The Youth

This is the last track played during the movie The Kids are All Right, a really sweet movie about love, marriage, children and the difficulty we all sometimes have, within the context of our families and love relationships, getting our needs met.

Somehow, I feel like the lyrics to this quirky song sum up pretty well what the movie is all about:

This is a call of arms to live and love and sleep together.

We could flood the streets with love or light or heat whatever.

Lock the parents out, cut a rug, twist and shout,

Wave your hands,

Make it rain,

For stars will rise again.

The youth is starting to change.

Are you starting to change?

Are you?

Together.

In a couple of years

Tides have turned from booze to tears.

And in spite of the weather,

We could learn to make it together.

In some ways the movie is about how much pressure the youth put on us adults to change. I think if we can let it happen, this growth is nearly always positive, but changing is uncomfortable, and as adults, we have entrenched coping mechanisms -- one adult in the movie turns to wine, the others to sex. When those are taken out of the picture though, the tears indeed come, and the sense that they can make it together -- the kids and the adults, the kids as adults -- continues to grow.

All of which, I'm happy to say, gives me hope for the youth and the adults in this burgeoning family o' mine...

Accidentally in Love

I remember early on in my newly single life, chatting with a friend about the kind of man I thought I would (and didn't think I'd) fall in love with. You never know, she said, you might just fall in love and not really have a choice. At the time, I didn't buy it. Of course I had a choice. I always have a choice.

Which is certainly true, to some extent. But not entirely. Relatively early on in my long-distance relationship with my current man, I tried a couple of times to shut down my feelings, thinking that it was for the best because the distance was so hard. "You can't just turn it off," my sister warned. And it turned out, I really couldn't.

Cue the Counting Crows:

So she said, "What's the problem baby?"

What's the problem I don't know

Well maybe I'm in love, think about it every time

I think about it, can't stop thinking 'bout it

How much longer will it take to cure this

Just to cure it 'cause I can't ignore it if it's love

Makes me wanna turn around and face me

But I don't know nothing about love

Come on, come on

Turn a little faster

Come on, come on

The world will follow after

Come on, come on

Because everybody's after love

So I said, "I'm a snowball running"

Running down into the spring

That's coming all this love melting under

Blue skies belting out sunlight, shimmering love

Well baby I surrender to the strawberry ice cream

Never ever end of all this love

Well I didn't mean to do it

But there's no escaping your love

Now that he's out here and struggling a bit with the Midwestern landscape and a stressful day job, I think at least a little part of my man is finding this love a little inconvenient. Lucky for me, for the time being at least, accidentally or not, he is in love, so we're doing our best to make it work:

Come on, come on

Move a little closer

Come on, come on

I want to hear you whisper

Come on, come on

Settle down inside my love

Come on, come on

Jump a little higher

Come on, come on

If you feel a little lighter

Come on, come on

We were once upon a time in love

We're accidentally in love

Accidentally in love

Accidentally in love

Accidentally in love

Running Down a Dream

We heard this Tom Petty classic en route to our inaugural family mountain biking trip:

It was a beautiful day, the sun beat down

I had the radio on, I was drivin'

"This is apropos," my boyfriend said. "We are running down a dream."

It only took me a couple of seconds to figure out what he meant.

Not surprisingly, the process of integrating a 45-year old mountain-adventure-loving dude into a Midwestern family just getting its legs as a threesome ain't exactly seamless. As those with kids are well aware, they challenge us to deal with parts of ourselves that we'd much prefer to run away from, or allow to lie dormant. It can be a painful process to witness, and it scares the crap out of me that it is possible that it won't work out, that we won't all be able to get our needs met as a foursome.

Whew. In the meantime, I reckon I'll just take Tom's advice and stay on the path:

Runnin' down a dream

That never would come to me

Workin' on a mystery, goin' wherever it leads

Runnin' down a dream

Glory Box

This is just the kind of song that appeals to me when I'm feeling less than 100 percent hopeful about my lovelife:

Just give me a reason to love you

Give me a reason to be a woman

I just wanna be a woman

From this time unchained

We're all lookin' at a different picture

Through this new frame of mind

A thousand flowers could bloom

Move over and give us some room, yeah

Give me a reason to love you

Give me a reason to be a woman

I just wanna be a woman

So don't you stop, being a man

Just take a little look

From our side when you can

Show a little tenderness

No matter if you cry

Give me a reason to love you

Give me a reason to be a woman

I just wanna be a woman

'Cause it's all I wanna be is all a woman, yeah

For this is the beginning of forever and ever

Its time to move over

So tired of playing

Just give me a reason to love you

Give me a reason to be

Of course, I have many reasons to be, just as I have many reasons to love the man I'm with, but I do think that I put too much energy into the not-working part when it surfaces rather than viewing it as a natural part of having a relationship with another human being. Instead of letting it (discomfort, uncertainty) be there, I put all my energy into trying to control it away. As a result, I end up exhausted and no closer to where I was trying to get to -- that feeling that things are all settled -- because, of course, that feeling needs to come from somewhere inside me rather than from someone else.

Here's hoping a thousand flowers bloom if I can move over and give us some room...

More than Words

This one started up on the internal alarm early this morning:

Saying I love you

Is not the words I want to hear from you

It's not that I want you

Not to say, but if you only knew

How easy it would be to show me how you feel

More than words is all you have to do to make it real

Then you wouldn't have to say that you love me

'Cause I'd already know

What would you do if my heart was torn in two

More than words to show you feel

That your love for me is real

What would you say if I took those words away

Then you couldn't make things new

Just by saying I love you

More than words

Now I've tried to talk to you and make you understand

All you have to do is close your eyes

And just reach out your hands and touch me

Hold me close don't ever let me go

More than words is all I ever needed you to show

Then you wouldn't have to say that you love me

'Cause I'd already know

I'm not sure exactly why I woke up to this one today, but I guess maybe it's because my boyfriend and I have had a rough few days, due to a variety of factors. When that happens, I can't feel his words in the way that I can when we're really connected. Which makes for a vicious cycle, but there doesn't seem to be much I can do about it until we can get back to that space again...

I Want Candy

Today was the last day of my second round on the Clean program. I wasn't quite as strict with myself this time around, but it did help break out of some more habits (e.g. MUST have a glass of wine when eating pasta, MUST have a beer when eating pizza, MUST have chocolate after lunch and dinner).

As for the song, it was on the Halloween mix in my TRX class today, and I really enjoyed hearing it:

I know a guy who's tough but sweet

He's so fine, he can't be beat

He's got everything that I desire

Sets the summer sun on fire

I want candy, I want candy

Go to see him when the sun goes down

Ain't no finer boy in town

You're my guy, just what the doctor ordered

So sweet, you make my mouth water

I want candy, I want candy

Candy on the beach, there's nothing better

But I like candy when it's wrapped in a sweater

Some day soon I'll make you mine,

Then I'll have candy all the time

I want candy, I want candy

I want candy, I want candy...

Checking out the lyrics now, I'm grateful that the candy I had to give up for the last three weeks was the kind being handed out to trick or treaters tonight, and not the kind wrapped in a sweater. As hard as it is to live without chocolate, it'd be harder to live without my man.

Is There a Ghost

There's not a ton to these lyrics, but the sound of these guys is pretty damn awesome:

I could sleep

I could sleep

I could sleep

I could sleep

When I lived alone

Is there a ghost in my house?

And 'tis the season, after all...