A Little of Everything

I drove to Flagstaff today. I'm from Flagstaff. I breathed my first breath here, and I'm sure it must have smelt of pine and wildflower, though I -- of course -- can't remember. I spent the first 25 years of my life here. And Flagstafff is in my blood. No matter where I live, no matter how long I live anywhere else (though maybe this isn't an entirely fair thing to say since I haven't lived anywhere else for 25 years), making the familiar climb up to 7,000 feet, rounding the corner on I-17, and catching my first glimpse of the majestic San Francisco peaks ... it all feels like returning not just to home, but back to myself.

Anyway, I drove to Flagstaff today, and I'd forgotten how much I love ... no, maybe, need ... to get out on open roads every so often. The drive from L.A. to FLG is not so pretty. It's kinda brown and dusty, actually, save the occasional shrub. And the shrubs are just a different variety of brown. But, even so, there's something that wakes back up in me when I find myself in wide open spaces. As I passed the windmill-covered mountains outside of Palm Springs (if you haven't seen them, it's quite a sight -- hundreds upon hundreds of white, spinning windmills in rows that cap mountains and spill over the tops, so that you don't even know where they end), I felt quite small. Not the bad kind of small, not the self-depricating kind. The good kind of small. I don't know how many of me could fit into just one of those mountains. Just one. Hundreds of thousands of me's, I'd guess. Maybe even millions. And when I get out into creation -- the kind that's still untouched by billboards, advertising, and infrastructures -- it's not just that I feel small against the width and breadth of it; I think probably much more importantly, it's that it feels very very big. My mindset changes. I feel it shift, as I drive along miles and miles of road, from centering around shortage, to centering around abundance. I'm not trying to knock cities. I'm really not. I love parts of city living. But I think cities, especially big ones, tend to promote a mindset of shortage. There's never enough space, never enough time, never enough parking, never enough freeway, never enough.... But you get out in the wide open spaces, and there's more than enough. There's plenty for all, with lots more left. And the abundance swallows me, and I ride along with a new kind of happy in my soul, like a kid again, in one of those blanket burritos my sisters and I used to do. Were we the only ones, by the way? Did anyone else make blanket burritos? I hope so, or the previous sentence will make absolutely zero sense.

Anyway, I digress.

So, tonight, by the time I approached Flag, it was already dark. I was listening to "Turn to Stone" (by Ingrid Michaelson) for the 37th time (or something like that - I can't seem to get enough of that song), as loud as I fancied, and I looked out the window to see if I could see any stars. You guys, I literally caught my breath. With one quick glance out of the window, not only did I see hundreds of brilliant stars, but I could actually SEE the haze of the Milky Way galaxy. I didn't have to search for it, or let my eyes adjust until a hint of it appeared. It was just there, bright and peaceful, still. A scarf on a hook. I wish I could've had every last one of you in the car with me. I wish you could've seen it, and we could've sat there in silence and stared up at it together. Beauty does that, you know? It gets you all quiet inside. Well, actually, I take that back; you could've stared. I was the driver, so I would've just had to keep stealing glances.

So I drove along, and I stole glances, and the beautiful lyrics of "Turn to Stone" serenaded all the goodness of it. I think I'm gonna post the lyrics here. They won't suffice; you really have to hear the song. But, at least they can give you a better idea.

"Turn to Stone"

let's take a better look
beyond a story book
and learn our souls are all we own
before we turn to stone

let's go to sleep with clearer heads
and hearts too big to fit out beds
and maybe we won't feel so alone
before we turn to stone

and if you wait for someone else's hand
you will surely fall down
if you wait for someone else's hand
you'll fall, you'll fall

i know that i am nothing new
my words might not seem much to you
but brother how we must atone
before we turn to stone


Now put those words to the most glorious melody, an orchestra of instruments, and choir-full of angelic voices in the background, and you have the makings of a soul-stirring song...and a little alliteration. :)

Probably my favorite lines from the entire song are: //let's go to sleep with clearer heads and hearts to big to fill our beds//. That is my wish for us all.

Let's go to sleep with clearer heads,
and hearts too big to fill our beds.

That is abudance. And it's a beautiful and worthy endeavor.

Good Song Alert

iTunes has a song counter on it. And it tells me that I've apparently listened to "Turn To Stone" by Ingrid Michaelson 150 times. And I'm so not even close to being tired of it. So, just FYI...

In other random news, it's 2 in the a.m. I'm due to be back up in 3 hours. My belly is full of chips and salsa consumed in a "I-finally-finished-that-paper-and-it's-1-a.m.-and-I'm-tired-and-hungry" temporary lapse in judgement. My doggy is in time-out for barking too much. That paper is finished. And I'm off to sleepyland.

An Ode To Song Lyrics - #1

I have a thing for a good lyric. Actually, I just have a thing for any string of words that manages to capture a snapshot of life and present it in glorious, interesting color. I soak it up when someone is able to describe a piece of what it means to be human in a way that is creative and fun to read.

So...speaking of song lyrics, I went to a concert the other night at Hotel Cafe, a little hole in the wall music venue in downtown Hollywood. I went ecstatic because one of my favorite musicians was gonna be there. Actually, he's not so much one of my favorite musicians; more accurately I should say that he sings one song that I am madly in love with ... like, listen-to-on-repeat-for-hours obsessed with. If it were a boy, I'd be it's stalker. You get the point. Anyway, I first heard it on Grey's Anatomy; they played it during the scene where George's family takes his dad off of life support (apologies to anyone who has not seen Season 3 of Grey's). It's called "Falling Awake," by Gary Jules. And, even though I don't really understand all the lyrics, the music is so haunting and lovely and soft that, well, it was love at first hear.

OK, so, Gary Jules was playing at Hotel Cafe, and I went there to see him. It was an electric concert (not literally; he's more of an acoustic soul) ... SOO fantastic. And, it just so happened that my roomie and I were sitting right next to Pink. But, that detail is neither here nor there. That's just one of those fun "I live in L.A." details that you can't NOT throw in. So anyway, (geez ... it is late and I am tired and I seem to have almost NO mental filter) what I DIDN'T expect was Gary Jules' opening act, a quite debonair-yet-edgy fellow named Jim Bianco. This man sang his heart out, like captured-the-audience-and-left-the-room-silent kind of performance. In one of his songs, there were a couple of lyrics that I just adored. So, I thought I'd share them with you. Finally, in paragraph four, I get to my point. ;)

Without further ado, what I consider to be a couple of very cool lyrics:

You don't chose the memories that stay with you all your life
You think you do, but they chose you, and then they hold on tight

AND

I wonder what you look like
in the morning when it comes;
knowing me, I'd probably be
jealous of the sun.
How dare it touch and warm your body
while I'm lying there,
when a man finds what he wants
he's not inclined to share....

So, check out "Painkiller" by Jim Bianco, as well as "Belong," both entirely lovely. And of course, you can't go wrong with Gary Jules' "Falling Awake."

OK, I must sleep. Perhaps tomorrow, I will have more cohesively connected thoughts.

p.s. Oh, BTW, it turns out Jim and Pink are dating ... according to the internet. Yes, we looked it up. I won't lie. But, no wonder he was singing his heart out! :)

Born to Laugh....

It's finals week. And I was gone last weekend for Thanksgiving and this past weekend for a church retreat. And I went to class and clinic and tutored last week. And the last three sentences all add up to mean this:

1) I have been wearing the same bra for more days straight than I am willing to admit in this public forum.

2) Completed unrelated items sit side by side on my armour (spelling?), where I left them, as I moved quickly from one moment to the next.

3) My chest fills a little ... condensed, like there is less space in it and more items to fit in it than normal.

4) I savor the small stuff, like showers, and coffee, and chocolate.

5) I have not so much energy for blogging, but I want to stay connected here, because it is a place where the gal who sits by fires and notices color and listens to rain comes out. And I need her.

So, because I have not so much energy for blogging, I thought I'd take it easy and simply post some of my favorite song lyrics these days. These lyrics are good stuff ... worthy of being passed on. And if you like the lyrics, you should hear the music that accompanies it ... savory, sultry, savvy. (A little alliteration makes everything better). It's from a group called Over The Rhine. They came to my school to perform, and I got a little lost in the richness of their melodies, confirming my belief that music is a soul language.

Born -- Over the Rhine

I was born to laugh
I learned to laugh through my tears
I was born to love
I'm gonna learn to love without fear

Pour me a glass of wine
Talk deep into the night
Who knows what we'll find

Intuition, deja vu
The Holy Ghost haunting you
Whatever you got
I don't mind

Put your elbows on the table
I'll listen long as I am able
There's nowhere I'd rather be

Secret fears, the supernatural
Thank God for this new laughter
Thank God the joke's on me

We've seen the landfill rainbow
We've seen the junkyard of love
Baby it's no place for you and me

I was born to laugh
I learned to laugh through my tears
I was born to love
I'm gonna learn to love without fear