Your Song

It was your song…I wrote it for you…I sang it for you…and you smiled with your eyes and hugged me so tight I thought my heart was going to burst sweetly right there in the bedroom.

I sang it for you…your song…and you looked at me with such love that I had to shy away or be consumed by own passion and joy…I sang it for you…and you swayed to the rhythm and didn’t once make fun of me being so off-key.

It was your song…I wrote it and I rewrote it and I started to toss it out a million times…but I didn’t…I sang it for you…I sang it from my heart…and your heart…your amazing, mighty, mighty heart sang back to me.

It was your song…it is your song still…you kissed me for it…long and slow, sweet as strawberries and electric as thunder…and you made me sing it again…your song…from my heart to yours.

Don't Know What You've Got 'til it's Gone...

She looked him…her face a study in piety and pity…and nodded plaintively. It was a hollow gesture. “We were good once,” she said in that condescending voice that she slipped into when she was doing something that she didn’t want to be called on, “and we’ll always be friends.”

He suppressed a snicker. “I don’t think so,” he said with more bluntness than he had usually given her during the course of their carnival ride of a relationship.

She winced but then composed herself. “We will…you’ll see…” She opened the door and stepped into the gathering twilight. The big yellow taxi was waiting at the end of the walk. “I will always love you,” she said, pausing first for effect and then for his reaction.

“Uh-huh,” he said.

It was her turn to shrug. She closed the door and went down the walkway, her pinched heels making a familiar clipped click-clack until she climbed into the taxi and drove off towards the airport.

He stood there listening to the sound of the car fading into the distance and waited. He waited to feel the crushing sensation of loss to bend him to his knees and bring acid tears to his eyes. You don’t what you got ‘til it’s gone…Joni said that (and she’s a poet so she should know)…and so he waited. And waited. And…

He shrugged again. Nothing. Hmph, go figure. And then…lightness, not heaviness, surged softly through him and he grunted a bemused laugh.

He realized that he was hungry and he turned towards the kitchen singing idly…”…you don’t what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone…” Joni was right (of course she was right…she’s a poet)…but sometimes the revelation is not a bad thing.

Believe in Humanity

(This post...along with the previous two posts...was inspired by reading Girls Like Us by Sheila Weller, a book about Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon)

* * * * *

I fold into my solitude…fumbling, fading, fencing with life from a distance…and I don’t find it to be disagreeable. It’s easy in fact to be beyond anger…beyond connection…beyond trusting that anyone will be there just because I want…just because I need…them to be there.

My faith wanders looking for new places to plant itself and start reaching for the sun again and I let it go, never truly imagining that it will find safe purchase in scorched fields of broken dreams, foolish fancies, and the naïve belief (sorry, John) that love is all you need.

And still…and still…and still…despite my cowardly hubris…my self-protective hubris…my rational dispassionate hubris…my faith soldiers on and I believe.

I believe in the sureness of the sunrise and the magic of little girls laughing…the magic of kisses from beautiful strangers and the comfort of awkward bear hugs from reticent men who don’t know where to put their feelings they can’t…they won’t…call love.

I believe that every day is gift from the universe…that every day is something that belongs to me just because I claim it…I believe that true love is exceedingly rare but always…always…always worthy of being sought out and embraced.

And still…and still…and still…despite all evidence to the contrary…I believe in possibilities that love is real…that friendship exists beyond mere convenience and happenstance…that pretty lies are always trumped by beautiful truths. I believe…even folded into my solitude…that I am not alone…never alone…never completely alone.

And still…I believe in myself…I believe in my dreams….not matter how silly and extraordinary and crazy they sometimes are…I believe in my friends and my neighbors and my countrymen…yeah, despite having so many reasons not to, I still believe (thanks, Carole) in humanity…

* * * * *

MKW Pop Culture Stuff (including a review of Girls Like Us):

Neverending Rainbow

So Vain

“Can I get a tight spotlight?” He waited a moment and then he was captured in a stark circle of light. “Thank you.” He looked out into the darkness. “Should I just start?”

“Whenever you’re ready,” she said, evenly enough to disguise her impatience.

He took a deep breath. “I used to think that the whole world revolved around me. I wondered what it was that people could possibly do when I wasn’t around to watch them.”

He paused, half expecting some kind of response. “I used to imagine that I could fly…that I was the strongest boy in the world…that I was Superman or Hercules…that everybody wanted to be my friend.” He took another pause. “But then I grew up.” Another pause. “Mostly.”

“Interesting,” she said, hoping that he wouldn’t realize that she didn’t think it was interesting at all.

“I used to think that anybody who made an effort to get to know me would realize how great I was and that they would want to be my friend…who would want to be my lover…who would want to walk with me through life forever and ever…”

“Because the whole world revolved around you,” she said dispassionately.

He winced and then nodded. “Yeah.”

“But then you grew up.”

His cheeks grew a bit warm. “Mostly,” he said hoping it would make her chuckle.

She chuckled…but mostly because he was expecting her to. “I think Carly Simon wrote a song about you.”

He smiled. “”Well I always wanted the girls to dream that they’d be my partners…”

“Of course you did,” she said dryly.

He was pretty sure she was making sport of him but he wanted the gig so he let it go. “Well, I’m older now and I know the world doesn’t revolve around me. Hell sometimes the world doesn’t seem to know that I’m even here.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

He paused again. “Yeah,” he lied.

Her right eyebrow arched up knowingly. “Really?”

He grinned wolfishly. “Mostly.”

She chuckled…honestly this time…and nodded. “Thank you,” she said making some notes on her Blackberry, “we’ll be in touch.”

“Okay, cool,” he said.

And then the spotlight went out.