sundrenched world.

This is my favorite song on Joshua Radin's album We Were Here. The entire album is amazing, but this one is my favorite. Not only because I thoroughly enjoy listening to boys who play guitar and sing. (A little too much, if you ask me.) Not only because I love the combination of an acoustic guitar and strings. Not only because I love a 9-8 suspension in a minor chord. But because, as a songwriter, I know every song has a deeper meaning. And I believe the best songwriters use elements of their songs to contribute to the message they are trying to send. Much like poets. Because true songwriters are poets, not just people paid to compose. And this song draws upon the literary element of consonance to make a point. This is also the only song on the album that contains a curse word. Consequently, the curse word that I find the harshest, the "f" word. I only listened to the word once, on accident, now it's almost brandished into my brain. Now I turn off the volume when I get to that point in the bridge, because the word is almost painful to listen to, much like the pain the singer feels remembering the past and the way it has cut a jagged hole into his own world, while the girl who left him to be safe in hers while never completely letting go of him. The pain he feels knowing that what happened is just a repeat of history, an endless circle of this girl closing herself up to him and any guy before and after him. Not only is his heart breaking because she won't completely love him, but hers is as well. He's angry, he spits this word out. But everything else is sung almost as a whisper... Though it's not explicitly stated in the song, he knows she's tender. Even through all the pain she causes him, he doesn't want to lose her, he doesn't want her to lose him. She sings along with him on the chorus: "I'm talking to you, but you're not listening. I don't know what to do; my heart is (hands are) blistering" He sings alone: "Writing this song, tell me I'm not wrong (I belong)." Neither of them can make the other understand, though they are both saying the same thing to each other. Both of them are alone in being together. It really is an endless cycle. "Tell me I belong." But neither one can say that to the other while flailing in this loneliness. They love each other, but they're too weak to hold onto one another. "Tell me I belong." But neither one of them ever can.

6.25.10

They have now realized the joys of spitting water into each other's faces. I, for once, have decided to forego my swimsuit and simply wear shorts and a white v-neck in the hopes of the scorching sun being a little less relentless. I hear thunder. "What's that?" they ask me. "Sounds like an airplane." I explain that that is thunder. And that it sounds like a storm to me. They ignore me and proceed to ask for more sunscreen, out of the can that, though empty, defies my logic by unleashing enough 50 spf sunscreen to cover both of my charges and give my leg a good dousing. No lightning, so I allow them to continue swimming. And then the rain. And the shade. Hallelujah. I pull my chair under the roof of the pool house to watch them. (I promise I'm a good babysitter, the thunder has stopped; no possibility for lightning now.) Then I proceed to ponder my sad existence. Just kidding. My existence really isn't that sad. I live in a fabulous home with my family. I am blessed to have parents that still love each other and root our family in our faith. However, small pity parties are necessary when you're a girl. The thing about me is that I didn't discover the reality of a social life until this year. And now that it's summer, and I will be attending a college in the fall that is approximately one thousand, nine hundred and thirty-one driving miles away, trusting that a blonde babe with a pixie cut who currently attends said college's calculations are correct, people you may have hung out with during the school year now only want you for gossip (girls) or making out (boys). So, as a remedy for that situation, I have a job. I babysit. I'm not a terrible babysitter, the children are well-behaved (excluding the fake-crying) and get along very well with each other. They are even well-mannered. ("Excuse me... Excuse me!") But I realized on the first day of babysitting that I am not ready to be doing this every day for the next ten years. Which leads me to pondering the subject of teen mothers. I think I'd miss out on a lot as a teen mother. I would have no social life at all. Because I wouldn't deposit the children back at home at 6 o'clock and go out to watch a movie with my friends (the ones who don't use me for gossip or making out) or go shopping with my mother. I wouldn't have a mother on hand to feed the little ones in case I fell asleep while they were watching "Muppet Treasure Island." Heck, I might even have a real job myself, with taxes and managers and co-worker drama and I'd have to pick up my children from daycare after I got off. What if I didn't have the children's father there to support me? What if their father didn't even care? So my existence isn't that sad. I could have it worse. Wow, I think that sometimes I think too much. Oh, crap, they're crying. Snack time. Then quiet time. My mother is a saint. She's coralled them at the pool table with popsicles.