Green Tunes - Happy Birthday

Sometimes songs take on a life of their own in our minds.  We associate them with things completely unrelated to any lyrics if they exist.  This is one of those songs for me and this is the story of my association.

We had just discovered that Amy was pregnant.  My family was very excited, especially my grandmother.  I hadn't heard happiness in her voice like that for years.  Not long after, we got a call from my parents.  Grandma was in the hospital.  Amy and I booked a quick flight home from Chicago.  When we arrived at the hospital, she was in ICU but in good spirits.  We sat and talked for as long as we all could.  We talked quite a bit about Amy's pregnancy and collectively dreamed about the baby to come.  A nurse arrived and told us that she needed us to leave briefly while she attended to my grandmother.  While we sat in a nearby waiting room, I was staring out the window at the sunlight reflecting off of the leaves of nearby trees when this song began playing on my iPod.  I was suddenly overcome by a feeling that my grandmother would not see this baby.  This song suddenly became a lullaby to be sung by my grandmother to her great-grandbaby but only in my imagination.

At the end of our visit, I absorbed every memory I could about that moment of goodbye.  I kissed my grandmother on the forehead and, not knowing exactly what to say to her, I eeked out, "I love you, grandma.  Take care of yourself."  I somehow knew that I'd never see her again.  It was only a few days later, back in Chicago, when my parents called again.  Grandma had passed away and I would hold this song, this beautiful lullaby, as her song to her great-grandson.

When you wake up sun will shine,
we will not go under any cloud.
Let balloons go up in town.
Ring out every bell.

Happy Birthday, beautiful.
All the birds of this day
sing a song, sing a song.

Dream of trains carrying you
through the state parks with the cherry flowers.
When you wake up it will be
the beginning of the world.

Happy Birthday, beautiful,
through the fields of this day.
Hear a song, hear a song.

Oh undeserved sweetness and light
stay by my side
we will go out in the morning now.
A crown of maple leaves
a crown of flowers
circling your sweet head.

Happy Birthday, beautiful.
In the streets of this day
play a song, play a song.

Begrudgingly

A few months ago, I wrote a guest post for Alise Wright's blog about my depression, health, and running.  Things were looking up.  Then I got frustrated with the running because I wasn't losing any weight.  Then, I went off my medication.  That's when the depression came roaring back.  I was unable to get out of bed in the mornings, sometimes lying there all day, for about a month and a half.  Things didn't pick back up at all until Amy had finally had enough and we had our arguments about the state of things.

I also put on another 35 pounds.  I'm up to 285.  Last year, my goal for this year was to be 200 and I've gone in the opposite direction.  I did get my job at IWCC back, but I have a lot of anxiety about it.  It gets in the way.  I'm just a ball of problems and I need help.  I can't fix all this on my own.  I plan to get help once the job's insurance begins in September.  I need it all and hope to get it.  I'd like to go back to counseling, maybe get back on some medication, and I want a personal trainer.   I've tried so many times on my own to lose weight and every time I end up weighing more than when I started my program that it's really making me angry.  I also want to go back to the doctor and maybe get some help with my diet.  Everything about my life has been and continues to be a serious roller coaster ride and I want off.

Well, that's it.  That's why I haven't written anything in months.  That's why I don't communicate with anyone.  That's why I sometimes avoid going out of the house.  Here's to seeing you.

Still With a View

We went to the open house meeting regarding the power company's plans for construction in the future.  Turns out that the word 'park' really did mean 'park' as in a fun area for kids to play.  Apparently, it was proposed by the city.  The language on the flier was just a little unclear.  I feel much better about this now.

In other news, I applied for a job as a part-time A/V tech at one of the local casinos.  As is my usual insane practice, I went for the interview, which went well, and then promptly got anxious about being offered the job.  I don't know why I do this to myself.  My anxiety about this kind of thing has undermined me before.

With a View

That header image at the top of the screen?  It is not a stock image.  That's a view of the top of the hill behind my back yard.  It's a large stretch of what we understand to be protected grassland, special to the area for a particular combination of flora that is unique to this area of the country and rare in these modern times.  It's one of the main reasons we bought the house that we did.  We don't feel like we live in the sardine suburbia that we do because of the view that we have.  In the summer we have sat on the deck and enjoyed the sounds of an owl calling in the fading dusk.  In the winter, we have watched an ocean of snow howl and thrash its way across the barren stretch of field as it was whipped by the wind.  And that all might change if the local power company is allowed to complete their proposed project of building a power park on the land.

We got the notice for an open house meeting on the subject scheduled for next week.  I'm really torn up about this.  I feel as though another weight has been added to my shoulders, another yoke to my burden.  It's not that I won't fight.  I will if I can, if I'm given the opportunity.  It's that I'm tired.  I'm already fighting on other fronts.  I feel as though my creativity is stalling.  I'm wondering what the point of it all might be.  I can pour my heart and soul into what I do yet it still falls on so many disinterested ears.  In addition, my career is stalled and I don't know how to proceed or where to turn next.  I have yet to figure that out.  When it all came crashing down around my ears last summer, I could look out my back window and know that I was not leaving this wonderful view.  It was one of the few things that made me happy that I was not leaving.  But now that view, that one thing that made me happy, might change anyway.

As I'm writing this, I'm trying to figure out why this potential situation with losing a beautiful view to towering power lines is affecting me the way it is.  I believe it's because I see this as a metaphor for my current state of mind.  I'm wondering exactly how far down is down?  How many times can life kick me when I'm already on the ground?  Why can't I have and keep something that I love, something as sublime and simple as a view from my window?  I haven't been able to keep friends, haven't been able to keep jobs or a career, haven't been able to turn the corner on finding a way to use my skills and talents in any useful way.  I feel trapped in a prison of my own design and that view has at least been available through the bars of my venetian blinds for the past year and a half, the one ray of hope I've held on to since things turned bad.

I don't know what will happen with that view.  I don't know what will happen with a lot of things.  But I do know that I'm tired things happening right now.  The past three years has seen a lot of change in my life and I'm ready for some stability.  I just want to feel like I'm home.  Is that too much to ask?

Another Facebook Faux Pas?

Just search for this subject and you're going to hit a bunch of funny and perhaps stinging reads.   I know I've been guilty of a few of them on occasion.  The first article in that query link refers directly to me and warns others to not become my friend because of my musical ambitions.  OK, so I want you to listen to my music, how can I help it?

My personal opinion that most things that are considered faux pas are really just people with good intentions.  But I can't seem to wrap my head around this last event that occurred recently.  One of my online friends decided that he would prefer to keep personal and business contacts completely separated, a completely understandable desire.  But instead of using the lists feature to block certain content to certain people, or even creating a second profile, this person decided to create a personal page, something that a user "like"-s, such as an artist's or product's page.

I didn't follow along with this request.  I mean, I saw it as totally one-sided.  I "like" you and can follow all your updates but you can't and don't do the same with me.  That isn't the point, I don't think.  In the end, I think I saw this as just a slightly gentler way of saying, "Look, I don't want to be your friend here anymore."  But as with other gaffs, sometimes I think it still might just be more prudent to silently delete me if you don't want my online company.  Heck, I might never even notice that you did it if you're a quiet Facebooker.  Really, all of my attention to this seems kind of silly, but I think it's interesting how personal interactions have been molded and broken in the digital world.  We are, after all, human beings on the other side of our silly avatar pictures.