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It occurs to me that I am an emotional junkie.

Swimming in the music, flowing with the emotions of the music, channeling that artist’s emotions and the emotions of all the people who have been affected by the music, all that emotion flooding through me, washing through my everything.  I just sob and sob as tears stream down my face, and sometimes smile in the exquisiteness of this beautiful flow, no matter how painful. Breathing deep, deep, measured breaths, tears roll down. This heals me.

I do this again and again and again.  I can’t stop.  I don’t want to stop.  Feeling all the feels.

So I am an emotional junkie.

I love how music and art carry fragments of the soul language that ties us all together.  I swim in it and my mind and body melt into the sound and we all become one, floating in the river of allness.  Emotions flow in and out and all around, and it’s a beautiful and healing immersion.

You ask me where did I fall — I’ll say I can’t tell you when.

But if my spirit is lost, how will I find what is near?  Don’t question, I’m not alone; Somehow I’ll find my way home.

My sun shall rise in the east, so shall my heart be at peace.  And if you’re asking me when, I’ll say it starts at the end.  You know your will to be free is matched with love, secretly.  And talk will alter your prayer.  Somehow you’ll find you are there!

Your friend is close by your side, and speaks in far ancient tongue.  A season’s wish will come true.  All seasons begin with you.  A world we all come from, one world –we melt into one!  Just hold my hand and we’re there!  Somehow we’re going somewhere!

–Jon & Vangelis

I sure love that song.  

It’s interesting and amazing to me, the way music speaks. I have been listening to a new mix on Pandora with a feeder song called Lost In My Mind by The Head and The Heart. It’s classified as indie pop with folk influences. Whatever it is, I’m LOVING it!  So the mix is playing in my ear for hours upon hours, and maybe in some ways that’s not so good, because there does happen to be quite a bit of melancholic groove going on, and that may not be the absolute best medicine for one prone to melancholy…  …but I LOVE this music!!  Sometimes the melodies hit me, and sometimes it’s the words that make a short circuit from my brain to my heart or from my heart to my soul. I don’t know.  With this particular song, the sound was a soothing background presence, and then I realized the words were speaking to me with words that I’ve been thinking of and writing about recently.  It’s no surprise, really.  Music is an expression of the human condition, and there’s nothing new under the sun.  So of course mankind has been experiencing the same thoughts and feels since the dawn of time.  Of course there is music that speaks to any situation.  It’s a tie that binds, and it’s a beautiful thing.  Oh, how I love music!!!

lost in my mind

All Good Reasons
Barefoot Truth

I’ve written about ripples before, how one thing impacts another and waves move ever outward, the whispering breath of my spirit carried out into the world, brushing gently against all in its path.  A kiss on the horizon that finds its way back to me.

There is a song that moves my heart.  When I hear it, the strains fill me, move me, cover me, and touch my very soul.  Everything about it speaks to me, as though it was written just for me.  Not long ago, I mentioned this song in conversation, and remarked that it’s one of my favorites.  It comes up on my Pandora mix every once in a while, and it almost always makes me cry.  It just takes me to that place.  The other day, a friend shared this very song on Facebook, especially for me.  That ripple had made its way back to me.

Late at night, after the kids had gone to sleep, I sat cradled in the hammock swing on my porch, breathed in the crisp autumn air, and listened.  Over and again, I played that song.  Tears fell.  I went inside the music, and sobbed, from the very core of me, releasing my self from myself.  I thought about my life, and who I am.  I thought about what I want.  I thought about love, what it is, and where it comes from.  I thought about my place in this earth, the mother I am, the life I lead, the responsibilities I shoulder.  All the while, the music played, and tears rolled down my face.

I sobbed my heart out, and decided that it really doesn’t matter if the man who fits ever appears, because I’m beautiful through and through, in my heart of hearts where beauty matters.  In that place, I am pure and innocent, and in that place I am love.  It’s not about all the men who have gone before.  It’s not about anything but me.  In that place, I see my self.  I see someone who is worthy of my love.  I stood naked in front of my mirror, while the music played.  I touched myself.  I moved my hands all over my body, slowly, looking at the curves and the shadows, looking through unveiled eyes at something beautiful, as tears rolled down.

I must have listened to that song thirty times or more.  I cried my heart out, and touched myself, looked at myself with respect and regard, all the while loving myself.  I know who I am.  I saw myself, maybe for the first time, for the beautiful woman that I am.  I saw myself, perhaps, as those who love me see me.

A small spark flickered inside of me; a glimmer of life reborn.  Tears streamed down my face and I knew.

when oceans rise

I am healing.  I can heal.

Lead me where my trust is without borders.

Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander.

I will call upon your name.

Keep my eyes above the waves.

My soul will rest in your embrace.

I am yours and you are mine.

When oceans rise, my soul will rest in your embrace.

Fifteen, twenty, twenty five years, or more –scars from so very long ago.  I am healing.  God is speaking to me in ways that most people wouldn’t understand, in ripples and waves that make their way back to me.  I see where I am, and where I am going.  It likely won’t make sense to anybody but me, but it doesn’t have to.  This is my journey.  I am going to walk down this healing path for a while.

I am not afraid.

I am not alone.

I’ve been alive forever.

Oh Barry.  You have such a way with words.  I sit in my living room, clinging to the few precious minutes that I have to myself before I collect my children, and your voice fills my head and my heart, transporting me back to the girl I was so many years ago.

The timbre of your voice, like velvet, fills me and warms me.

My home lies deep within you, and I’ve got my own place in your soul.

I feel within me the stirrings of beauty, the dawning awareness of the magic of music.  Music fills.  Transforms.  Transports.  Breathes life to a parched heart.  Gives hope.

Music fills your heart.

My young mind is taking in the world around me.  I am filled with emotions.  I am going through the metamorphosis of child to young woman.  I feel everything.  I see beauty.  I am filled with wonder.  I am awestruck by the magnificence of God’s green earth.

I write the songs that make the young girls cry.

I yearn for love, although I know not what love is.  I ache for something that I can’t put words to.  I have an emptiness that I can’t describe.  To belong.  To be cherished.  To be wanted.  To be understood.  I don’t know who I am, but I feel.  Oh, how I feel.  I am emotion.  I am music.

I am music, and I write the songs.

I want to wrap my arms about the world and fill it with all the love that I have, that I am.  I want to wash away all the tears, comfort all the sorrows, and heal all the brokenness.  I am love, and I want to sing.  I am music, and I want to sing.

It’s from me, it’s for you.
It’s from you, it’s for me.
It’s a world wide symphony!

That girl, so long ago, still lives within me.  Who was she?  What were her hopes and dreams?  The years, like layers of dust, have accumulated and obstructed the clarity of youth.  My sense of beauty is tarnished.  My sense of wonder is shrouded.  My sense of awe is eroded.  My sense of self is masked.  But the music!  The music takes me back.  The music reveals my soul.  The music sets me free.

Now, when I look out through your eyes, I’m young again, even though I’m very old.

What does a twelve  year old know of life and love?  Everything!  The innocence of youth allows hope to exist unfettered and pure.  To see and understand eternity.  Eternity!

I’ve been alive forever, and I wrote the very first song.
I put the words and the melodies together.
I am music, and I write the songs.

What did I know of the path ahead?  What did I know of the cares of the world?  We were poor, and though it tugged at my heartstrings to see my mother’s anguish over how to make ends meet and somehow maintain a semblance of sanity amidst the bedlam in which we lived, I didn’t understand.  Worldly things were not my concern.  There was a roof over my head, food on the table, shoes on my feet and clothes on my back.  So I was rich, and I was free!  I could dream!  I could hope!   My heart could sing!  I could get lost in the music.

I write the songs that make the whole world sing.
I write the songs of love and special things.

Now I am my mother.  The cares of the world are on my shoulders.  It’s up to me to see to it that my own children have a roof over their heads, food on the table, shoes on their feet and clothes on their back.  So they can be rich, and they can be free.  So they can hope and they can dream.  So their hearts can sing.  So they can get lost in the music.  There is a sense of wistfulness that the woman I’ve become has replaced the girl that I was.  But the music takes me back, even if but for a moment, and reminds me that I am still the girl that I was.

I am music, and I write the songs.

Prescription for a fine, fine day:

1. Take the day off from work.
2. Spend it with a dear friend.
3. Drive to the city.
4. Enjoy a delightful lunch.
5. See a show.
6. Use the HOV lane to bypass rush-hour traffic while returning to the suburbs.
7. Enter the house to be greeted enthusiastically by a nearly three-year old boy dressed as Spiderman.

What a day. What a show!

I had a silly smile on my face for the better part of two hours. And when Frankie started singing “I can’t take my eyes off of you,” I cried. Cried. Truth be told, I may just be an eensy weensy tad bit hormonal, but all the same, it was quite something.

Who loves you, pretty baby? Stay, just a little bit longer. Late December, back in ’63. Oh what a night. You’re just too good to be true, can’t take my eyes off of you. My eyes adored you.

The sounds I grew up with.

A girls day out is just what the doctor ordered.

Next weekend? We celebrate the boys.  Monster Jam.

We have a whole lot of woo around here.  Woo is a good thing.  There’s the woo woo train.  If we say, “Woo, woo,” the boy perks his ears, and starts looking for his train, crawling about with an air of keen determination.  When he finds it, he presses the part that makes the woo woo sound, and off it goes.  It’s a great toy.  His second-cousin has one, which is how we discovered it.  It has turned out to be one of his favorite toys.  The woo woo train.  It’s actually a Fisher Price Peek-a-Block Press and Go train.  It has neat lights and it drives forward, makes funny train sounds like woo woo and plays some various melodies as it moves the blocks.  Some spin and some move up and down.  Very clever toy.

The other woo we’re enjoying is the woo hoo in the black horse and cherry tree song by KT Tunstall.  I don’t know why, but I’m really digging this song.  It’s just one of those things that appeals to me for some reason that I can’t quite pinpoint.  It’s sort of bluesy but upbeat and fun at the same time.  I really like the woo hoos.