"In a Week" by Hozier. Alana Henderson is the vocalist we saw in concert and I go back and forth between preferring that version or the album version, featuring Karen Cowley. Here's Alana.
Hearing it has me cooking up lesson plan ideas about love and death and why we like to put them together, comparing this to other death love songs. But that's neither here nor there. What's here is the song and the beautiful lyrics and the comfortable range and then my little voice carrying over the engine of the Corolla over and over. Some snatches I particularly enjoy:
I have never known peace
Like the damp grass that yields to me
I have never known hunger
Like these insects that feast on me
A thousand teeth
And yours among them, I know
Our hungers appeased
Our heartbeats becoming slow
We lay here for years or for hours
Your hand in my hand
So still and discreet
So long we become the flowers
We'd feed well the land
And worry the sheep
And they'd find us in a week
When the cattle show fear
After the insects have made their claim
After the foxes have known our taste
I'd be home with you
I'd be home with you
Every time I get to hear "After the foxes have known our taste," I get that resonant thrill of a well-written line building in my chest to shake out the hurt and soar up out of my throat. Yeah. And seeing it live transformed that song into something more beautiful to me than it was on the album. Man, I remember why I used to spend so much money on live music when I was younger and didn't need babysitters to leave the house. Makes me want to go to a bunch of other shows this summer.
The other is "Clean" by Taylor Swift, which has a comforting structure the way it begins and ends with the same metaphor of flowers dying of thirst. And something about that baptism imagery, facing the deluge, I appreciate that whether it's in song or poem or novel. The part of the song that I want to identify with is that paradoxical bit when the rain came pouring down and she was already drowning, only then could she breathe. I am not there yet; still in the drowning part right now. But I'm starting to work more actively toward swallowing the rain and breathing again.
I've said over and over that I know I'll come out of this okay, but for a while it has just been getting worse and worse. In the last few weeks, I know my reactivity is through the roof and my peace and self-preservation skills have been at an all time low. My reserves of patience and forbearance through pain have dwindled to the point of unsustainable shortage. But (And there must be a but when it's like this), things like waking at 4:30 am and then getting up to write and listen to the rain from 5:30 until after 7am, to write for myself, without much interruption except a roof leak (again. of course), was what I needed to recapture some clarity and illuminate some next steps.
Mornings are so good to me. I need them, the quiet study time, the nearness of God. And I've got to start re-integrating yoga into my routine. Can't wait to buy that pass after Chris's conference so I can make the most of it.
In my mind, I still play that game where I design my future ideal home. It's not built of sweeping expanses of rooms or closets to make Real Simple blush with envy. The vision of this dream home in my head comes in the form of nooks and details like the spot by the sink where the sponge rests, the different places to read at night or write in the morning. A small house comprised mostly of cozy nooks? Looks like I'll be perusing tiny home pics again in the nearish future. Ha. Girls can dream, right? Maybe the best solution is to move to a warmer climate after all? Or two side by side tinies-- one for me and one for the kids. Connected by a long, windowy hallway that can double as a greenhouse. And that slopes up and down so that the modest flock sheep (and goats!) can walk under it as they tend the lawn. Ha. Signs Thehelen is returning to her proper self: she's dreaming again. Even if the dreams have bald spots: Who will be there with me? Where would I go? How and the when? All missing parts of the picture.
It's a small step forward, these dreams of goat bridges and nooks, but it's another little thing that I can cling to that gives me hope.
Hope. Now that's a beautiful word.
(I'd include a video of the song, but the album version isn't on youtube)
The drought was the very worst, ah ah
When the flowers that we'd grown together died of thirst
It was months, and months of back and forth, ah ah
You're still all over me like a wine-stained dress I can't wear anymore
Hung my head, as I lost the war, and the sky turned black like a perfect storm
Rain came pouring down when I was drowning
That's when I could finally breathe
And by morning, gone was any trace of you, I think I am finally clean
There was nothing left to do, ah ah
When the butterflies turned to dust, they covered my whole room
So I punched a hole in the roof, ah ah
Let the flood carry away all my pictures of you
The water filled my lungs, I screamed so loud but no one heard a thing
This last video is a treat for this boy I know.
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