You Give Good Love

Either my internal jukebox is a masochist or, if I dig deep enough, I can find something uplifting about the song that came into my head and demanded to be sung tonight:

I found out what I've been missing
Always on the run
I've been looking for someone

Now you're here like you've been before
And you know just what I need
It took some time for me to see
That you give good love to me baby
So good, take this heart mine into your hands
You give good love to me
Never too much
Baby you give good love

It's hard for a literal girl like me not to hear the lines "now you're here like you've been before and you know just what I need" and think about my ex coming back and being everything I thought he was, everything I dreamed he could be. But maybe the message is more about oneness. Maybe the man who is about to give me good love has learned his lessons about love. Maybe, just maybe, he knows just what I need because it's what he needs too, massively simplifying what was a very difficult process of discernment and bewilderment with the man from the East who didn't really know what he needed.

Never stopping, I was always searching
For that perfect love
The kind that girls like me dream of

I didn't feel like I was searching for it when I found it, but that's because I didn't know what I was looking for. But now I do, or at least, I have a much better idea than I did before my last relationship:

Now you're here like you've been before
And you know just what I need
It took some time for me to see
That you give good love to me baby
So good, take this heart of mine into your hands
You give good love to me
Never too much
Baby you give good love

Yes, please, take this heart of mine into your hands, Universe. Only this time, bring me a man to love who can not only love me right back but who will revel in the force of that love rather than run from it...

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.

I Get So Emotional

Woke up with this song in my head this morning -- not sure exactly why.

Maybe because today is the birthday of my favorite friend with whom to belt out Whitney, a friend who now lives in California, whom I'm going to get to see in a few short days?

Maybe because I do, in fact, get so emotional, quite often. During the bar mitzvah on Saturday, my daughter kept looking up at me every time I started to cry. She can just sense it. I love that we have such a powerful connection.

Or maybe because in just about exactly one month, I'm going to get to see the man who taught me most of what I know about the shocking things love can do:

I don't know why I like it
I just do

I've been hearing your heartbeat inside of me
I keep your photograph beside my bed
Livin' in a world of fantasies
I can't get you out of my head

I've been waiting for the phone to ring all night
Why you wanna make me feel so good
I got a love of my own baby
I shouldn't get so hung up on you

Oh I remember the way that we touch
I wish I didn't like it so much

Oh I get so emotional baby
Every time I think of you
I get so emotional baby
Ain't it shocking what love can do
Ain't it shocking what love can do
Ain't it shocking what love can do

I gotta watch you walk in the room baby
I gotta watch you walk out
I like the animal way you move
And when you talk
I just watch your mouth

Oh I remember the way that we touch
I wish I didn't like it so much

Oh I get so emotional baby
Every time I think of you
I get so emotional baby
Ain't it shocking what love can do

I'm Every Woman

The teacher I've been primarily working with since I started practicing Ashtanga started a new job, so he isn't often at the studio anymore. One of my favorite classes is led primary, which is where the teacher counts in Sanskrit and moves through the series. It used to be on Saturday mornings, but this morning the website said "Group Practice" instead of "Led Primary." I haven't been in a couple of weeks, so I decided to go anyway.

Lucky for me, there were two other women who decided to show as well, despite the change in class format. As it worked out, we just started our practice together (complete with chant beautifully led by one of the other Ashtangis) and then moved at our own pace.

The other two women who were there are really good at Ashtanga. I know, I know, it's not supposed to be about that, but they are, and it was hard for me not to feel kinda lame when I couldn't do many of the poses that they did.

Just when I was starting to get a little down on myself, Whitney self-selected on the internal jukebox and reminded me I'm not only as good as the other women, I am them:

'Cause I'm every woman (Every woman)
It's all in me
It's all in me
Yeah

I'm every woman
It's all in me

Of course, she was singing about what she could bring to a man, but I had a Whitney-related realization on that front today too. I was singing another of the songs I heard yesterday, The Greatest Love of All, and recognizing anew that part of what's so great about finding self-love is having it to give to someone else...

How Will I Know

Today in TRX class, the instructor was tuned in to an 80's channel. When this song came on, she said "I don't know if I can do this song! So cheesy! What do you think guys? Is this too cheesy?"

Not to worry, my fellow Whitney fans and cheesy song lovers, I stopped her from forwarding past this song AND sang along:

There's a boy I know, he's the one I dream of
Looks into my eyes, takes me to the clouds above
Ooh I lose control, can't seem to get enough
When I wake from dreaming, tell me is it really love

How will I know (Don't trust your feelings)
How will I know
How will I know (Love can be deceiving)
How will I know
How will I know if he really loves me

I say a prayer with every heart beat
I fall in love whenever we meet
I'm asking you what you know about these things
How will I know if he's thinking of me
I try to phone but I'm too shy (can't speak)
Falling in love is all bitter sweet
This love is strong why do I feel weak

Oh, wake me, I'm shaking, wish I had you near me now
Said there's no mistaking, what I feel is really love

You sang it, sister!

Didn't We Almost Have It All

If you've been reading my recent posts, the reasons this song is on repeat on the internal ipod are likely obvious:

Remember when we held on in the rain
The night we almost lost it
Once again we can take the night into tomorrow
Living on feelings
Touching you I feel it all again

Didn't we almost have it all
When love was all we had worth giving?
The ride with you was worth the fall my friend
Loving you makes life worth living
Didn't we almost have it all
The night we held on till the morning
You know you'll never love that way again
Didn't we almost have it all

The way you used to touch me felt so fine
We kept our hearts together down the line
A moment in the soul can last forever
Comfort and keep us
Help me bring the feeling back again

Didn't we have the best of times
When love was young and new?
Couldn't we reach inside and find
The world of me and you?
We'll never lose it again
Cause once you know what love is
You never let it end

Whew, Whitney! Thought I was just about cried out but that performance, especially having recently lost your physical form from this Earth, brought out the waterworks again. Thank you for this song, and I particularly want to affirm two aspects of these beautiful lyrics:

1) The ride is most definitely worth the fall, every single time

2) I know what love is, and I'll never let it end

And then close with your question (love when you scream this one):

Didn't we?

I Have Nothing

That's right. It's now the third day of me marking my days with Whitney. I didn't plan it. I'm not sure how much longer it will go on. All I know is I woke up (too) early this morning with the chorus of this song going through my head:

Share my life, take me for what I am

'Cause I'll never change all my colors for you

Take my love, I'll never ask for too much

Just all that you are and everything that you do

I don't really need to look very much further

I don't want to have to go where you don't follow

I won't hold it back again, this passion inside

I can't run from myself, there's nowhere to hide

Don't make me close one more door

I don't wanna hurt anymore

Stay in my arms if you dare

Or must I imagine you there

Don't walk away from me

I have nothing, nothing, nothing

If I don't have you, you, you, you, you

You see through, right to the heart of me

You break down my walls with the strength of your love

I never knew love like I've known it with you

Will a memory survive, one I can hold on to?

Love this woman. Love this song. Not super fond of the way my V-day is starting out, but I do know that I have a lot more than nothing even if I don't have him, and I also know that I still do sorta have him. Probably at least as much as I did before this separation... it just doesn't always feel that way.

But that's ok. Whether you're with your love or not, Valentines, hearts open, please!

Star-Spangled banner

This morning on the way to work, I found a radio station playing a Whitney montage, which was just the catalyst I needed to grieve both her death and the daily absence of my love in my life.

I had driven to work because I was hustling to get to an 8am meeting. When I got there, someone asked how I was doing, and I explained how I'd just had a good Whitney-induced cry.

"Whatever" said one of the meeting participants. "I work with kids whose parents die of addiction all the time. One of the things I tell them is that if you're sick for a long time, eventually you die."

While it was clear that what was driving that comment was pain about the cruel world of poverty in whose trenches he works, I wasn't going to let him trivialize the end of the era where this voice is here to belt out and inspire us like she did in this moment and so many others:

Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?

Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,

O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?

And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.

Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

I chose this song to illustrate this point not just because she nails it but because I've begun to see signs of this same disillusionment and detachment in my own life as a result of the work that I do. On Friday night, after a long week, I went out with some friends, and one of them was excitedly talking about work he hopes to do to change politics and Wisconsin for the better.

When I left he said "I'll let you know when I get too excited again and you can be the wet blanket you were tonight."

He was (half) kidding, but it really made me think. At my core, I'm a believer. I'm a dreamer. I'm an optimist. If that's getting lost, or getting buried, perhaps I'm in the wrong profession?

Where Do Broken Hearts Go

Oh, Whitney. How your voice sang my pain as a young girl trying to sort out what love was all about and just what my role in it was. I'm still trying to figure that out, and you're, or at least your songs (R.I.P.), are still here to help.

Late this morning, post yoga, when three whole days had passed since I'd seen my love, I put out an SOS to a couple of pals about my own broken heart. It's complicated, but basically, my boyfriend and I really love each other, but we both have some growing and healing to do before we're ready to commit to each other, and we just can't seem to do that while spending most of our spare time and energy focused on each other.

So, and here's where the broken-hearted feelings come in, he's moving his stuff out of my house, and we're shifting out of a default of togetherness with minimal separation to a default of separation with minimal togetherness.

This evening, I was out with a friend of the extra-loyal persuasion (to me, and perhaps more importantly on this particular day, to his beloved Whitney, he says his people are good like that), when I heard that Whitney had died.

My friend and I made arrangements to meet my man back at my place for a Whitney-a-thon, and when we got there, I cannot tell you how relieved I was to see him and touch him.

Tears fell as we played this old fave:

I know it's been some time

But there's something on my mind

You see, I haven't been the same

Since that cold November day

We said we needed space

But all we found was an empty place

And the only thing I learned

Is that I need you desperately

So here I am

And can you please tell me, oh

Where do broken hearts go

Can they find their way home

Back to the open arms

Of a love that's waiting there

And if somebody loves you

Won't they always love you

I look in your eyes

And I know that you still care, for me

I've been around enough to know

That dreams don't turn to gold

And that there is no easy way

No you just can't run away

And what we have is so much more

Than we ever had before

And no matter how I try

You're always on my mind

And now that I am here with you

I'll never let you go

I look into your eyes

And now I know, now I know...

Yes Whitney, now I know. I know that I love him. But I also know that our broken hearts and inability to act out of self-love are going to be a drag on our relationship unless we take this time and space for ourselves.

The Greatest Love of All

Yesterday I attended a very powerful conference on the extent to which we are failing our nation's youth with our current "college for all" system. According to these experts, only 1/3 of all jobs over the next decade will require a BA/BS or better. One third! Yet we behave as if all of them do, setting many kids up for failure when they put their money toward a Bachelor's only to drop out and find themselves without training for a career. It's high time we adults adapt the system in a way that serves kids instead of ourselves.

One of the speakers talked about the Masai tribe, which revere their young, greeting each other by saying: "Kasserian Ingera" or "How are the Children?" This tribe has an understanding that the state of the children foretells the state of the whole society.

This brought to mind an old fave of mine, one of a number of songs that my friend and I sang on trains across Europe in the early 90s -- the cheesier the better -- and this one was right up there. It may be cheesy, but it has a powerful message:

I believe the children are our are future

Teach them well and let them lead the way

Show them all the beauty they possess inside

Give them a sense of pride to make it easier

Let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be...

Trust me, it's a good one for really belting it out, just as Whitney does. I remember feeling empowered by this song, too, though I think I fell a little short (in my 20s) of enjoying the greatest love of all:

I decided long ago, never to walk in anyone's shadows

If I fail, if I succeed

At least I live as I believe

No matter what they take from me

They can't take away my dignity

Because the greatest love of all

Is happening to me

I found the greatest love of all

Inside of me

The greatest love of all

Is easy to achieve

Learning to love yourself

It is the greatest love of all

I agree with her that it is the greatest love of all because without it, you can't truly love another, but I gotta beg to differ on it being easy to achieve. It sure has taken me a while and it's not been for lack of trying! I try every day to mirror the beauty my children possess inside, hoping that by doing so I may shorten their struggle to find self-love...