Sing My Songs to Me

Sing my songs to me
Sing them to me softly
Sing me sunlight and shadows
Orange groves and meadows
Let your voice ring back my memories
Sing my songs to me

This song was in my wedding.  Why?  What was the special meaning? The special meaning arrived after our wedding, when it became "the Jackson Browne song that was in our wedding".  It was chosen because, I insisted that there be a song by Jackson Browne in our wedding ceremony.  For various reasons most of his songs were eliminated right off the bat.  After all it was 1989, and the reason that I was drawn to his music was the ability it had to help me work through the difficult times in my life.  So my favorites at that time, "For a Dancer", "Here Come Those Tears Again", and "Bright Baby Blues", "Lives in the Balance", even the "Rehab version of Cocaine" were really not going to work.

Bring my dreams to me
Bring them from the darkness
Let the minutes and hours
Show my mind strange new flowers
But I'd like to know where they go
When the morning comes
Bring my dreams to me

I spent literally hours listening to Jackson Browne songs, which was a job which I loved, however, without the Internet I had to find the cassette tapes, and boxes so I had the various words just to make sure I didn't make a mistake, misunderstand a lyric, and play a song like "Rosie" believing it meant something else.  I did hear him later say that the original words in  "Sing My Songs to Me", were oranges and yellows in reference to various colors of pills he stored in his room at the time, instead of of "orange groves and meadows",  I would have chosen the song even if I knew that then, because frankly that is quite funny.

My point here is that I was tenacious in my quest to find a song of Jackson Browne's to play at my wedding.  Even though I will have quite a selection for family funerals, what is really on my mind is tenacity.

For the last two weeks when I have headed out to my car to start my day, I have noticed a spider web on the side view mirror.  There has also been a larger one on the hatch back door.  The first day, I brushed them away, thinking to myself, I must really be a slob to have not noticed my car has been taken over with spider webs, I need to get it together.  Each morning said spiders had elaborately spun a more intricate web than the day before, and each morning I knocked it away, knowing that Jackson would probably have the spiders transplanted to a special habitat where they could live out their lives without me destroying their hard work daily.  Maybe, I thought, the message is to get a more earth friendly car, a hybrid, or electric.  Then it hit me, man those spiders are tenacious.

My thoughts drifted to my children, whom I have always hoped to instill tenacity, so they would have the inner strength to do with their life what they desired, and follow their dreams. I don't really view myself as a tenacious individual, but I have put that on my list of skills to work on developing.  My son just built the Taj Mahal,  out of legos, but a job which took tenacity, and my dogs are trying to remove the family room carpet string by string, while no one catches them, so they are covered.

Then there is my daughter, who has incredible tenacity but doesn't even know she how much she actually has.  Until she was 15 she was unable to speak to adults outside of her father, mother, and a few teachers.  She had what we now know is Selective Mutism.  When I finally found that as a diagnosis, I began dialing for doctors to find someone to work with her, and we were lucky to find someone who could help her work through this debilitating condition, allowing her to take on the same challenges other's her age are engaging in.  When she was 15, I wondered how if ever she would be able to get a driver's license, because she had to get in the car with a strange man, and in our neck of the woods, usually quite grumpy, take his direction, and drive.  At this point ordering food in a restaurant was challenging. 

Then before I knew it, my daughter headed off to attend college, on her own, knowing no one from her past life to help her into her new life, and became a college student.  Now that is one tenacious person.  I was close, but not close enough to assist with getting tasks done, and she was over the age of 18 so there were things I legally could not help her with even if I was present. She occasionally stumbled and fell, but got back up and tried again, and never ran home for safety. 

I began to watch videos on "you tube" by teens and young adults with selective mutism, and I became more in awe everyday with her tenacity.  I suggest everyone watches a few so they can get an inside look at what hell these kids go through on a daily basis, while others around them think they are snobs, stupid, and incapable of trying just a little bit harder.

The first moment I really, really, really, saw the change in my daughter was in Chicago in September 2010.  We were at a Jackson Browne concert, and as I have mentioned before, she asked someone if her mother could possibly meet him.  A stranger, in an alley, in Chicago!  My life changed that day for several reasons, but one of them was seeing the strength of my daughter reaching new heights.

As I write this I am anticipating her return from a year "studying" in Australia.  I know that she has had a fabulous time, and that she feels she has met her future.  She wants to return to live in Melbourne, go through her life down under, where she and I will not even be existing in the same day, let alone hemisphere.  Although she must return to finish her bachelors degree in Chicago, she plans on returning to Australia.  So, as hard as this is for me to do, I wish her the tenacity to do what she needs to do to find her way back, if that is where her dreams lie.  I will be happy to Sing Her Songs to Her, but she will need to do the work, find the path, the means both financial and educational to make this happen.  Although I can't fathom a life with either one of my children living so far away, especially due to my anxiety of travel, her happiness is of utmost importance. While sharing her life I learned so much from this young woman, that I am sure I can learn to experience some time outside of the United States.

Because it seems to me that there may never be
A better chance to see who I am
Come timelessly dancing
Through my dreams to me