The Sound of Music

I didn't watch the Oscars, but I did hear that Lady Gaga performed songs from my favorite musical, The Sound of Music:

The hills are alive with the sound of music
With songs they have sung for a thousand years
The hills fill my heart with the sound of music
My heart wants to sing every song it hears

My heart wants to beat like the wings of the birds
That rise from the lake to the trees
My heart wants to sigh like a chime
That flies from a church on a breeze

To laugh like a brook when it trips
And falls over stones on its way
To sing through the night
Like a lark who is learning to pray

It's starting to get to that point in the winter when I'd do just about anything to be galavanting like Julie Andrews in warm weather when everything is green again. Alas, this morning when I got up it was -8, and by the time I went out for my run I think it was up to 4 degrees above zero. I hadn't run in a while, and I have to say that there were parts of it that were absolutely miserable: wind ripping right through my clothes, making me wonder what I was doing out there.

But there were also times when, protected from the wind and bathed in sunshine, it felt amazing to be out there, and at that moment I felt not unlike Julie Andrews sings about feeling in Austria:

I go to the hills when my heart is lonely
I know I will hear what I've heard before
My heart will be blessed with the sound of music
And I'll sing once more

I noted after I was done, too, that I felt measurably happier. It feels like it is going to take some time to fully recover from what I've been living with for the past several weeks, but I'm going to get there...

Something Good

This morning one of my favorite work buddies busted me listening to this song when he walked into my office. When I turned around he said: "Oh my god! You're glowing! You had sex!" And then I had to explain to him that actually I haven't, recently, but I do feel like I have, and I don't mean the empty one-night-stand wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am variety either. I mean the languorous, lingering variety. I can't fully explain it, except to say that I have the sense that all of what I've wanted in a man, in a relationship, in a marriage, in a family, is coming my way.

Perhaps I had a wicked childhood
Perhaps I had a miserable youth
But somewhere in my wicked miserable past
I must have had a moment of truth...

The Sound of Music is one of my favorite movies of all time, but youtube let me down a bit in terms of having a clip of Maria & the Captain singing this song to each other. So we'll just have to make do with this one of Julie Andrews -- and I had to turn the volume all the way up to hear it:

For here you are
Standing there
Loving me
Whether or not you should

So somewhere in my youth
Or childhood
I must have done something good

Nothing comes from nothing
Nothing ever could
So somewhere in my youth or childhood
I must have done something good

Sometimes the comments on youtube make up for the crappy sound or the lack of the version you want -- and you have to love this comment on the page from this song:

"Julie Andrews is more than a legend. She's a UNICORN."