I Ain't Changed, But I Know I Ain't the Same

Music comes and goes from my life-- sometimes little more than background noise, other times providing much needed creative inspiration. I go through musical phases-- times when I will pop in a favorite CD and listen to it again and again... for months. Or times when I discover a new (or old) favorite singer and have to listen to every song they ever recorded. Or times when a friend will turn me on to a new song outside my usual musical tastes and I will find myself being immersed in a whole new world.

Post-baby #1, I spent a lot of time listening to music. I needed a break from the usual household noises, which were either total silence or heartbreaking infant wails. It was winter, my husband was deployed and it was just the babe and me. There were days when the lyrics to the songs I played were the only adult voices I heard.

When I finally recovered from delivery, sleep deprivation and postpartum depression and started writing again-- writing more than emails and blog posts, I mean-- I turned to music for inspiration. The first story I wrote after I had Patrick was based on the song "One Headlight" by The Wallflowers.

I listened to "One Headlight" again and again, finding inspiration in the lyrics and Jakob Dylan's haunting voice. The story that song inspired took forever to write-- it felt like I was learning the language all over again. But after a couple of weeks, I finally had a finished piece of fiction-- my first in several months. "Here in Between" wasn't an easy story to write, but it is (I think) one of my best. That story, written in the snippets between Patrick's feedings and naps in early 2010 appears in Rachel Kramer Bussel's new anthology Obsessed: Erotic Romance for Women.

The time frame when I was writing "Here in Between" seems so long ago-- another lifetime, when I was shell shocked and lost in my new life as a mother. I read it now and feel like I'm reading it for the first time:

He stares at the blank television while I stare at his profile. He has a nice face, a kind face. I wonder what his name is, but I don’t ask. I contemplate him and puzzle over it. He’s from New York, so it’s not some country name. They might call him Buddy down here in Tennessee, but his given name is something different, I decide. Something serious. Henry, maybe. Or Luke. Maxwell or Nathan, possibly.

I realize suddenly that he’s watching me watch him. He smiles again, softly. Tiredly. There is a scar at the corner of his lip, only about half an inch long, but wide enough that it looks taut and silvery against his tan. It must have hurt, whatever cut deep enough to leave a scar like that. I want to lean over and kiss that flaw on an otherwise perfect mouth.

There’s nothing stopping me. Nothing but a few inches of bed and a glass of whiskey that’s almost gone already.

He sees me coming and meets me halfway. Then he stops.

“This is one of those moments,” he says, staring at my mouth. “Those in between moments.”

I think he must be drunk already. “What are you talking about?”

“You know, the time after one thing, but before another.”

I consider what he means. “Like, for me, after I left San Diego, but before I arrive in New York.”

He smiles big, nodding. His hair flops down over his forehead, making him look rakish. “Yeah. You get it. We’re here in between two things.”

“I guess.” I might have understood what he meant, but that didn’t mean I understood where he was going with it.

“This is a powerful moment,” he says. “It’s like the moment before your tire went flat. One minute you thought you knew your path, the next minute—“ He waved his hand in the air as if clearing smoke. “Your whole path was changed.”
“And if I kiss you?” I ask, because I really want to understand. “Does that put me on a new path?”'

He contemplates my question, then nods. “Yeah, though you may not think so here in between before the kiss and after.”

I laugh. “You act like it’s a given I’m going to kiss you.”
His smile fades and he looks at me, his dark eyes heavy-lidded. It could be sleep or lust. Lust, I think. Or maybe that’s my own conceit talking.

“It is,” he says. “It was a given the minute your tire when flat. That in between moment led to this one. This one will lead to the next one.

"Et cetera," I say. Or try to say. All I manage is "Et" before his lips are on mine.

Seeing those words in this shiny new anthology is a bit surreal-- did I really write that? The phrase "here in between" comes from the lyrics of the song:

I'm so alone, and I feel just like somebody else
Man, I ain't changed, but I know I ain't the same
But somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams
I think her death it must be killin' me

The idea of being between things-- caught in the middle of something-- hit home for me. I'd put aside writing to come to terms with the responsibilities of motherhood and I was feeling lost in that foreign place. I turned to music to comfort me and these lyrics, played over and over again, inspired me to find my way back to writing.

Hey, come on try a little
Nothing is forever
There's got to be something better than
In the middle
But me & Cinderella
We put it all together
We can drive it home
With one headlight

Nothing is forever. This wasn't the first song to inspire a story, nor will it be the last. But in some ways it was the most important, because it brought me back from depression and exhaustion and reminded me that no matter what else was going on in my life-- no matter how little sleep I was getting or how overwhelmed I felt caring for a newborn alone-- I was still a writer.

Heartflowers Under the Moon

Many years ago, a dragon ravaged a kingdom that bordered on the rocky desert where the creature had his lair. No warrior could withstand the terrible slashing claws or the fiery breath of the dragon, and so the old king decided to marry his eldest daughter, the princess, to the prince of a neighbouring kingdom who promised to put his army under the king’s command.

There was talk in the palace of the prince’s dragon-like temper. Everyone said that he was the best choice of a champion to defeat the raging monster, since he could understand the nature of the beast and match his fire with force.

This did not make the princess happy. A brave swordsman does not always make a pleasing companion. Indeed, those two natures might be considered completely opposite.

One night, as the princess gazed out the window of her bedchamber at the perfumed garden below and the moonlit sky above, she heard a beautiful melody being played on a homemade wooden flute. The notes seemed to float upward from the ground directly below the princess. To her ears, the song suggested the shortness of life and the intensity of the pleasures that slip through one’s fingers when one focuses on duty.

The sound of the flute seemed to mingle with the scent of the heartflowers, as they were called in the palace. In earlier times and in lowlier places, these flowers were named after the womanly parts they resembled. They thrived in the hot summers and rich soil of the kingdom, and the princess preferred them over all others.

The next morning, the princess told her attendants that someone had slipped into her private garden, which was surrounded by a high wall and a locked gate, to play her a serenade. The resulting search turned up several new miscreants to be hanged at dawn to protect the royal family from trespassers.

Yet the following night, someone played the same song in the princess’ garden. She committed it to memory.

The same thing occurred every night for a week. On the last night before the princess was to be officially betrothed, a note attached to a small stone was flung right into her hands as she stood listening at her window. She looked down, and saw only the dancing shadows cast by a rustling bush.

The note read:

“My lady, there is one who loves you more than words can say, but your lover can never reveal himself to you. This is simply a humble request. To the gods, we are like flowers that bloom for only a season, so we must make the most of the time we have. Please do not waste yours. Your devoted follower wants only to see you happy.”

There was no signature.

The princess did not want to be responsible for more hangings, so she kept the note in a locked box with some of her jewels, and never mentioned it to any.

The following day, she told her father, the king, and the prince of the neighbouring kingdom that she would not marry him because she did not find him compatible. The prince told the king outright that such a disloyal daughter deserved to be hanged at dawn with the most contemptible thieves.

The king was enraged, and had the prince removed from the palace and banished from the kingdom. The king apologized to his daughter for his lapse in judgment when he arranged for her to marry such a barbarian. He told her that from then on, he would respect her judgment. At her request, the king made a decree that no one in the kingdom could be forced unwillingly into marriage.

The princess remained unwed, and she taught the song of her unknown admirer to her ladies-in-waiting, who sang it to their suitors, and in due course to their children in the cradle. The song was beloved of many, and it became part of the folklore of the kingdom. Almost everyone believed that the princess composed it to ease her heavy heart when she was unable to marry her true love, whose name she kept secret.

Many words were written to the melody, which became best known as “Heartflowers Under the Moon.”

The dragon continued to ravage the borderland, which became desolate and uninhabited. The king no longer sought a remedy among his daughter’s suitors, and she rejected them all.

When the old king died, some said it was from grief for all those killed by the dragon, while some said it was from grief for his unborn grandchildren. Be that as it may, the princess was already known as a just lawgiver, and when she became queen, she was hailed as the mother of her people.

A great cheer went up when “Heartflowers Under the Moon” was played at the celebration after her coronation.

When the queen was over fifty years old, and was referred to behind her back as the Spinster in the Palace, three hearty young men joined forces to slay the dragon once and for all. While one distracted the beast at great risk to himself, the other two attacked him from behind, nimbly leaping beyond the reach of his fiery breath. In this way, the dragon was killed, and his head and tail were brought to the palace as tokens.

All three champions were given land and titles, and all three married young noblewomen, daughters of the queen’s courtiers.

There was no outcry when one of the queen's gardeners was found dead in his bed in the servants' quarters. He looked as though he were merely sleeping. And there was no talk in the marketplace after those who dressed the body for burial discovered female parts under the gardener's clothing. The queen told them that Old Thomas had kept his secret so well throughout life that he was entitled to keep it even in death. Some claimed to have seen the queen weeping at his private funeral, and she had his remains buried in the garden he had tended so long and faithfully. Heartflowers were planted on his grave.

The queen lived for a century and took many lovers, but to close observers, she often seemed distracted in the midst of pleasure, as though thinking of one who was not present, or as though hearing a melody unheard by any of her attendants. When wearied by the affairs of state, she liked to retreat to her garden and play a simple wooden flute as though conversing with the birds.

At the queen’s funeral, the royal musicians played an elaborately-arranged version of “Heartflowers Under the Moon,” featuring fifteen trumpets, twenty flutes, and five kettledrums. It was a stately air that was much admired, but it hardly resembled the song that was originally played for a princess eighty years before.

To this day, the song has many lyrics. In one version, the queen laments her reckless refusal to marry when she was young and fair, and her over-indulgent father’s willingness to change the law of the land simply to accommodate her. In other versions, the queen’s secret lover is killed in battle. In a bawdy, comic version, the queen yearns for the embrace of one of the strong young men who killed the dragon, although he is almost too young to be her son.

Such is the power of music, however, that the song seems likely to outlive any words which might be set to it. And it continues to move all those who hear it.

The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

Virgil Caine is the name
and I served on the Danville train
till Stoneman's Calvary came
and tore up the tracks again

In the winter of '65
we were hungry, just barely alive.
By May the 10th, Richmond had fell
It's a time I remember oh so well.

"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"
The Band

Financial aid is driving me crazy. I never realized it could be this complicated. Everytime I fill out a battery of forms, and tell myself it’s done and my kid is ready for school, one batch has given birth to a new litter of other forms. America these days is the land of the legal. It was the first thing that struck me when I repatriated here after living abroad for a few years. It wasn't enough to buy something, or even desire something. You had to fill out a form. Anything you wanted to do or thought you might want to do you had to fill out a form and get a receipt. Hell, you had to fill out a form and pay something just to go fishing.

They tell me the building I need this time around is Fanning Hall - "Yonder that way, son." Pointing at a side door. “Ya’ll turn left at the wall, then cross kitty corner.” The building I'm standing in is Payne Hall and you can tell the moment you get close its a structure from another age. The inside has a heavy scent of wood and mold and air conditioning, with a creaky sweeping staircase going up which seems like it was once host to debutantes in ball room gowns, and young men in ornate military uniforms waiting below to engage them in clever parlor conversation over tea and small cakes. You wonder what it would be like to spend the night alone in this place, maybe around midnight. But everything else is pure 21st Century; the counters, the computers, the ATM machine and the bureaucrats.

Out the side door, I find myself facing a wall which turns out to be part of a strange looking fortress, something I can’t define but which looks very old, from an entirely different time. The walls are brick, but the bricks have an individual sort of home made look. Some of them are chipped and round cornered, and there are odd places where they've been patched over many times. It has an evocative, weather beaten beauty. And there are these little squares that look just the right size for poking the barrel of a rifle through.

I cross the quadrant of an old square to a haunted looking old building with a sign that says Fanning Hall. I go around it to the front door, on my way to Yonder. . .

Planted in front of the entrance to Fanning Hall, like an enormous lawn ornament is something I’ve only ever seen in old daguerreotypes, and history books. It’s big, heavy, phallic and purposeful, with oversized wooden carriage wheels and a hitch in back for being towed behind a horse, or tugged into place by grimly determined men with beeswax in their ears. It has that same ghostly elegance as the stair case and the bricks in the walls.

Back in the day they were called "Napoleons", being based on a design developed earlier for the army of Napoleon in Europe. Muzzle loading, simple and sturdy, with adequate training they could be murderously accurate. The design was used equally by both the Union and the Confederate armies, and on the fields of Gettysburg and Antietam they launched entire battalions of men into eternity in a blast of iron and smoke.

Further down from the cannon is a brass plaque. It explains the mystery of the ancient brick wall and these spooky old buildings. Back in the day, the ground I’m standing on was the main arsenal of the Confederate Army. This vintage cannon and others were cast, repaired and dispatched from this site, along with rifles and ammunition. Down on the street corner of the campus is another Napoleon set up in front of the original guardhouse. Down by the canal is a neat, narrow smokestack by an old textile mill. Now I know what the odd looking smokestack was for. That smokestack and factory site were the gunpowder factory for the entire Confederate Army as well. The gunpowder plant and the arsenal, all within hiking distance of each other, hidden under a veneer of modernity. This was where it all happened.

Back with my wife in Tennessee
When one day she called to me.
“Virgil! Quick come see – there goes Robert E. Lee.”
Now I don’t mind chopping wood.
And I don’t care if the money’s no good.
You take what you need and you leave the rest
But they should never have taken the very best.

I don’t think you would see this up north, outside of a museum. But the south is different. Southerners have never forgotten and for generations the memory is kept alive. We were always taught that America had never lost a war. But these Americans sure as hell did.

Like my father before me, I tried to work the land.
And like my brother before me, who took a rebel stand.
He was just eighteen, proud and brave
But a Yankee laid him in his grave.
I swear by the blood below my feet
You can’t raise a Caine back up
When he’s in defeat.

War has a different shine to the victors than it does to the losers. I’ve always found that war is more interesting when it’s told from the losing side. For some reason there seems to be less bullshit. I’ve always sought out the accounts of the Japanese and German fighter pilots and the German U Boat men much more than the memoirs written by the Americans. It’s not for lack of patriotism or perspective. The good guys definitely won that war. But it’s a very powerful and moving thing to be giving your all for your country, even when it’s the evil empire, and one day you realize, instinctively, maybe while you’re diving your fighter out of the sun towards the swarms of American B 17 bombers that just keep on coming, or choking on your terror in the torpedo room as the depth charges explode outside the hull, that your country is going to lose this war. Not just lose, like you lose a soccer game. But your nation, your way of life, your family, your history, your humanity, will be abjectly flung down at the mercy of the enemy who is even now seeking to kill you. An enemy who has no cause to show you mercy.

Modern warfare was invented in the Deep South. It was invented when General Grant, commander of the Union forces, ordered Sheridan to wipe out the Shenandoah Valley, bread basket of the South, so thoroughly that “a crow flying across it will have to carry its own provisions.” It was invented in the huge rail yards of Atlanta when Sherman had the insight that civilians are the power behind a nation’s army. They provide the material and manpower and the moral support. Sherman decided then to make war on civilians, to make it so horrible that no one would resort to it again. He burned Atlanta flat to the ground; set his compass for Savannah and traveled, raiding, robbing and razing every town and farmhouse he encountered, followed by the joyous crowds of slaves he freed on the way. It was said you tell the progress of Sherman’s army by the rising columns of smoke on the horizon. The fires of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were first ignited in the ashes of Atlanta.

The night they drove old Dixie down
And all the bells were ringing.
The night they drove old Dixie down
And all the people were singing, they went –
Na na na na na na nah
Lah lah la la na na na nah.

There is a cosmic humiliation in hearing the rest of humanity rejoice over your downfall. In the past this was always followed by rape, terror, pillage and enslavement. But this time, it was different.

Before I go on, this is how Confederate General John B Gordon, for which Fort Gordon is named, described the end of the war in his personal memoirs:

“ . . . . .General Longstreet’s forces and mine at Appomattox, numbered, together, less than 8000 men; but every man able to bear arms was still resolute and ready for battle. There were present three times that many enrolled Confederates; but two thirds of them were so enfeebled by hunger, so wasted by sickness, and so foot-sore from constant marching that it was difficult for them to keep up with the army. They were wholly unfit for duty. It is important to note this fact as explaining the great difference in the number of those who fought and those who were to be fed. At the final meeting between General Lee and General Grant rations were ordered by General Grant for 25,000 Confederates.

Marked consideration and courtesy were exhibited at Appomattox by the victorious Federals, from the commanding generals to the privates in the ranks. . . . . As my command, in worn-out shoes and ragged uniforms, but with proud mien, moved to the designated point to stack their arms and surrender their cherished battle-flags, they challenged the admiration of the brave victors. One of the knightliest soldiers of the Federal army, General Joshua L. Chamberlain of Maine, who afterward served with distinction as governor of his State, called his troops into line, and as my men marched in front of them, the veterans in blue gave a soldierly salute to those vanquished heroes -- a token of respect from Americans to Americans, a final and fitting tribute from Northern to Southern chivalry.”

General Chamberlain describes this incident in his own autobiography:

"At the sound of that machine-like snap of arms, General Gordon started, caught in a moment its significance, and instantly assumed the finest attitude of a soldier. He wheeled his horse, facing me, touching him gently with the spur, so that the animal slightly reared, and, as he wheeled, horse and rider made one motion, the horse's head swung down with a graceful bow, and General Gordon dropped his sword-point to his toe in salutation.

By word of mouth the general sent back orders to the rear that his own troops take the same position of the manual in the march past as did our line. That was done, and a truly imposing sight was the mutual salutation and farewell.

Bayonets were affixed to muskets, arms stacked, and cartridge-boxes unslung and hung upon the stacks. Then, slowly and with a reluctance that was appealingly pathetic, the torn and tattered battle-flags were either leaned against the stacks or laid upon the ground. The emotion of the conquered soldiery was really sad to witness. Some of the men who had carried and followed those ragged standards through the four long years of strife rushed, regardless of all discipline, from the ranks, bent about their old flags, and pressed them to their lips.

And it can well be imagined, too, that there was no lack of emotion on our side, but the Union men were held steady in their lines, without the least show of demonstration by word or by motion. There was, though, a twitching of the muscles of their faces, and, be it said, their battle-bronzed cheeks were not altogether dry. Our men felt the import of the occasion, and realized fully how they would have been affected if defeat and surrender had been their lot after such a fearful struggle. . . ."

And so it goes.

The modern age, for all of its horrors of industrialized warfare does show one incredible and unprecedented hope. The offering not only of mercy, but of dignity and generosity to the vanquished. The rebuilding of post war Japan by Douglas MacArthur (whose redistribution of land to the poor, confiscated by force of arms from the wealthy, caused Senate hearings in Washington to inquire if he was a communist), and the rebuilding and eventual prosperity of Germany have made these two nations among our greatest friends and trading partners. Modern warfare was invented in the American Civil War. But the admonition of Jesus Christ’s great command to “love your enemy” was invented here as well. It may have begun because Confederates and Yankees recognized each other as children of immigrants fighting for their country each in their way. And finally recognizing each other as brothers.

If you'd like to see a performance by The Band of "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" click here:

http://vimeo.com/23167005

C. Sanchez-Garcia

Ouch, My Dark Flower!

I always write to music. In fact, each of my novellas and novellas has a little playlist of its own on the Greatest Invention of All Time*, and I call these playlists a soundtrack, in my head.

As though my novels and novellas are somehow movies starring Bradley Cooper coming out this fall from Universal pictures. Though I suspect that if my novels and novellas really were movies starring Bradley Cooper coming out from Universal pictures, Mr Cooper would be significantly less happy about the whole situation than I would be.

I mean, most of the stories I write that feature someone who resembles Mr Cooper kind of have a troubling amount of butt sekz. And when I say butt sekz, I don't mean "and then her dark flower opened to him". I mean: "and then his dark flower said oh holy fook what are you DOING????". Because something about Bradley Cooper just calls to me, I dunno.

But anyway, where was I? Oh yeah - talking about writing to music. Which I do. And am now about to give you an insight into, whether you want one or not.

Basically, here is my "soundtrack from Universal Pictures" to the latest novel I'm working on, Power Play:

9-5, Dolly Parton
Call Your Girlfriend, Robyn
Winter, Joshua Radin
Teeth, Lady Gaga
Strip Me, Natasha Bedingfield
Yes, McAlmont and Butler
Number One, Goldfrapp
Gravity, Sara Bareilles
Distant Dreamer, Duffy
What's My Name, Rihanna
End of Time, Beyonce
Rolling in the Deep, Adele
Armour Love, La Roux

Of course, the actual playlist is longer than that. It's just that I don't really want to show you anything more embarrassing than 9-5, by Dolly Parton and songs by both Beyonce and Lady Gaga.

Yes, I know that the above is hideously uncool. I know it. I have all the musical taste of someone who has no musical taste at all, and there's absolutely nothing I can do about it. I mean, I try to like cool bands like The White Mumford Kasabians or what have you, but somehow it just never comes off. I always end up writing about Brandon Routh getting spanked to the light trilling of someone awful, like her who sang that Good Girl song. The one that uses the word "boom" instead of other words that make sense.

But if it sounds as though I feel bad about all of this, I want to stress: I don't. I write to the music that moves me - and I do find it really helps, sometimes. And realistically, anything that helps - I'm not going to turn it down.






*Seriously, what did we do before iPods? I don't even know. I can't even imagine that dark and barbaric time when I did things like arduously make a mix tape for seven hours. It just sounds like those stories you hear of the olden days, when washing clothes meant you had to find a big rock in a haunted forest and then scrub in a frozen stream on a washboard made of jagged spikes that made you lose fingers.

Soundtrack

Two or three o'clock in the morning, the rest of our friends would be asleep. No, that's too kind. They'd be passed out.

J and I would be the only ones awake. We weren't big drinkers. So after everyone else crashed, we'd walk through the house making sure each of them was propped up on their sides in case they threw up. John Bonham's death was still fresh in our minds. We didn't want anyone to choke to death in their own vomit, although no one ever threw up that I knew about. Walking the house was our measure of responsibility, teenage style.

Then we had the rest of the night to ourselves. I loved J, but not in a boyfriend sort of way. He had no interest in me as a girlfriend, although on a couple memorable occasions, we'd made out together with another guy. I jokingly called myself the pillow, the object they kept between them to keep it from being "gay."

When we were sure that no one would wake up to bother us, J and I took the Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, and Rush off the record player and put each album away with care. Then we put on the music we couldn't listen to with the rest of our friends.

Oh so quietly, so that the people in the other half of the duplex wouldn't call the military police on us, we'd listen to Sex Pistols and Dead Kennedys, Pretenders, Oingo Boingo, The Ramones, and dance with frenzied abandon until we'd drop. It was how we exorcized our demons. We had more demons than anyone else we knew. They set us apart from our friends. They were our secret connection.

J didn't need the violence of punk as much as I did, the discordant noise and punishing drum rhythms and brutal lyrics but he put up with it for my sake, just like I put up with the country music he sometimes played. But only for me. I could put up with the rude remarks our friends made about my taste in music. He cared a little more about their judgment.

But what I remember most wasn't slam dancing with him in the living rooms of our friend's houses. It was the after. After my anger dripped out with my sweat, after the passion was spent, after we dropped onto the couch and turned to each other, grinning, as if we'd accomplished something grand.

Then he'd groan as he rose as if he were ancient. He'd amble over to the record player and pick a new soundtrack for the quiet hour. Sometimes, he put on the Eagles. Every time I hear an Eagles song, I think of his straw blond hair and deep blue eyes and hope that he lost his heart to someone who treated it with gentle care.

Other times, he'd turn off the lights and put on Since I Been Loving You by Led Zeppelin. He'd come back to the couch and we'd stretch out together, hanging on for dear life together in the darkness. The demons couldn't get you if your feet didn't touch the floor. We both agreed to that. We had our rituals to keep us safe, because we knew this was the most dangerous hour of the night, the long one.

We loved the bluesy riffs, the sparse anguish of Jimmy Page's guitar, the hurt in Robert Plant's voice. We understood every note and loved getting lost inside it.
Sometimes, we played that song over and over. Even when we didn't, the song hovered over us like a benevolent ghost in the silence. Since I Been Loving You was, and remains, the most perfect 'alone at three o'clock in the morning' song ever recorded, and J and I were pros at being lonely together.

Acoustics

By Lisabet Sarai

I love my kitchen. And it's not just due to the ample storage and counter space, or the Italian four burner gas stove my landlord installed when we moved in. The wall behind the double sink, under the overhanging cabinets, is ceramic tile - easy to clean, indeed, but better still, offering great acoustics.

When I'm washing the dishes, I sing. I always have. As kids, my brother and I were responsible for this task. We used to sing duets, while I scrubbed and he dried or vice versa. I remember teaching him the first and only song I ever wrote (a romantic ballad entitled "I'm Crying") while tackling some particularly stubborn spaghetti sauce. He's a professional song-writer now; he tells me I inspired him.

My musical opus reduces to that single tune (which I can still sing), although I've penned lots of poetry, which is music of a sort. Unlike my brother, I don't play any instruments, but I have a prodigious memory for lyrics, and to a lesser extent melodies. As a teenager, I dropped piano lessons partly because I never learned to sight read music. After playing a piece two or three times, I didn't need to read it. By the time I got to more complicated compositions, this talent had become a liability.

Anyway, singing in my current kitchen is akin to singing in the shower - better, because I don't need to worry about getting soapy water in my mouth. The wall and the underside of the cabinet create a resonance chamber. My voice sounds rich and full as I belt out my favorite tunes.

Isn't this rich?
Aren't we a pair?
Me with my feet on the ground,
You in the air...*

Or:

You want to know
How it will be:
Me and him
Or you and me.**

Or:

The blonde in the bleachers,
She flips her hair for you.
Above the loud speakers
You start to fall...***

Or:

The minute you walked in the joint,
I could tell you were a man of distinction,
A real big spender...****

Or:

Desperado,
Why don't you come to your senses?
You've been out riding fences
For so long...*****

Unlike nearly everyone else these days, I don't go around with wires sprouting from my ears. I do have a cheap MP3 player, but I use it only when I exercise. Nonetheless my mind hosts an extensive and rather eclectic mental play list. Torch songs from the nineteen forties, folk ballads from the sixties, musicals and G&S operettas, classic rock, blues - I sing them all. It's difficult to sing rock and roll - you need the voices of the instruments as well as the vocalists. But I try.

There are many songs that speak to me, about love and sex, time and loss, risk and reward: Melissa Etheridge's "Come to My Window", Meatloaf's "Anything For Love", Bob Seger's "Night Moves", Bruce Springstein's "Thunder Road":

Have a little faith, there's magic in the night.
You ain't a beauty but hey, you're all right
And that's all right with me.

I used to have a decent singing voice. I sang in my high school chorus, even auditioned for a state-wide choir. My siblings and I won second place on a TV talent show, doing a harmonized version of the Beatles' "Misery". I've always been an alto. Now my voice seems to have become lower and more gravelly with age. It's more difficult for me to follow a complex tune these days too. The words are still there, though, and when I'm singing to the kitchen wall, I sound great.

Lots of authors report that they listen to music while they write. Not me. I'm such a word girl that the lyrics will distract me from my own sentences. Even now, trying to pen this blog post, the songs I've quoted are ringing in my mind, clamoring for my attention.

Our love is an old love, baby.
It's older than all our years.
I've seen in strange young eyes
Familiar tears.******

I'd better stop. I feel as though it's cheating to fill up my blog post with lines and rhymes of other people. I could do it, though - without doing a single Google look-up for the lyrics.

I'll end by mentioning that I just sold a story featuring a ménage of blues singers. Wild About That Thing (the title comes from a classic Bessie Smith tune) will be released in September. I learned a couple of new blues songs in the course of creating this tale.

Now they're part of my play list too.

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* - "Send In The Clowns" by Stephen Sondheim, from A Little Night Music

** - "Triad" by David Crosby

*** - "The Blonde in the Bleachers" by Joni Mitchell

**** - "Hey, Big Spender" by Dorothy Fields and Cy Coleman, from Sweet Charity

***** - "Desperado" by Glenn Frey and Don Henley

****** - "Old Souls" by Paul Williams, from Phantom of the Paradise

Fare thee Well, Old Friend

We looked to nature to give us closure;
a mound of stones over a loved one's grave
and scattered with seeds of foxglove and fern.
We buried bluebell bulbs between the stones
and planted a sapling for a headstone.

Go into the earth, we said,
let your bones mingle with those of wolf and fox
mouse and bird, beast and man.
We will remember you here
in this field of honour you loved in life
where the trees sigh beneath the wind and rain
and rabbits keep cropped the sweet grass above your grave.

Every time we passed the spot we smiled
where the flowers bloomed and the oak tree grew
until one day the council sold the land
and built a car park instead.
Dear spot thirty-nine bearing, proud, the inscription
reserved for human resources manager,
hasn't quite the ambience it owned before.

- Rachel Green