You know how when kids are left with babysitters, or at daycare, and maybe they aren’t so used to being away from their folks, so it takes a lot and lot of energy for them to keep it together ’til their parents come back?–maybe energy to cry on and off through that time, in between seeming like they’re doing alright? They end the day playing tearlessly, if not a little more quietly than usual, so when their parents come back, the parents are delighted that the children have done so well. They rush to give them a hug, expecting them to be filled up completely with gladness, but the second the child sees them, they totally lose it. They cry and cry and just collapse in the parent’s arms that way, maybe shaking a little bit, hoping they’ll be held like that forever?

That’s how certain music makes me feel. People, too, but music far more often. Like that child, I mean. Like I’m finally safe and exhausted from all the work of keeping myself together and also sad at what I thought I’d totally lost and a little bit hurt that I had to think I lost it at all, but just glad to be here, too, no matter what’s been done, no matter who did it, melting into this hug.

N’s birthday is today (happy birthday, love!), and among the gifts he opened this weekend was a Wailin Jennys CD called Fourty Days. We’ve listened to most of it, and I swear, these voices have this effect on me. It’s folk music, a Canadian trio, and the clarity of their voices, their pitch-perfect harmonies–it’s like angels and mamas and sisters and fairies and moonlight and the very sweetest kind of nectar all rolled into one.

One song in particular (of those I’ve heard so far…) actually puts words to this feeling I’m poorly describing–words to the kinds of things I like to think and write about here, too, and the kinds of things involved in growing trust, like I wrote about last time. Growing trust and healing, I think, are synonymous. The song is called Beautiful Dawn:

Take me to the breaking of a beautiful dawn
Take me to the place where we come from
Take me to the end so I can see the start
There’s only one way to mend a broken heart

Take me to the place where I don’t feel so small
Take me where I don’t need to stand so tall
Take me to the edge so I can fall apart
There’s only one way to mend a broken heart

Take me where love isn’t up for sale
Take me where our hearts are not so frail
Take me where the fire still owns its spark
There’s only one way to mend a broken heart

Teach me how to see when I close my eyes
Teach me to forgive and to apologize
Show me how to love in the darkest dark
There’s only one way to mend a broken heart

Take me where the angels are close at hand
Take me where the ocean meets the sky and the land
Show me to the wisdom of the evening star
There’s only one way to mend a broken heart

Take me to the place where I feel no shame
Take me where the courage doesn’t need a name
Learning how to cry is the hardest part
There’s only one way to mend a broken heart

You can listen to clips of their latest CD by clicking on the icon of it on left side of their website, and of course iTunes has a clip of Beautiful Dawn and the rest of 40 Days in their collection as well. Go listen. Go buy.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 30th, 2006 at 12:03 pm and is filed under Books and Art. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.