Warmer

I'm so glad that this has taken me so long, cause it's the journey that made me so strong.

"Warmer Climate," Snow Patrol. I've loved that song since I first heard it nine years ago. For the whole of it, for the atmosphere. But a few weeks ago I was surprised at myself when I choked while listening to/singing those last lines. I teared up. I heard it at the right time, really heard it, really felt it. It's true.

Open your heart to the thought that life is something you're not caught at.

I'm caught up in sentimentality right now. I'm also catching myself in moments of frustration and anger. Last week, week fifteen, was a rough one. There was nausea worse than I've had it, and headaches, anxiety, shame. I didn't have time for yoga. I fell asleep every night on the couch and then struggled to sleep when I went to bed after Phillip left for work.

But I might be feeling the baby, leaning forward on the couch. It's not fluttering but a rumbling. Not hunger but lower. It might be the little avocado. I'll know better in a few weeks.

Baby, you're the words and chapters, the sweetness in the morning after.

Every day we have Jack now he wants to listen to my tummy. I pull up my shirt and he presses his ear to me. "I hear it," he says, confident. He knows the baby will stay in there until she/he's big enough to be with us. He will be nearly five by then, a true big brother. Four will be joyful.

13 Ways of Looking at a Road Trip: 2, Acoustics

The official road trip playlist, a mix of the 90s and today, which I listened to at the start of each day on the road:
1. "Always be my Baby" by Mariah Carey
2. "Bittersweet Symphony" by The Verve
3. "Chocolate" by Snow Patrol
4. "Everybody" by Backstreet Boys
5. "The High Road" by Broken Bells
6. "High Speed" by Coldplay
7. "Jumping Trains" by Katie Herzig
8. "The Long and Winding Road" by The Beatles
9. "Pick Me Up" by Air Traffic Controller
10. "Point me at Lost Lands" by Tired Pony
11. "Push" by Matchbox Twenty
12. "Queen of California" by John Mayer
13. "Rumour Has It" by Adele
14. "Saturday" by Josh Rouse
15. "The Scientist" by Coldplay
16. "Sweetie" by Josh Rouse
17. "Ticket to Ride" by The Beatles
18. "Why Georgia" by John Mayer

But, officially, the soundtrack was the new John Mayer album, Born and Raised, on repeat. Also, almost all of the audio book of AJ Jacobs' The Guinea Pig Diaries. Also, later, Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago and Ray LaMontagne's God Willin' & the Creek Don't Rise and a smatter of albums when I needed to go back to something familiar, like an old friend, for a while.

Music framed this trip, influenced my view of the landscape and my relationships. It kept me awake and shook me awake. It connected, inspired, reminded. It brought me back.

For me to truly learn an album I have to live with it for weeks, and it's historically on backroads that I have the attention to listen closely and let it speak through a landscape or environment. Music is my strongest sense tied to memory, yes, and there are moments connected to songs on this trip that will stay with me forever.

Five acts of wonder

1. Older gentleman, whom I know from events he attends at the store, asks me "Are you married?" as I ring up his book. "No, I am not," I say. "Well, I've decided it's time you got married and settled down," he says. "No, I'm not in a hurry. I do pretty well on my own," I say. "I don't know," he says, and heads toward the door. "You work a lot, don't you," he says. "I work full time. I love my job," I say. He shakes his head and picks up one of our books, says the rape scene was almost overdone.

2. A newborn baby in your arms is like nothing else you ever will hold. Tender head, softest, and compact wiggly body that pushes into you, out of his body. The instinct is to curl him up inside you, fold around him and sleep.

3. After eight years of loving, you discover the illusive musician you have dreamed of seeing live will be in Nashville in two months, just six hours away. You try to buy tickets without evening looking at the calendar. When you realize tickets don't go on sale for another two days, you put the on-sale time in your calendar and set reminders. This will be the day you experience him, at last.

4. I watched a TED talk the other day. I can't remember who did it or what it was called, but here was the formula for connectedness, happiness: 8 hugs a day. When you're single, how is that even possible?

5. Last week I slept outside in the rain, under a tarp, under a structure I had built, on the ground covered in pine needles, with Steve Snell in a tent 20 feet away, on my left side, in a raincoat, in my shoes, on a tree farm, with two ticks in the morning, but I don't remember sleeping.

26.51: Solo excursions

Year 26, week 51.

First step: Atlanta.
The reason: Snow Patrol, the music of sanity, peace, and wonder.
The stay: A hotel that reminded me of my apartment in City View, only my view was that of the stone side of the next building.

In the Poncey-Highlands neighborhood

Where I watched KU lose the championship.

Pocket bathroom! Reminded me of my hotel in London.

Ready to be inspired.

The End of Perfection.

Second step: Hike in Caesars Head State Park, SC.
The reason: A journey in nature.
The stay: Soggy feet, tired pup, blue skies, rushing Saluda River.

Me, the Saluda River, and Mr. Pudgy, who ate 2lbs of dog food while I was away last night and regrets it.

Greenville and Spartanburg from Caesars Head. They're there, I swear.

Look from Left to Right, and you'll see Table Rock Reservoir, Table Rock Mt., and, the tallest little peak over there, Pinnacle Mt., which I hiked one year ago and didn't know that it was the tallest point entirely in SC. But I should have known because it was the most physically challenging hike to date.

Post-hike fuel from the machines. Dr. Wham, what?

Memory

After work, stressed and trying to save money, I cooked. I made chili and cornbread. I baked banana bread. I barely ate any of it, and it's all still sitting on the counter waiting to be put away.

This morning I was thinking about films again (appropriate, because all I've done today is edit video), about how growing up we would walk to Dillon's and rent VHS movies in the summer, about how we had to rent the VCR, too, a big suitcase of a thing with textured plastic encasing the machine. We'd walk to Dillon's on Dollar Day, which I think was Monday, and stock up on family movies or romantic comedies. Nothing strange. Nothing bloody. If my mother was up for splurging, we'd walk to the Blockbuster just two blocks from our house and peruse their larger selection, though still go home with the same types of movies.

Wild Hearts Can't be Broken. She's All That. Those were the favorites. Rented so many times we should have bought them. All others are lost on me. Where did those hours go? What stories did I learn, lose? Why is the most vivid memory of movies as a child the act of renting the device on which to play them?

When now I can pull a movie up on my computer. When now I can make my own videos. When now I still don't remember most of what I see. When now I know I have to commit everything to memory by writing.

It is the same with meals and with books, which I wish wasn't the case. But not with music. Music sticks to my ribs, colors my memories. Music I can keep, associate with a larger memory. My life has a soundtrack, with hidden tracks among the main score of moments in song.

Coming soon: "Snow Patrol as Religious Experience." Because if DFW can write it about Federer, then I can about SP.

For the life of me

If you want to love a new song...

Play, play, play. Skip, skip, skip.

After my workout tonight, I determined to update my workout playlist. It was suspiciously lacking in certain raise-the-roof songs. And so I started from the top, from the A's, and went through my library.

I had forgotten how much music I love and long for until I realized, as I clicked through and sampled old loves, that I suddenly wanted to listen to everything I loved all at once. I couldn't decide what to stick with, what to play all the way through, because I wanted to play so much all the way through. Albums, whole albums that I wanted to swoon to like I have before. But all at once. I don't have time to listen to 20 hours of continuous music tonight.

It was also startling to see that it's been over a year since I last listened to some of these songs. They still feel so present to me, so dear, so familiar, that a year feels like a week or two.

After the run-through, I pressed shuffle, as I often do when I want to hear what I love but can't decide what to focus on, start with, commit to. And then, as is iTunes' want, shuffle only wanted to play the songs that it always wants to play--songs that I like but don't love. Skip, skip, skip, skip, skip.

Sometimes I just want to be 16 again in my room, sitting on the floor in front of my stereo with albums on repeat. Matchbox 20. Backstreet Boys. The Wallflowers. Or 19, when my tastes began to expand. Keane. John Mayer. Howie Day. Or 20, when I discovered Limewire and downloaded song upon song of new music or rare songs of my favorites. Or all of these days in between, days of music in the car and through the apartment. Tired Pony in the car in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Snow Patrol on my last drive across Kansas. James Taylor on I-26 to Beaufort. The Beatles all over Manhattan, all over Topeka.

And now I want to read everything I love. All at once. How can I choose?

The Belleville Outfit

The headliners and organizers of The Music Camp, The Belleville Outfit (originally from Spartanburg but now out of Austin) rocked last night. I'd really just never seen live music like that--a big band with a fiddle, lots of instrumentals, big voices. It was a wonderful night, and now I have a few new bands to delve into--and a new genre of music.

Warren Hood and the Goods: So Good!

Hear this band. Hear Warren Hood. Hear and smile. The fiddle--the fiddle!

shut your eyes

and think of somewhere...somewhere cold and caked in snow. (Here and at home) By the fire we break the quiet, learn to wear each other well.

"Shut Your Eyes" by dear Snow Patrol.

Oh, the winter storm that had been forecast and doubted and warned and doubted and here. Oh, the wind. Oh, the fact that I might be grounded in Hutchinson for another day.

At least I have a new green iPod c/o the best little brother there is. At least I have final projects left to grade. At least I have plenty of clothes. At least I fed Snickers through Friday night. At least I now have my trusty old foam mattress pad on this hardest of hard beds. At least I'm healthy and safe this Christmas.

Cheers to you and yours!

obsessed

Yes, that's right. I'm obsessed with John Mayer's new album Battle Studies, particularly "Edge of Desire" and "Do You Know Me," with 15 and 19 plays, respectively, since Tuesday. I'm in love with the songs. I think this album is my new "companion."

I can't stop listening to it long enough to get anything done consistently. I think about it and miss the songs. So I have to play the songs. And then I smile. Oh, good work, Mr. Mayer.

I might have to take my mom up on offering to buy me tickets to the March show at the Sprint Center for my birthday, even though I've already seen him in concert twice. Never inside, though, and it's been two and a half years.

Because

Last summer, I created a Can't be Down playlist in iTunes. Just songs that brought me joy. Well, they bring me joy. I want to share them with you. Some of them, anyway. There's a lot of Snow Patrol, Josh Rouse, and Coldplay, of course.

"Shut Your Eyes" by Snow Patrol

"The Heart of Life" by John Mayer

"Concrete Bed" by Nada Surf

"Perfect Time of Day" by Howie Day

"Postcards from Far Away" by Coldplay

"Bunnies" by Howie Day

"Someday Soon" by KT Tunstall

"Strawberry Swing" by Coldplay

"All We Are" by Matt Nathanson

"Chocolate" by Snow Patrol

Josh Rouse

One of my favorites. Everything he does is amazing, beautiful, right. Listen to him. Now. You can't go wrong.

not to say

There is so much not to say. What does that even mean? It means, I think, if I understand what just popped out of my mind, that writing is hard. That there's so much to say that it's hard to know what to say. That's not to say that I don't want to. I want to. More than anything. I want to write. I want to. I'm doing it. I'm living this dream that I started nearly three years ago. The Writing Life. Now it's a matter of making the Writing work every day in the Life. It's hard. It's supposed to be. You don't choose this occupation for the ease of sitting down and writing what matters. Don't make it easy. I make it too hard, I think.

Keep it down. I need the quiet to think, to settle, to breathe. But I learned something today. Something that I have to remind myself of too often, remind myself to have human contact. Human contact. Seems simple, but for me it seems to be hard.

"I went broke believing that the simple should be hard." Yes. That's what I'm doing with a lot of my life. My instinct is that things are not simple. That having fun and being myself are hard. That having friends is hard. And that's a quote from the song of the summer that's reminding me that "every day is a start of something beautiful." "All We Are" by Matt Nathanson.

in my arms

This is strangely fitting for me and Jedsen. No, I didn't make this video. Just love the song. It's Snow Patrol day. (And fajita day.)

warmer climate

It's starting to heat up. Snow Patrol sure doesn't hurt.

Honey, you are a rock.

Oh, Coldplay. Again, I was at this concert. Much, much farther away...on the other side of the arena...but I was there. It was magical.

In my Place. Yes, I was there.