Friends. I’ve been posting my song for #songaweek2016 each week here on my blog. I joined that group at the invitation of my friend and fellow singer/songwriter – but not fellow Bloom 🙂 – Jen Bluhm. This song of hers from a recent week is so good that I wanted to repost it on my blog so more people could hear it. She’s posted the lyrics on Soundcloud, so if you click on the “Soundcloud” icon at the top right corner below, you’ll go to Soundcloud where you can see the lyrics.
Pierce Pettis sang, “everything matters if anything matters at all,” on his album Everything Matters. That line has always stuck with me, and it influenced my song for Week 21 of #songaweek2016. With bass and percussion by Nathan Bloom, making it an official Cabin of Love song!
Time to wash the clothes
time to scrub the sink
time to give the little seedlings
a nice long drink
time to feed the chickens
time to walk the dog
time to listen to the children
time to write for the blog
Every day of our lives doesn’t break new ground
every hour in a day won’t blow your mind
every minute of ours doesn’t make a mark
but every moment matters
Time to go to work
time to eat a snack
time to wash the dirty dishes
time to put them back
time to read a book
time to run a few miles
time to play a little music
time to rest a little while
Three hands sweeping round a face
grabbing hold of everything we’ve done
Where do they carry it?
How should we know?
It’s a mystery where we’re going
but how we love to run.
Here’s my song for Week 18 of #songaweek2016. I took a poem I had written last year about my fascination and frustration with the Internet, and set it to music, sort-of loud music:
No no disconnect me
from the bluster and brooding
from the bright and blare
This is a hole in my heart
This is a tunnel to somewhere
I can’t remember
and can’t get back
and cannot banish
it
will not vanish
Thoughts transfer
from brain to brain
meat brain
to silicon brain
I have cut out the middleman
skipped the paperwork.
All this high-tech transcendence
makes me dizzy
I am falling down a hole
falling down a tunnel to somewhere
I can’t remember
and can’t get back
cannot banish
it
will not vanish
Sleep baby sleep
your dreams have all been written
watch the screen
breathe easy
lullaby
LOL-a-bye.
Stars are glowing mysteries. Science and wonder collide in those incomprehensibly giant and mind-bogglingly ancient balls of fire that appear to little you and little me as tiny points of light.
They are countless. There are more stars than humans who have ever lived. A quick Google search tells me there are maybe “1 billion trillion” or “100 octillion” stars in the observable universe.
So it seems both fitting and misguided to me that we call people who have set themselves apart, people who dazzle us from dizzying heights, stars. If you can somehow distinguish yourself from the masses around you, maybe you too can rise and become a star.
Why are stars so remarkable when there are so very many of them, each shining its light out all through the universe? For all of human existence, we’ve been staring up at stars on clear nights, lost in wonder, drawn far beyond ourselves or deep within ourselves, like our parents and grandparents and distant ancestors long before us.
But you are remarkable too. And so am I. And our neighbors, and coworkers, and everybody who calls and tries to sell us something, and all the old people sitting in the assisted living place down the street. Every politician, every middle-schooler, every complaining customer and annoying coworker, every single life.
So be you, you bright star. Shine on.
And rest in peace, Prince.
The song I wrote for week 16 of #songaweek2016 has something to do with the above thoughts, but it’s still not all untangled for me. See what you can make of it:
I wasn’t planning on having children. Actually, I was planning on not having children. Until my now-firstborn, now-twelve-year-old, first made herself known. That extra pink line on the plastic strip might as well have been an angel, and I would have benefited from the routine angelic greeting, “do not be afraid.” I admit I cried myself to sleep that night, but it seems I always take a night to freak out before changing my plans in any major way. Sometimes even the sweetest surprises are first met with salty tears.
And now, we are two-thirds of the way to that tiny baby’s high school graduation.
Week 15 of #songaweek2016 included an extra challenge, to write a song in the form of a recipe. I already felt like writing a song about my daughter, so I found a way to squeeze it into recipe form too.
Take a smidgen of him and a dash of me
Bake for nine months at ninety-eight point six degrees
Then when my body feels like it’s about to break
It’s time to open up and meet my babycake
Pretty baby pretty baby with her daddy’s eyes
Pretty baby pretty baby mama’s sweetest surprise
Give liberal breastfuls of milk to my sugar and spice
Try not to scream the first time she bites
Blend up some squash and put it on a teaspoon
Pretend it’s on a mission and she’s the moon
Pretty baby pretty baby with her daddy’s eyes
Pretty baby pretty baby mama’s sweetest surprise
In a medium class combine her with twenty kids
Sift through all her papers and art projects
Roll out chores and charts so she gets her work done
But ditch the cookie cutters, let her make her own fun
Pretty baby pretty baby with her daddy’s eyes
Pretty baby pretty baby mama’s sweetest surprise
Sometimes my little sweet gets a little saucy
Sometimes she flames up like bananas foster
Then I let her settle
Let her sweetness age, let her take her time
Gotta wait patiently for the finest wine
Then however she decides to pour herself out
She’ll outsparkle all I’ve dreamed about
Pretty baby pretty baby with her daddy’s eyes
Pretty baby pretty baby mama’s sweetest surprise
Julia Bloom 