Ear Worms

As I wrap up the annual eight weeks of feeling like shit, the one thing I don't feel like is writing. What's different about this one is that I have ear-worms for two songs that are from long after Ziggy stopped singing (badly, I'm sorry to admit) but lyrics that he would've appreciated. Maybe because the actual yahrzeit falls today, Monday, that makes me a bit sadder than usual. Couldn't tell you. Instead, I'm posting a link to each song and the lyrics. It's about all I can handle at this frozen moment in time.

Dan Reynolds

 WRECKED   

Performed by Imagine Dragons 

Songwriters: Benjamin Arthur Mckee / Daniel Coulter Reynolds / Daniel Wayne Sermon / Daniel James Platzman 

Days pass by and my eyes stay dry, and I think that I'm okay
'Til I find myself in conversation, fading away
The way you smile, the way you walk
The time you took to teach me all that you had taught
Tell me, how am I supposed to move on?

These days I'm becoming everything that I hate
Wishing you were around but now it's too late
My mind is a place that I can't escape your ghost

Sometimes I wish that I could wish it all away
One more rainy day without you
Sometimes I wish that I could see you one more day
One more rainy day

Oh, I'm a wreck without you here
Yeah, I'm a wreck since you've been gone
I've tried to put this all behind me
I think I was wrecked all along
Yeah, I'm a wreck

They say that the time will heal it, the pain will go away
But everything, it reminds me of you and it comes in waves
Way you laugh when your shoulders shook
The time you took to teach me all that you had taught
Tell me, how am I supposed to move on?

These days I'm becoming everything that I hate
Wishing you were around but now it's too late
My mind is a place that I can't escape your ghost

Sometimes I wish that I could wish it all away
One more rainy day without you
Sometimes I wish that I could see you one more day
One more rainy day

Oh, I'm a wreck without you here
Yeah, I'm a wreck since you've been gone
I've tried to put this all behind me
I think I was wrecked all along

These days when I'm on the brink of the edge
Remember the words that you said
Remember the life you led
You'd say, "Oh, suck it all up, don't get stuck in the mud
Thinkin' of things that you should have done"
I'll see you again, my loved one

I'll see you again, my loved one
Yeah, I'm a wreck

I'll see you again, my loved one

Yeah, I'm a wreck without you here (loved one)
Yeah, I'm a wreck since you've been gone (I'm a wreck since you've been gone)
I've tried to put this all behind me
I think I was wrecked all along (I'm a wreck)
Yeah, I'm a wreck

Sometimes I wish that I could wish it all away but I can't
One more rainy day without you (one more rainy day)
Sometimes I wish that I could see you one more day but I can't

One more rainy day 

 

Lewis Capaldi

SOMEONE YOU LOVED 

Performed by Lewis Capaldi 

Songwriters: Benjamin Kohn / Lewis Capaldi / Peter Kelleher          / Samuel Roman / Tom Barnes 

I'm going under and this time I fear there's no one to save me

This all or nothing really got a way of driving me crazy

I need somebody to heal

Somebody to know

Somebody to have

Somebody to hold

It's easy to say

But it's never the same

I guess I kinda liked the way you numbed all the pain

Now the day bleeds

Into nightfall

And you're not here

To get me through it all

I let my guard down

And then you pulled the rug

I was getting kinda used to being someone you loved

I'm going under and this time I fear there's no one to turn to

This all or nothing way of loving got me sleeping without you

Now, I need somebody to know

Somebody to heal

Somebody to have

Just to know how it feels

It's easy to say but it's never the same

I guess I kinda liked the way you helped me escape

Now the day bleeds

Into nightfall

And you're not here

To get me through it all

I let my guard down

And then you pulled the rug

I was getting kinda used to being someone you loved

And I tend to close my eyes when it hurts sometimes

I fall into your arms

I'll be safe in your sound 'til I come back around

For now the day bleeds

Into nightfall

And you're not here

To get me through it all

I let my guard down

And then you pulled the rug

I was getting kinda used to being someone you loved

But now the day bleeds

Into nightfall

And you're not here

To get me through it all

I let my guard down

And then you pulled the rug

I was getting kinda used to being someone you loved

I let my guard down

And then you pulled the rug

I was getting kinda used to being someone you loved

Unexpectedly, in the world of pop music, neither song is about a break-up. WRECKED is the response to the untimely death of Mr. Reynold's sister-in-law with whom he was very close and SOMEONE YOU LOVED is about the loss of Mr. Capaldi's grandmother. Both are about the loss of partnership, not romantic love, which may be why both songs make me cry. A lot. 

Sometimes, music helps. Sometimes, hearing someone else share the pain of loss through words and notes makes one feel a tad less alone. It's like grief and widowhood in general: you cannot predict what will touch you, move you, or even make you cry when it comes on the car radio. 

I promise to be more pithy, sarcastic, and generally upbeat (?) next week. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

You are allowed to be sad.

You are allowed to grieve

You are most certainly allowed to miss another person.

You don't need permission from anyone but yourself. 

What Really Matters

my Shoshana guitar

I went to a funeral today. Last Friday morning, my friend Shoshana collapsed and died. All signs point to a heart attack. 

Shoshana claimed she retired, but the only thing she actually retired from was practicing medicine. I think she was busier as a glass artist, as a small farmer, and as business manager of their family owned Double F Arena.  Did she ever just sit and do nothing? I don't think so. That would not have been the authentic Shoshana.

A couple of weeks ago, she was getting ready for lambing season and we texted about when I could come up to the farm with the kiddos. Lambing season started off with one of  the sheep dying right after delivery, and the orphan lamb went right into the laundry room where she could be bottle fed every four hours. That was so Shoshana. I mean, doesn't everyone  keep a lamb in the laundry room?

And if that wasn't enough, she was busy getting ready for this past weekend's Art-A-Whirl, the Nord'east Minneapolis art festival where her fantastic glass would be shown and sold at her space, Designs by Shoshana, in the Northrup King building. About her art, she wrote:

Glass has always held a special place in my soul.  I grew up with clear and colored cut Bavarian crystal from my German immigrant grandparents. In the early 1980’s,I started with stained glass and slowly switched to fused glass in the early part of the new millennium.

I have always been fascinated by the interplay of color and light. This interaction and my life is what I try to express in my glass pieces. Since moving to a farm in Stacy, I have become fascinated with the colors of the changing seasons. I have tried to bring the feel of nature and the seasons into my new glass panels.

She never got to open her space on Friday. 

I am damn thankful she gave me my guitar pin. She said I needed it. I did. I especially needed to wear it today. 

Shoshana was a lifetime imbiber of knowledge, a looker-up of stuff. I think that's what we like best about each other....or maybe it was because we were two New Yorkers living in the passive/aggressive heartland. She read this blog regularly and periodically lobbed hard questions and pithy comments at me....usually via text. And when we got started texting, well... 

At this point, I would also like to add that I have a left eyeball because back in December of 2000, my ophthalmologist and Shabbat morning pew buddy, DR. Shoshana, told me if I didn't get that thing on my eyelid taken care of immediately, she would remove it the next time she sat next to me in shul. I believed her. And then, not ten minutes later, that thing exploded. She got me in to see her colleague, Dr. Quist, on Monday morning. Turned out that thing was a basal cell carcinoma gone amok and a bigger deal than anyone could've guessed. I lost a chunk of the bottom eyelid which was rebuilt from skin behind my ear; this was better than losing the whole eyeball thing. The eyeball was saved and still works reasonably well. She always took a quick look at the eyelid every time I saw her. I always said thank you for my eyeball. And we always laughed. Shoshana had a great laugh.

So instead of writing another screechy, pithy, angry episode about the demise of civility and reason in these here United States, I just want to sit here and be sad for a bit. Sad for my friend David as he begins to navigate the world without his partner and love of his life, and their sons Noah and Ben, and the grandkids. My heart goes out to them all. 

Been there, done that. It sucks. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Hug someone you love. 

You never know when it's gonna be the last hug.