Sometimes, often in unexpected moments, music stops you in your tracks and makes you pay attention to life.
Driving home from the doctor this afternoon, Kid 1 was dozing in the passenger seat. He's been pretty sick lately so he and I haven't had much interaction.
Which isn't necessarily a bad thing since most of our conversations lately center around me telling him to just grow up and be responsible and him telling me he's an adult now and I need to treat him like one. It's a pretty common issue between mothers and their young adult sons I suppose. But he and I have a history of struggle that makes it a little more frustrating. We aren't currently doing a lot of fighting. Just quite a bit of bickering.
Anyway, today we had just left the doctor where we found out he thankfully didn't have to have surgery. I thought he was asleep when he suddenly popped up and said "oh you need to listen to this song. It makes me think of us."
Ugh, OK. I figure it will be something about two people who don't see eye to eye.
Instead, he played me this:
"House Of Gold"
She asked me, "Son, when I grow old,
Will you buy me a house of gold?
And when your father turns to stone,
Will you take care of me?"
She asked me, "Son, when I grow old,
Will you buy me a house of gold?
And when your father turns to stone,
Will you take care of me?"
I will make you queen of everything you see,
I'll put you on the map,
I'll cure you of disease.
Let's say we up and left this town,
And turned our future upside down.
We'll make pretend that you and me,
Lived ever after happily.
She asked me, "Son, when I grow old,
Will you buy me a house of gold?
And when your father turns to stone,
Will you take care of me?"
I will make you queen of everything you see,
I'll put you on the map,
I'll cure you of disease.
Ohhhh...
And since we know that dreams are dead,
And life turns plans up on their head,
I will plan to be a bum,
So I just might become someone.
She asked me, "Son, when I grow old,
Will you buy me a house of gold?
And when your father turns to stone,
Will you take care of me?"
I will make you queen of everything you see,
I'll put you on the map,
I'll cure you of disease.
As I listened to the words I realized I also needed to be listening between the lines. I've often joked that out of six kids one of them better take care of me when I'm older. And here he is playing me a song about wanting to take care of me so I live happily ever after. A song about knowing times are tough now. But that knowing they will get easier one day.
And this line:
And since we know that dreams are dead,
And life turns plans up on their head,
I will plan to be a bum,
So I just might become someone.
Kid 1 has been working hard lately to be someone. He's not moving forward as fast as he'd hoped, but he's not going backwards anymore either.
For the first time in a very long time, he's looking to the future.
And the future looks bright.
At first when I pulled up the video for this song I thought it was just weird. But when I read a bit deeper, I found this:
Both of the members absolutely love their moms- they talk about this all the time and the song is about that. The upper halves of their bodies were around the house, in the windows, playing to the woman inside, presumably a mother. Their hearts were closer to her. However, their legs were going around, pursuing a music career, or a bigger life outside of the mother. They’re half and half, caught between their mothers and their booming success. It’s an insanely intelligent parallel that I applaud the boys for drawing and making so cleverly articulated.
Now I love the song even more. My Kid 1 / young adult son, who has struggled to become a young adult, is on the verge of leaving me and finding his own way in the world. Of course it's part of our bickering. I want him to go. But I know he's not quite ready.
He wants to go. But he knows he's not quite ready.
He's torn. I'm torn.
But between us there is enough love that I will always be there for him. And he is gaining the maturity to realize he someday wants to take care of me, the way I have always taken care of him.
Funny how a simple pop song can sum up your life. And put an end to some of the bickering.
I was working with a new personal training client today and instead of push up and lunges, we were working on body awareness and spinal alignment. Finally, I got to work in more of a yoga therapy aspect!
I haven't done any yoga therapy type work in way too long and I forgot how excited I get when I'm helping someone doing something like open up their thoracic spine. Most of my clients don't know and don't care where there thoracic region is! And that's perfectly fine. But when you see a client in chronic pain and after just a few simple moves and some deep breathing they are feeling better than they have in a long time, it's so gratifying that it helps me remember why I even got into this line of work in the first place.
So while I'm excitedly working with said client today, we are also of course chatting about work, life, careers, etc. At one point she turned to me and said, "You're an intelligent dog aren't you."
Umm, OK. I guess I'm an intelligent dog.
I'm not sure how calling me a dog, even an intelligent dog, is a compliment, but you're paying me for this session so I'll listen.
Client: And you know what happens to intelligent dogs right?
Me: Ummmm
Client: They get bored and shred their environment. If you leave an intelligent dog home alone it will shred the living room. If you leave an intelligent dog alone in the car it will get bored and shred the car.
At this point I got a very unintelligent look on my face, jaw hanging open, as I completely understood what she is saying.
Of course I'm bored and frustrated in certain areas right now. I'm working below my capacity. And of course I'm starting to take it out on those around me. I'm shredding my environment out of boredom/ frustration/lack of activity.
This makes perfect sense.
Looking back I can see where I shredded my environment in the past in both my career and my life. I've written many times how I tend to self destruct either by lack of action or by lashing out in inappropriate actions.
I've been acting like an intelligent dog.
I'm still soaking in being told I was an intelligent dog today, and all that implies, that I'm not even really sure what to do with that knowledge yet.
Shout out to all of us who truly love books! And the rest of you, well I can't even begin to understand someone who tells me they don't love books.
I am the geeky girl who thinks a wild night out is a couple hours alone in a book store. I love the touch of books. I love to crack open a book and smell the new pages. And the sound the book makes as you open the spine for the first time. Pure bliss.
I've been in love with books longer than any man, any food or anything else in my life.
So when I wrote my own book it was very important to me that it be an actual book. Not just a Kindle version. Not that there is anything wrong with that, in fact a Kindle version should be coming out soon of Creating A Joyful Life: The Lessons I Learned From Yoga and My Mom, but I wanted actual physical copies of my book to be available.
I wanted to see a copy of my book on my bookshelf. I wanted to see a copy of my book sitting on the shelf in a bookstore.
Yes I love my children and they are my greatest joy (obligatory mom comment), but honestly, I felt such joy and pride last year looking at my book in the bookstore. A couple months later I went back to the bookstore to check on my book and ... it was gone!
I was crushed. Devastated. It wasn't on the shelf anymore.
But then it took one of my children (who really do bring me joy and pride as well), to point out that if the book wasn't there that means someone bought it!
Yes! My book was sitting on someone else's bookshelf!
I do most of my writing propped up on my bed. To my left is a three level high bookshelf. It has mostly yoga books and training manuals on it. Straight in front of me is one very long bookshelf that has a blend of fiction and nonfiction books. And to my right, on my nightstand, is the book I am currently reading (Fast Girl: A Life Spent Running From Madness by Suzy Favor Hamilton), the book I just finished (From Darkness To Light by Lindsey Lewis) and two other books in line to begin reading.
In recent years I've drifted away from books and more to my Kindle. I love the ease of being able to download any book I want directly on to the Kindle in just seconds. But, it's just not the same as books.
Earlier this summer our "kid computer" died for good and since I don't allow the kids to use my laptop, Kid 5 asked to borrow my iPad. Well he borrowed it three months ago and I still don't have it back.
But thats OK, because I've returned to my love of physical books.
In fact, I think I'll be planning a trip to the bookstore sometime very soon.
Yep, that's me pointing to my book. That just happened to be
right next to Rachel Brathen's new book! (She's like a yoga goddess
for those who don't know.) And my book is right next to hers!
IWSG Question: What was your very first piece of writing as an aspiring writer? Where is it now? Collecting dust or has it been published?
We would have to go way, way back to find my very first piece of writing as an aspiring writer. My bio says I've been "writing since I first picked up a crayon" and that is so true.
I wrote for school newspapers in middle and high school.
My first paid writing was after my college internship at a small local community newspaper in Florida. From there I wrote for magazines.
From there I got married, had babies, got depressed and stopped writing.
Fast forward a few years and I began this blog here.
I was very fortunate this blog caught the eye of the editor of an online publication and from there, as they say, it's history.
Except add in a few more stops and starts along the way.
My writing is good. But my ability to self sabotage is even better!
My writing career hasn't been linear. There have been times I've paid my bills with writing. Other times I've paid my bills with an assortment of other jobs and didn't write at all. I continually strive for the balance between working to survive and writing to succeed.
My life, like my writing, is a work in progress.
This post is a part of the Insecure Writer's Support Group, a monthly meeting of writers who over think, under write and just want people to like them.
