Monday, January 04, 2010

the first song on my funeral soundtrack...

back in my earlier life, i used to clean my house religiously, almost maniacally, every saturday. i would turn into my head and think my way through each room. it was damn near calisthenics! i was so intense. i'd be a sweaty mess six hours later, and you could eat off any surface in my house.

i remember many, many nights, just as i'd be finishing, i would notice that the sun was setting. i would be alone in the house and standing exhausted in my dining room. i can still see it--the walls a mottled cream and olive that i'd sponge painted when we first moved in. the light would be bouncing off the neighbors gray wall and casting a blueish light onto the tablecloth. all the wood in the room would soak up the light turning the color of molasses. i can still see the curtains fluttering in the summer breeze.

the house was never silent. i was always playing NPR. but, at this time, when i was alone, i'd stop the radio. i'd put in this cd and play this song over and over and over. with my hair pulled up on top of my head, in a ratty, torn t-shirt and shorts, i'd sing this at the top of my lungs till i was hoarse. i could never get all the way through it without tearing up. i'd try again and again with tears streaming down my cheeks. i could never make it through that last stanza.

i never quite fit into the "normal" vision i was trying to be.

sometimes, i think this song kept me sane when i was most lost and confused. i didn't know what i was doing or why. i didn't know who i was. i hung on to the words of this song and promised myself that i was not going to blend into nothing and pass through this world unknown. i believed that what i was doing, what i was feeling... it meant something.

"with love, with patience and with faith, she'll make her way..."


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