Sundays are usually tiny vacation days for me, in which I don’t check email or go on social media. So I didn’t hear the news about the Orlando shooting until I was checking email at breakfast this morning. Tears with my coffee.
The song I wrote for Week 23 of #songaweek2016 was submitted on Saturday, but I offer it here as a little lullaby in the face of the tragic news we are all processing.
It’s been too long since Nathan sang along on one of my recordings. I won’t easily forget the night he recorded his vocals on this song, while I sat on the couch nearby, snuggled up with the dog and reading H.G. Wells. The process of creating these songs – not just the writing, but the recording and collaborative arranging – is something I simply love, a deeply fulfilling way to spend my time.
This song felt very hymn-like to me, and it’s week 22 of #songaweek2016, thus the title.
Rain falls on the righteous and wicked alike
’cause each of us is righteous and wicked
Sun shines in the daytime moon glows at night
each of us needs light and dark
Hallelujah, Amen
We’re born in a moment we cannot remember
we’re laid to rest in tombs of unknowing
we spring from folded bud through full-bodied summer
then fall asleep in winter’s deep embrace
Hallelujah, Amen
So play for us the songs you hear, paint the colors in your visions
write us the stories you find in the world
With broken brushes, bleeding pens and battered instruments
we’ll build a blaze and gather round for warmth
Hallelujah, Amen
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.
Every moment of your life is a gift. You can stack all those gifts on a shelf and save them for later, but the little gremlins of time and urgency will tear into them and do with them what they will, and then you will be left with cleanup duty. Or you can quit waiting on everyone else, everything else, and take each gift in your arms, each moment, as it arrives, open it up, live it with intention. You can answer the call with your own voice and actions – take full responsibility, full pleasure, full heartache, whatever it is – from each moment.
My song for Week 20 of #songaweek2016 reflects on the passivity I and many women learned by osmosis growing up in a fundamentalist environment, and the ongoing conversation I’ve had with my younger self to work through it. So that even those moments I passed on the first time have become precious to me, have shaped me, as I perform the aforementioned cleanup duty.
It’s all good. All shall be well. This I still believe.
Hey little girl with the starry eyes
falling in love for the very first time
you always keep your toes in line
you always keep your tongue so tied
don’t hold back the words you need to say
You should tell him
you should tell him ’cause the mystery haunts my dreams
or you should leave it
you should leave it ’cause the mystery inspires me
I just wish that you had known that it was all your call
You spend your afternoons in secret gardens
writing all your secret thoughts
waiting for the world to come and find you
waiting for permission to come alive
don’t hold back the moves you need to make
Get up and dance now
get up and dance because my memories could use more joy
or keep your quiet
keep your quiet ’cause my memories could hold more peace
I just wish that you had known that it was all your call
but i’d never go back
not for a minute
and I wouldn’t trade it
not for a million
’cause I’ve learned that every moment is my call
and that my life is ringing
off the hook
Some of us are just destined to do most of our work in the dark. We choose it – sort of – and it seems to choose us too. Not much spotlight, not much sunshine – but oh how we glow in our finest hours – alone in the studio at midnight, on a stage in front of five actively listening people, putting the finishing touches on a poem in the corner of a busy coffee shop.
My song for Week 19 of #songaweek2016 is dedicated to all the introverts, melancholics and not-so-go-getters who persist in loving this noisy, busy, sun-worshiping world through the deep, dark, luminescent art they faithfully create.
I’m the glow after the blaze
More subtle glance than open gaze
I’m understated
not overrated
i like my coffee black
i like a strong dark beer
and if you want to be sweet with me
be bittersweet
I’ve been singing in the shadows
From the day that I was made
I’m luminescent in the moonlight
but in the sunshine I just fade
Don’t cover me in kisses of pure joy
I cannot play along
mix them with tears
be salty sweet
My daydreams never hold a candle to
All the beauty I dream in the dark
Keep your sparkling diamonds
I’d rather have stars
I can’t tell you why I’m like this
It’s just always been this way
I’m luminescent in the moonlight
but in the sunshine I just fade
Julia Bloom 