him.

Oh, Lord, what can I say
I'm so sad since you went away
Time, time, ticking on me
Alone is the last place I wanted to be
Lord, what can I say
Oh, Lord, what can I say

I'll say one more thing about how this loss feels today compared to how it has felt previously. It used to feel like some vital part of me had been amputated, leaving behind a bloody, misshapen, semi-functional mess. It doesn't feel that way anymore. Now it feels more like the coolest dog I ever had is dead. Part of me will always miss him, but I can live a full life without him. I'll never have another one with all the same awesome attributes, but when I'm ready, I can be open to discovering the wonder of another being...

I Will Always Love You

These lovers first said hello and last said goodbye on a NE couch

This morning as I lay on the couch with my lover one last time, this song came to me in all its cheesy glory:

If I should stay
I would only be in your way
So I'll go but I know
I'll think of you every step of the way

And I... will always love you, ooh
Will always love you
You
My darling, you...
Mmm-mm

Bittersweet memories
That is all I'm taking with me
So goodbye
Please don't cry
We both know I'm not what you, you need

Oh I don't know, Whitney. I'd like him to cry. Really, really cry about losing me, the way I've really, really cried for the last year, and especially this last week. At least once.

I hope life treats you kind
And I hope you have all you've dreamed of
And I wish you joy and happiness
But above all this I wish you love

I do want these things for him. I really do. But I don't want to lose him.

And I... will always love you
I will always love you
I will always love you
I will always love you

I will always love you
I, I will always love you.

You.
Darling, I love you.
I'll always...
I'll always love you.

Yes I will. And I cried my little eyes out as I heard it playing inside my head. And when I managed to pick myself up off the couch and pry myself away from him, Whitney was quickly followed by the Stones reminding me I can't always get what I want.

I'll say...

2019 postscript: Just weeks before we are slated to say goodbye again, I came across this beautiful cover featuring Dolly Parton and Brandi Carlile.

And I will, still, always love him... only this time, I'm willing to lose him to create space for more harmony in my own life.

My Song

Here's me with the retiree!

Last night I went to a retirement party for a woman I had the pleasure of working with for a decade.

At the party, I saw another woman I used to work with, who is also a regular reader of marking my days with music. It was super fun to catch up with her -- she knew all these details about my life -- and was really excited for me that things are back on with my New England love.

The experience brought to mind a Brandi Carlile number -- not my favorite song of hers -- but the title is apropos for a girl who picks a song for many of the days of her life and blogs about them:

Everything I do
Surrounds these pieces of my life
That often change
Or hey, maybe I've changed

Sometimes seeming happy
Can be self-destructive
Even when you're sane
Yeah you're only insane

But don't bother waking me today

Here I am
I'm so young
I know I've been bitter
I've been jaded
I'm alone
Everyday, I bite my tongue
If you only knew
My mind was full of razors
To cut you like a
Word if only sung

But this is my song
This is my song

I live everyday
Like they'll never be a last one
Till they're gone
And they're gone
I'm not too proud to beg for
Your attention and your friendship
And your time
So you could come and get it from now on

Here I am
I'm so young
I know I've been bitter
I've been jaded
I'm alone
Everyday, I bite my tongue
If you only knew
My mind was full of razors
To cut you like a
Word if only sung

This is my song
This is my song

And it's you
It is you,,,

I knew it was him, and he was it. I felt it. But then I had to let go of that, or try to. And I really believe I'm a stronger person for having done so, but it feels really, really good to be affirming that it's him again, and to have my friends and followers sharing in my joy...

Wasted

This song came into my head this morning as I was trying to motivate myself to get up and go to work:

If you had eyes like golden crowns and diamonds in your fingertips you'd waste it
If shining wisdom passed your lips and traveled to the ears of god you'd waste it
And so I hate that you're overrated most revered and celebrated cause you're wasted

I didn't immediately understand the connection to anything I had going in my life -- and then I started watching this video, and saw the little girl from the audience come up on stage and sing along with Brandi, and started to cry, as I always do when children sing. I haven't been able to really discern what the tears are about -- perhaps that's a good subject for therapy -- but I can say that they feel more loaded than just the tears that come from being moved. They are heavier than that, weighed down, it seems, with regret.

Regret about what, I don't know. What have I been given that I've wasted? My voice?

Every time you close a door and nothing opens in its place you've wasted
And when you speak the words you know to those who know the words themselves you're wasted,
You're such a classic waste of cool, so afraid to break the rules in all the wrong places

Then again it's good to get a call
Now and then just to say hello
Have I said I hate to see you go...hate to see you go

My daughter had a school performance on Friday, and she informed me on Thursday that she'd be lip syncing rather than singing, particularly the Joni Mitchell song. My first instinct as a parent is to support my kids' decisions, but in retrospect, I reckon it'd be more useful to question her on that one a bit. Why not sing out loud?

Listening to WPR the other day, I realized it wasn't just my daughter who is self conscious about her voice. The show was dedicated to Levon Helms, who died last week, and for those who don't know, was a singer and musician who found fame in The Band. He died of the throat cancer that he'd beaten into remission 10 years before. In the interview I was listening to, he talked about what changed when he defied the odds and went back to singing after throat cancer. "I still can't say I'm in love with the sound of my own voice," he said, "but at least I'm letting myself enjoy it more."

Wow. If a man who made his living with his voice as one of his instruments doesn't love it and has to contract cancer to find the joy in his singing, what does that say about us as a species?

I'm not sure. But I for one am going to focus on not wasting this precious voice -- and whatever other gifts -- I've been given. And I'm going to do my best to enjoy them, too.

Cannonball

Yesterday traveling back from Milwaukee, I heard this heartbreaker of a song from one of my favorite female vocalists:

I was born when I met you
Now I'm dying to forget you
And that is what I know
Though I dreamed I would fall
Like a wounded cannonball
Sinking down with my heart in tow

Bright lights like white lightning
Who shot me down
Who will cut me down
I'm frozen in my bed till the day comes around
How I'm lost
How I'm found

And although I don't think I'm at the dying to forget you point, I'm definitely in a lot of pain, as I'm sure Brandi was when she wrote this song.

I can relate to this verse, in particular:

Someone told me a lie
Someone looked me in the eye
And said time will ease your pain
But behold, when you fall
It's that same old cannonball
Coming back for your heart again...

The Story

This past weekend, I read with a heavy heart the story of Chris Funk's death earlier this month, a man whom I didn't personally know well, but who lived in my neighborhood and was a huge part of the lives of some of my friends. Over the years since he'd been diagnosed with brain cancer, I'd attended one of his non-profit's annual events, said hello to him at our favorite neighborhood coffee shop, and eventually heard from a friend that the end was close. Though there is no doubt that his death marks a huge loss, he also lived a really full life in his 36 years, and had a wonderful relationship with his wife, Brandi, with whom he celebrated 10 years of marriage shortly before he died. Though I didn't know them well, they were the kind of couple who seemed, if there is such a thing, made for each other.

Here's one of my favorite songs by another amazing Brandi, whose screeching voice (I mean that in the best possible way) will let you know in no uncertain terms that she indeed believes in this sort of love. Hearing her sing about it -- I can't help but believe in it too...

AHHHHLLLL of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I've been
And how I got to where I am
But these stories don't mean anything
When you've got no one to tell them to
It's true -- I was made for you.