Unknown Legend

Riding my bike after practice today, I heard this song in my head, from one of my very favorite voices:

She used to work in a diner
Never saw a woman look finer
I used to order just to watch
her float across the floor
She grew up in a small town
Never put her roots down
Daddy always kept movin',
so she did too

In particular, these next two lines are the ones that were on repeat:

Somewhere on a desert highway
She rides a Harley-Davidson
Her long blonde hair
flyin' in the wind
She's been runnin' half her life
The chrome and steel she rides
Collidin' with
the very air she breathes
The air she breathes

I'm focusing right now, as much as I can on simple things like breathing, during this in-between time that ain't easy at all:

You know it ain't easy
You got to hold on
She was an unknown legend
in her time
Now she's dressin' two kids
Lookin' for a magic kiss
She gets the far-away look
in her eyes

Lucky for me, my kids don't require dressin' anymore. They are beautiful, fully formed people with a strong sense of who they are, who they want to be, and just as important, who they don't want to be.

Meanwhile, nearly five decades into this life, I'm continuing to develop my own sense of that. I think the pull for me, coming from the family I did, to put my man first, is not to be underestimated. As one of my yoga teachers said: "I don't think you knew there was another option."

Indeed I didn't, but I do now. Now I choose to value my own peace of mind and heart over any man's, including one I love dearly.

And I choose to do what makes me happy -- riding my bike, going to yoga, and listening to Neil in my head:

Somewhere on a desert highway
She rides a Harley-Davidson
Her long blonde hair
flyin' in the wind
She's been runnin' half her life
The chrome and steel she rides
Collidin' with the very
air she breathes
The air she breathes

Down By the River

My three favorite people in the world!

Summer's over? Say it ain't so!

On this last day of summer -- at least, summer vacation -- we decided to make a trip out for a swim in the Wisconsin River.

It wasn't super warm out, mind you -- and when my daughter first put her feet in the water, she declared that she wasn't swimming.

"I am!" I said, running into the water. It was cold, but rituals are rituals.

Speaking of, on the way home, we went to the petting zoo my kids loved when they were little.

Seems fitting to mark today with this classic - I love Neil Young!

Be on my side,
I'll be on your side,
baby
There is no reason
for you to hide
It's so hard for me
staying here all alone
When you could be
taking me for a ride.

Yeah, she could drag me
over the rainbow,
send me away
Down by the river
I shot my baby
Down by the river,
Dead, oh, shot her dead.

You take my hand,
I'll take your hand
Together we may get away
This much madness
is too much sorrow
It's impossible
to make it today.

Yeah, she could drag me
over the rainbow,
send me away
Down by the river
I shot my baby
Down by the river,
Dead, oh, shot her dead.

Be on my side,
I'll be on your side,
baby
There is no reason
for you to hide
It's so hard for me
staying here all alone
When you could be
taking me for a ride.

Super extra grateful to have the love of my life along for the ride this afternoon...

One of These Days

I lovvvvvvvvvvve my boyfriend. He's amazing in so many ways. One of those ways is that he knows a little something about everything, and a whole lot about a lot of things, including music. In a conversation with him last night, he called me erudite. Which is adorable, and maybe a little bit true, but he's a lot more so than me.

And then, as if to prove that my wealth of knowledge is as deep as his without even trying, I sang a bar from a Neil Young song he did not know or recognize:

One of these days,
I'm gonna sit down
and write a long letter
To all the good friends I've known
And I'm gonna try
And thank them all
for the good times together.
Though so apart we've grown.

Mind you, it is more difficult to recognize a bar of a song that I sing, but he hadn't even heard of it:

One of these days,
I'm gonna sit down
and write a long letter
To all the good friends I've known
One of these days,
one of these days,
one of these days,
And it won't be long, it won't be long.

And I'm gonna thank,
That old country fiddler
And all those rough boys
Who play that rock 'n' roll
I never tried to burn any bridges
Though I know I let some good things go.

One of these days,
I'm gonna sit down
and write a long letter
To all the good friends I've known
One of these days,
one of these days,
one of these days,
And it won't be long, it won't be long.

From down in L.A.
All the way to Nashville,
From New York City
To my Canadian prairie home
My friends are scattered
Like leaves from an old maple.
Some are weak, some are strong.

One of these days,
I'm gonna sit down
and write a long letter
To all the good friends I've known
One of these days,
one of these days,
one of these days,
And it won't be long, it won't be long.

Nope, Neil, it won't be long. It won't be long before I get to see this man that I love so much again. Just two months from today I'll be out East with him!

One of these days,
one of these days,
one of these days,
And it won't be long, it won't be long.

Rockin' in the Free World

Tonight while I was getting ready to go out to dinner with a friend, I decided to turn on some Neil Young. I was just in the mood. I love Neil Young.

But I was surprised, when this song came on, just how topical it is today, especially given that it was written in 1989:

There's colors on the street
Red, white and blue
People shufflin' their feet
People sleepin' in their shoes
But there's a warnin' sign on the road ahead
There's a lot of people sayin' we'd be better off dead
Don't feel like Satan, but I am to them
So I try to forget it, any way I can.

Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world.

I see a woman in the night
With a baby in her hand
Under an old street light
Near a garbage can
Now she puts the kid away, and she's gone to get a hit
She hates her life, and what she's done to it
There's one more kid that will never go to school
Never get to fall in love, never get to be cool.

Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world.

We got a thousand points of light
For the homeless man
We got a kinder, gentler,
Machine gun hand
We got department stores and toilet paper
Got Styrofoam boxes for the ozone layer
Got a man of the people, says keep hope alive
Got fuel to burn, got roads to drive.

Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world.

Feels like I am more aware than ever that this world is only free for some of us...

Love is a Rose

I think we might've picked the rose. Sorry Neil!

Ok so going through old emails, sometimes romantic, sometimes sexy, sometimes funny, sometimes poignant emails, from an ex-boyfriend is a tricky business, however productive it may be in terms of book writing.

Especially when I come across snippets like this one from the New Englander from October of 2010:

"The quality of our dialogue gives me a lot of faith in us in every respect. I have so much respect for your ability to see yourself clearly and to tackle your challenges and to be willing to remain open even when there's potential for getting hurt."

Whatevs buddy. The quality of our dialogue, and it is some damn fine quality dialogue, got us nowhere in the end.

Maybe we forgot to pay attention to Neil's advice -- this song was one of many that we emailed to each other during that first year spent together but apart:

Love is a rose
but you better not pick it
It only grows when it's on the vine.
A handful of thorns and
you'll know you've missed it
You lose your love
when you say the word "mine".

I wanna see what's never been seen,
I wanna live that age old dream.
Come on, lads, we can go together
Let's take the best right now,
Take the best right now.

I wanna go to an old hoe-down
Long ago in a western town.
Pick me up cause my feet are draggin'
Give me a lift and I'll hay your wagon.

Love is a rose
but you better not pick it
It only grows when it's on the vine.
A handful of thorns and
you'll know you've missed it
You lose your love
when you say the word "mine".
Mine, mine.

Yeah, we mighta said mine one too many times. Guess we just didn't really understand that:

Love is a rose, love is a rose.
Love is a rose, love is a rose.

It must be some kind of cruel irony that it wasn't that long after we were geographically together that we started to grow apart emotionally, making me nostalgic for the version of together and apart that we had going in the first place...

Hey Hey My My

This morning in the car on my way to practice, this song came on:

Hey, hey, my, my
Rock and roll can never die
There's more to the picture than meets the eye
Hey, hey, my, my

Out of the blue and into the black
You pay for this, but they give you that
And once you're gone, you can't come back
When you're out of the blue and into the black

The king is gone but he's not forgotten
Is this the story of the Johnny Rotten?
It's better to burn out 'cause rust never sleeps
The king is gone but he's not forgotten

Hey, hey, my, my
Rock and roll can never die
There's more to the picture than meets the eye

And I just felt so grateful to be living in this world with Neil Young, so happy when I heard his voice coming through my speakers.

Then I got to the studio and we had a record breaking group practicing today -- it felt so great. I feel so lucky to have found this path from surviving to thriving, and so grateful to be able to share it with others...

Long May You Run

My kids on Bascom Hill

Library Mall

Marsh along Lakeshore Path

This was a pretty incredible weekend weatherwise. When I saw the prediction, I told the kids I wanted to go to some sort of state park and maybe even camp. They thought we needed to put more time into planning a camping trip and then couldn't agree on a destination for a day trip. So when we got up yesterday, and my son suggested we have a Madison adventure downtown, we agreed that was a capitol idea. The photos prove it!

Education Building

I heard this song today on the way to my son's soccer game in Marshall, which was especially fitting because I snuck in a run during his warm-up period, and it turned out to be a beautiful spot: Goose Lake Wildlife Area.

We've been through
Some things together
With trunks of memories
Still to come
We found things to do
In stormy weather
Long may you run.

Long may you run.
Long may you run.
Although these changes
Have come
With your chrome heart shining
In the sun
Long may you run.

Well, it was
Back in Blind River in 1962
When I last saw you alive
But we missed that shift
On the long decline
Long may you run.

Long may you run.
Long may you run.
Although these changes
Have come
With your chrome heart shining
In the sun
Long may you run.

Maybe The Beach Boys
Have got you now
With those waves
Singing "Caroline No"
Rollin' down
That empty ocean road
Gettin' to the surf on time.

I love me some Neil Young. And as my kids and I strolled around downtown Madison this weekend, I thought how long my run has been to this point, both on this Earth and as their mother. And I couldn't help but join Neil and his buddy Stephen in wishing this for my babes who are growing up so fast:

Long may you run.
Long may you run.
Although these changes
Have come
With your chrome heart shining
In the sun
Long may you run.

Don't Let It Bring You Down

The kids explore Peninsula State Park just after sunset

I've been offline for a few days -- first because our bunny chewed through our internet wires -- then because the kids and I took off to go camping in Door County.

What a beautiful spot! And everything mostly went well -- our drive went smoothly and wasn't too, too long -- we managed to set up our campsite even without the help of the man who inspired us to become campers...

But there were also challenges. The first morning, my daughter was pretty quiet and didn't want much to do with her brother, which is always tough for him. He and I were talking about it, and I told him not to let it bring him down, which fired up this number inside my head:

Don't let it bring you down
It's only castles burning,
Find someone who's turning
And you will come around.

Which got me thinking just how apropos that song was for me, and for us: The hole left by the missed person on our camping trip was enormous. We all felt it, and we talked about it, and dealt with it in different ways throughout our time away. I started by texting frequent updates, but when a couple went unreturned, I decided that wasn't the way to go. We made a video for him. We ate bacon and egg sandwiches in his honor (soooo yummy!) cooked on the Coleman stove he gave us...

And tried not to let it bring us down. But, its magnitude on the scale of castles burning, at least for yours truly, that's easier said than done.

Lucky for us, there were lots of fun things to do there. We hiked on the beautiful Eagle Trail, rented stand-up paddleboards at Nicolet Bay Beach (and just about got blown to a point beyond where we were supposed to be and from which it was nearly impossible to get back), rode our bikes, did an exercise course, had a campfire, read books in the tent, had good long sleeps all snuggled up together, and enjoyed mostly beautiful weather.

Until our last day, when it rained. And rained. And rained. But we enjoyed that too. Mostly.

I went for a run in the rain in the morning, which felt absolutely amazing. I felt something shift for me during that run: I'm gonna stop working so hard, even just inside my own head, on a way to get him back.

When I got back to the campsite, the kids were hungry and it seemed the rain was taking a break so I started cooking our breakfast -- only to have it start raining again midway through the cooking process. And yeah, because it was our last day, we also had to pack things up wet, which was pretty gross. But we got it done, and my daughter was a big help.

On our way out of the park, we decided to hit the Nature Center, which we had seen but hadn't been to yet, and then after that, I asked if they were ready to head home. My son said he'd really like to do one more hike, this time on The Lone Pine Trail. He assured us it was short, and although my daughter protested because of the rain, she went along with it. (After my magical run, I was pretty psyched about returning to the beautiful, sodden, empty forest.)

So off we went. And in the space of that hike, we hit highs and lows that I assured the kids are bound to come with every adventure and indeed, pretty much every day of our lives here at Earth school in one form or another. We went from bounding happily through the forest to getting lost and stressed and cold and soaking wet, wondering how and when we'd ever make it back to our car. But we made it:

Don't let it bring you down
It's only castles burning,
Just find someone who's turning
And you will come around.

We came around.

Note to Neil, who is ever so cute in the video linked above, filmed in the year I was born: methinks sometimes the someone I need to find turning is me, yes?

Pardon My Heart

Yesterday I decided to take a breather from work and grab coffee with a friend. He asked me how I was doing, I started telling him, and surprise! -- I started to cry. My friend didn't say much in response. He just sat and listened, and then repeated what I believe to be a pretty accurate assessment of my situation: "That really sucks." Yeah, it does.

But I love me some Neil Young, and when Pandora played this tune last night, it felt about perfect:

It's a fallen situation
When all eyes are turned in
And a love isn't flowing
The way it could have been

As I told my friend over coffee, it is so hard to know where to be or what to do in this situation. I hate being mad at this person who isn't really still my person but still feels like he is:

It's a sad communication
With little reason to believe
When one isn't giving
And one pretends to receive

So last night I tried doing what I know how to do that has served me in such instances in the past: I spoke my truth, and I consciously took the time to get into my heart space by doing one of my favorite 30-minute meditations (Mind like Sky with Jack Kornfield).

I think it worked, and I can't imagine a more beautiful way to express the feelings I got in touch with than what Neil sings here:

Pardon my heart
If I showed that I cared
But I love you
more than moments
We have or have not shared

Because I guess more than anything, what I got from my meditation was to view what's in front of my eyes (or not in front of my eyes, as the case may and sometimes will be) as the play of experience, rather than allowing the mind to draw conclusions that fit with old stories of abandonment or betrayal, even if on some level, they feel "true."

If I can do this -- and it's a tall order -- I can keep in touch with and keep being guided by the love that this relationship uncovered rather than the sadness and wrath I feel about it not working out the way I wanted:

You brought it all on
Oh, and it feels so good
You brought it all on
When love flows
the way that it should
You brought it all on...

Harvest Moon

Last night after a late afternoon cross country ski, my boyfriend and I watched a very sad, but very lovely movie called Away From Her. The movie is about a couple coping with the devastating effects of Alzheimer's disease, but mostly, it's about love. When I saw the movie for the first time, it made me realize this was the kind of love I was seeking, and it motivated me to make finding that love one of my primary aims of the remainder of my time on this planet.

The first step was to both find and fall in love with myself. I set off on that path alone -- I was the only person who could decide to make that my work -- but I called on lots of people to support me, including friends, therapists, bodyworkers of various types, and a number of spiritual teachers whom I accessed through books, guided meditations, and in person during yoga classes and various retreats. I wanted to clear away what was blocking me from being able to fully embrace loving a man.

I was quite successful, but as I alluded to in yesterday's post, I wasn't entirely successful on my own. It took falling in love with a man whose heart I found incredibly willing -- the incredible part being his willingness to both help me continue to clear away the old wounds (wounds that were deep and wide and that triggered some of his old wounds, too) and his willingness to move halfway across the country to be with me -- to fully fall in love with myself. From the beginning of our time together, he saw my light, and continuously reflected it back at me, and I had the benefit of seeing myself through his eyes.

Now here we are, more than two years down the road, and I feel in myself both the desire and the willingness to embrace that love, to decide that we're going to be partners in this adventure we call life.

The problem is, by his own admission and as evidenced by his actions, his heart isn't feeling as willing as it was in the beginning. In my estimation, he's experienced a lot of the healing that I've experienced in this relationship, by loving and being loved, but he hasn't made the decision to do the work of clearing away the old wounds. In fact, he's specifically said that he doesn't think he needs to do that, at times choosing to hold on to both behaviors and belief patterns that don't serve his highest good or the people around him.

When I awoke this morning, I thought about what I had written about yesterday, and I realized that I am not a dwarf, I am a divorced woman with two children who has loved and lost and worked incredibly hard to reclaim her right to a great love. And as such, I need more in a partner than loyalty, honor, and a willing heart, though I do agree those are necessary.

I need someone who has decided to raise his level of consciousness beyond the old tapes that we all (or at least those of us who had difficult childhoods) go into adulthood with, tapes that are filled with messages that limit our joy, restrict our degree of safety in the world and in relationships, and teach us that the world is a place of challenge rather than opportunity.

Every single day, I have to renew my commitment to live by a different set of rules, to work to keep my body strong and my heart open, to continuously work to define my priorities for this life and live according to them. Me. I have to do that. No one else can do it for me, anymore than I can do it for anyone else.

Early on in the movie we watched last night, this beautiful song was playing in the background:

Come a little bit closer
Hear what I have to say
Just like children sleepin'
We could dream this night away.

But there's a full moon risin'
Let's go dancin' in the light
We know where the music's playin'
Let's go out and feel the night.

Because I'm still in love with you
I want to see you dance again
Because I'm still in love with you
On this harvest moon.

When we were strangers
I watched you from afar
When we were lovers
I loved you with all my heart.

Whatever happens with us, I'm grateful to be able to say that I loved him with my whole heart. Still do.

But now it's gettin' late
And the moon is climbin' high
I want to celebrate
See it shinin' in your eye.

That's exactly what I want. I want to celebrate. I want to get married. And I want to do it joyfully. I told him so yesterday, during a pause in our skiing. But he isn't there, and I can't control whether he'll get there. And that's a very vulnerable place to be. When we were talking about this in bed last night, I was trying to articulate the challenge this presents for me, but I couldn't do it.

Now I think I can. My challenge is going to be to stay in love with myself, to continue to recognize my worthiness, to remember that loyalty, honor and a willing heart are needed, perhaps most of all, in our relationships with ourselves. After all, no one else is with us for the whole of our adventure, and those who do choose to be with us are always better off when we remember not to abandon ourselves...

Heart of Gold

Spent some time this evening with my kids and the cats that still reside in my former marital household, and that put me in the mood for some vintage Neil Young:

I want to live,

I want to give

I've been a miner

for a heart of gold.

It's these expressions

I never give

That keep me searching

for a heart of gold

And I'm getting old.

Keeps me searching

for a heart of gold

And I'm getting old.

What I didn't understand when I entered my first martial household was that the heart of gold I needed to find first was my own. Without full custody of it, I reckon I would've gotten really old searching for one in someone else...

Old Man

When these lyrics started running through my head this morning, I thought it was because the last couple of days have been filled with conversations about being a parent and the choices it requires one to make that would have otherwise been a lot less complex. I had to make a decision this week to go on a trip for work (to a desirable locale where I could've visited friends for free and learned some things that would be useful for my job) or stay home to see my son act in a skit. I solicited advice from a number of people, including my ex-husband and lots of other people with kids of their own. My boss gave me the choice, and when I told him I was going to let the Mom card trump this time around, he was supportive.

But when I found this video of young Neil singing this song in the year I was born, I felt the profundity of this musical selection on a much deeper level. I love Neil Young, but I know him mostly as the "old man" he is now -- not this young man, not yet a father himself (though in the following year he'd have the first of three kids), singing about his own father, who'd had many affairs and eventually left his mother. Reading these lyrics, I hear a young man struggling with a difficult relationship with his father:

Lullabies, look in your eyes,

Run around the same old town.

Doesn't mean that much to me

To mean that much to you.

But I also hear a young man who's begun to see the humanity of his own flawed father:

Old man take a look at my life

I'm a lot like you

I need someone to love me

the whole day through

Ah, one look in my eyes

and you can tell that's true.

And recognize that now that he's grown up, what his father didn't (and maybe couldn't) give him could come from somewhere else. He might even have begun to realize that he could provide the love he didn't get from his Dad to his own children and thus join a cycle of healing that has been going on for centuries. I carried a lot of fear into parenthood that my children might have to endure what I did as a child. At the time, I couldn't recognize that living with that fear was keeping me from giving them the quality of presence that they deserved.

Nowadays, I feel freed by the understanding that it isn't my job to be a perfect parent (we're all flawed -- it's part and parcel of being human), nor is it my job to shelter my children from pain. It's just my job to be there with them while they learn to deal with it and find as much joy in the journey as I can. And there's so much to savor about being a parent: as my daughter crawled in bed next to me to listen to this great song, saying "I like Neil Young," I pulled her in close and said I did too...

Cinnamon Girl

One of the joys of writing this blog is that some of my people have started to communicate with me in song. This morning one of ones most fond of that mode of communication sent me this song, which brought back a delightful memory of a day before I was officially marking them with music.

I was in Seattle visiting a friend, and I'd taken my red-haired freckled self to a coffee shop for a latte. I was over at the doctor-up-your-cup-just-the-way-you-like-it station putting a little cinnamon on said latte when a tall, dark stranger suddenly belted out:

I wanna live

with a cinnamon girl

I could be happy

the rest of my life

With a cinnamon girl.

It was awesome and had I not been married at that time, it would have been a great start to a fun fling, if not a lifetime of cinnamon enjoyment.

Though it isn't quite like a stranger in a coffee shop, watching Neil belt it out is pretty satisfying too...