There's No Going Back...

Music is a powerful tool that has the ability to evoke the gamut of my emotions, especially now since they are tucked just below my often-fragile shell. The meld of a capella harmony, the riff of an acoustic guitar, an explosive drum solo or a simple line or two of significant words has the potential to cause an eruption of feelings within moments, causing me to either roll down the windows in the car and turn up the volume and beat on the steering wheel, sing along like I'm a member of the band or drop to the floor in tears.

Along with the works of many musicians, the songs of both James Taylor and Carole King have been a part of my life since I was in junior high. Independently, each boasts a history rich in accomplishments and awards, and through the years the two have combined their gifts, composing together and lending their talents to one another's recordings.

When Taylor's first major album, Sweet Baby James, was released in 1970, I was hooked. Through the years I've gone on to purchase each of his records/CDs as they were released, and appreciate every one for a variety of different reasons. I'd be hard-pressed to name A FAVORITE song because there are so many that have integrated into the various facets of my life since the get-go. See my sidebar image for an appropriate illustration of my now-necessary "howling at the moon" days! I've seen JT perform in concert on a number of occasions ~ each time, Spectacular.

I've walked down his "Country Road" ~ "closed my eyes as the doggies retired" ~ gone "Long Ago and Far Away" ~ been "Back on the Street Again" ~ and, in frustration, belted out "Damn this Traffic Jam". I've felt the "I can't help it if I don't feel so good" storm of "Angry Blues". He's taught me "The Secret O' Life is enjoying the passage of time. Any fool can do it. There ain't nothing to it." ~ and continues to invite me to curl up with "Well, what am I to do today, with too much time and so much sorrow... on Another Grey Morning". I'm learning to appreciate my "Golden Moments... as I gathered up my sorrows and I sold them all for gold...and all I really needed was the proper point of view" ~ and I now often "walk down that Lonesome Road all by myself".

Plus, look at him. He's just hot! Still!

Sesame Street was the most popular show for children at the time Chris, Sarah and Matt were very young. The show was brilliant in that it not only successfully inspired a generation of toddlers to learn their colors, numbers and manners in concise, well-planned vignettes that packed a powerful punch, it also appealed to and thoroughly entertained the harried mothers of those children. Instead of using the "babysitter-in-the-box" during its one-hour time slot (to which I admittedly regressed on occasion), I made sure I was finished with my household chores, or dropped the laundry basket like a hot potato when I heard "Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street?" calling from the living room. I can! I can!

Perhaps some of you remember this ~



Ah, the good old days.

With trepidation this morning, I read pages from a journal I began on December 15th, THE date, as I attempted to organize my swirling thoughts and make sense of the shock and mounting insanity that loomed before us. CANCER?!! She's 15 years old. She's a healthy, athletic machine. You people are CRAZY!

Through my written account and reading the between-the-lines images of the events unfolding during the surreal week filled with scans and biopsies that followed the diagnosis, my state of anxiety is palpable now, TODAY. Yet even through the initial panic, I can see glimpses of us already collecting ourselves and repositioning into "fight mode". There were the initial words of advice, quoted from the mouth of my "wise one" ~ the person who introduced me to the fine art of Redirection of Thought; to survival of the moment by not going to "the land of what-if", to LIVE in small time increments.

On the afternoon of December 20th, after being at Loyola all morning for the needle biopsy on Erin's thigh, among many other things I wrote ~

Why my beautiful daughter? She was healthy, strong...
Test of faith? I have it!
Test of courage? I am brave!
Test of strength? My fists are out!
I'm so ANGRY! Not wishing this on someone else...not this anguish...just not my Erin.

GOD! GIVE ME THE OLD ERIN BACK!!

Erin just asked me to take her to practice tonight to see the girls. She has pain and still won't eat, but is insistent upon seeing her teammates... (I imagine some of you girls, as well as the parents of those teammates, have a pretty strong recollection of this time.)

Part of my entry on December 19th includes bits of the lyrics of the James Taylor song "Music" from his Gorilla album.

Turn on the music
Strike up the music
Let the music fill the air

There's a symphony inside you
There's a thousand things for you to do
so come on...

I ventured into the journal this morning because I have a VIVID image of sitting on the bed and listening to this CD while writing in that red-covered book that day, and most specifically hearing the above words. I WROTE those exact words in that book. Through heaving sobs, I had been pleading with God to save her; this young girl with a "symphony" of potential inside had a whole life ahead of her ~ a thousand things to do. I was filled with such hope at the time ~ "so come on" damn it!

To this day, I have an incredibly strong reaction each time I hear just those three lines. The rest of the song doesn't really apply to the situation at all.

I think James' voice is more beautiful now than when he was young. It has mellowed, enriched with age and experience, and whether I'm singing with him at the top of my lungs or curled up with flooding tears, I believe it is one of the most splendid sounds on this earth.


And, is there anyone who was twelve or older in 1971 that did NOT own Carole King's Tapestry? Should anyone ask, I could perform each song, accurately remembering every word to every selection on this album. I know, don't ask!




One of the activities we did in order to pass the time during Erin's 14 weeks of in-patient chemo during Cancer Part One was watch the "Gilmore Girls" series on the DVD player my St. Cletus co-workers gave her prior to her first hospital admission. The two of us had some great times while plopped in her hospital bed watching Lorelei's and Rory's lives unfold, as we talked, laughed and consumed large quantities of cherry coke and cheetoes, because truly, there are few things in life as satisfying as the whole coat-your-fingers-with-orange-powder experience you get from that tasty snack!

Fortunately, Erin rarely felt sick from the chemo, and we both had some pounds to gain back. So we hunkered down with one another week after week, as the nurses hung bag after bag of the lethal drugs that swam through her system, hunting down and (we hoped) causing the demise of every single cancer cell along that road to the THE CURE. Looking back now, I loved SO MANY THINGS about those hospital days. How bizarre, to be able to say I loved anything having to do with cancer.

Gilmore Girls followers know each episode begins with the Carole King Tapestry song's invitation to follow ~ "Where You Lead"

And I would go to the ends of the earth
cuz darling, to me that's what you're worth

Where you lead, I will follow
Anywhere that you tell me to
If you need, you need me to be with you
I will follow where you lead

If you're out on the road
Feeling lonely, and so cold
All you have to do is call my name
And I'll be there on the next train...

(yep)

As much as I love Carole King, the one and only time I saw her in concert was in August of 2005 when I impulsively took a trip to Phoenix. She was performing her Living Room Tour which I had missed in Chicago, and with very little effort the pieces of an excursion to see her in Arizona with a friend fell into place, and we hopped a plane just a few days after the inception of the idea ~ "Well, why don't we just go to Phoenix to see her?".

The trip there for the concert led to a couple of days in the breath-taking red hills of Sedona, through which we drove in a rented convertible (yes, it was 106 degrees - I love the sun and there was a great breeze with the top down!) as we joked about being "Thelma & Louise". I insisted on being Thelma because Thelma got Brad Pitt.

I look at this photo of myself now, taken when we had just randomly stopped the car to soak in the magnificent view, and it just says it all.

JOY!

My life was so good at that time, and I simply didn't know it.

We had recently moved from the 105-year-old home we'd owned for nineteen years to a newer, smaller one, deciding we no longer needed the space as the older kids were stretching their wings and moving from the nest, nor did we want to stay on top of the upkeep on the vintage beast any longer. Seeds of a plan to do some renovations to the tiny kitchen in our new home were sprouting in our minds. I had a job I adored, and was just ending the six-week summer break I enjoyed so much as an employee of a school system. After some initial indecision, Chris was discovering his passion in the teaching profession. Sarah had graduated from UWM and had recently landed her first job - with benefits (every parent's dream) and Matt was deciding where his life was heading.

Erin had graduated from 8th grade and was eager to begin life as a high school freshman. We had been in Salt Lake City, about a month prior at the end of June, with her club volleyball team for Junior Olympic Nationals, where her team had medaled, successfully taking 3rd place in the 14's division. After one day's competition we drove up into the mountains where the ski events of the 2002 Olympics had been held, snatching a piece of big-time sports history.

FINE was SO FINE at that time in our lives, and I didn't realize the magnitude of it. I didn't REALLY appreciate it.
I took it all for granted.

And then, FINE AS WE KNEW IT became NOT fine so abruptly and so irrevocably a little over one year later, in December of 2006. Through hard work, we learned to find a new fine as we painfully struggled to adjust the sails of what we considered to be the normal winds. It's all a matter of perspective. As I said earlier, looking back on those days of eating cheetoes with Erin in a hospital bed now seems like a slice of heaven.

No, there is no going back. There are only the sacred memories ~ of the years of health and good times. of the survival of the soul, the rejoice in the ordinary and the recognition of the importance of time with one another.

And then there's the background musical accompaniment to it all!

As I attempt to put each tiny step I take, together in an action with the intention of mostly-forward movement, I set out tonight with Dave to see James Taylor and Carole King perform TOGETHER, in the same room, at the same time! ~ Be still my heart! There are always new memories to make with more music to enrich them.