Songs for my soul

When this post was first published it showed up in my reader and I read it. (Wow. Fancy. Exciting. Completely spontaneous, I know!) Shortly after reading and listening to samples I ordered Ben Rector and The Civil Wars. Both CDs I thoroughly enjoy for absolutely different reasons.

And then there was the Sara Groves. Nothing was telling me that run out and grab it immediately and so it sat on my wish list for awhile. Then my Dad died. (Everything seems to revolve around the before and after of my Dad dying these days. I wonder when I won't use that as my reference point.) After being home for a few weeks I started feeling like I needed something. I went back to my wish list, listened again to the snippets of tracks and knew instantly that I had to get the CD.

When it arrived I got it onto my iPod and started listening. Being busy with supper preparations I didn't hear many of the words but was instantly calmed and soothed by the music itself. It was definitely what my scrambled soul needed to hear. I've always been a person who listens to new music over and over (ask my sister how many times I made her listen to specific Celine Dion songs in high school and she may start to puke) and this CD was no different.

The day I went for my first appointment with my counselor was the first time I had a chance to listen carefully to the lyrics. On the 40 mile drive home I felt a strong connection to Mystery. I had just spent an hour letting my broken heart pour open hoping desperately that I might start to heal. I was exhausted. My sister had found her way of communicating with my Dad since his passing and I wanted my own moment. ("I'm trying to bring you here.") But I knew I had to let go, take a breath and believe that if there will be a moment like that, it will come not when I'm clawing at the door trying to get through, but when I least expect it.

A few days later I was becoming more familiar with other songs and it wasn't until I was listening to Open My Hands* as I drove home from dropping off clothes at a consignment sale that I stopped and said to myself, "this might be Jesus music!" As soon as I got in the house I did a google search and sure enough, Sara Groves is a Christian Contemporary.

I don't listen to Christian Contemporary. I have many issues with the theology that many of the artists support and preach. There are many things I feel uncomfortable about when listening to them that I am not even completely sure of.

I went back to the original post I read on Pioneer Woman to see how I may have missed that Sara Groves was in fact a Christian artist while at the same time being completely intrigued by her.

Nobody captures the holiness of the ordinary more beautifully than she does,...Each song is like a great poem that needs to be unwrapped, pondered, analyzed, then put back together again. If you’ve been looking for calm, soothing music that will feed your soul, look no further.

And that was what I was looking for. This particular album is more theistic than Christian. The faith she sings of can be applied to so much that is out there. Belief in something out there that is bigger than ourselves, that encourages us to love one another, that helps us work through our hurt, to be open to beautiful things and to believe that we are enough. Maybe that's what I'm more comfortable with it. No get out of jail free card is being promised (Jesus is the answer!) nor is she self righteous. Lately I am often lost and uninspired in my own faith but I know that it is there. I'm searching for my own answers these days and sometimes I'm scared I won't find them. That I won't have any signs to tell me I'm on the right track. I will try to live my life to the best of my ability and grow each day, somehow. And this is what I hear in these songs. And it helps me.

*This link is to a live performance and the fact that it sounds just like the CD makes me respect her even more as an artist.

A Song for Sweet One

Dear Kristen Chenoweth,

My three year old daughter loves your music. She thinks they're awesome. I do, too. The Christmas I was pregnant with her, I listened to your Christmas album over and over and over. And over. Considering I had Sweet One two weeks after Christmas, it wasn't a surprise to me when the following year she started singing along to the songs. It was the first time she ever sang along to music that was playing.

I got your new album when it was available and Sweet One has enjoyed it a lot. This morning, she and I were in the car driving to the mom's group when I heard her say, "Make it louder, Mum!" and we sang to this song all the way. It nearly brought tears to my eyes listening to her singing these lyrics. Thank you for having songs on it that will help to nurture the kind of woman I hope she grows into. (Ok, so doesn't exactly understand what she's singing about when she says that she wants someone she can bitch about!)


Perhaps one day I'll be able to take her to one of your concerts.

I just fell in love with this song!

And then I went to see if he had a new album and, from what I can see, it's only a single right now. I love buying albums. In their cases with the liner notes. It's already starting to make me feel 'old'! But if I just call it Old School then I'm kinda cool.

Three moments of Sweet One's cuteness

We bought Sweet One the "Snacktime" album by the Barenaked Ladies. Her favorite track seems to be "Popcorn". It is about a minute long and she insists on listening to it over and over. She runs around in circles, clapping and making sure that Big Love is clapping along with her and that he is also running on the spot. "More Clap. More Feet." Then when the song is done she'll open the cabinet to the DVD player so that we can skip back to the beginning of the track!

***

She's really starting to enjoy music more these days. While watching her shows she will get up and dance when the music helps her get her groove on. Right before Christmas when I started listening to Kristen Chenoweth's and Sarah MacLaughlan's Christmas albums, she'd ask for more each time there was a pause between tracks. Now she asks for "more music" when we're in the car, smiles as soon as it starts and sings along when she wants. She almost always sings along when Kristen Chenoweth sings her high notes on the third volume of the Glee soundtracks!

***

I think this little girl likes tv as much as her Mama. If we tell her that she can't watch another one of her shows, she will ask for news. News is anything that we watch. She caught the last few minutes of the final episode of United States of Tara Season 2 today. Because she was quite sleepy from a nap that was much too short, she threw a fit when I told her 'news' was all done. She didn't realize that up next was going to be Elmo's Potty Time.

***

Despite my ineptness of describing just how cute these moments are, I'm sure they're better than listening to me complain about my sore back, potty training challenges and a lack of sleep!

And I forgot to mention that at all times while dancing to popcorn, Sweet One must have a bottle of eye glass cleaner in her hand. One blue, one purple.

Now that I'm a Mama I listen to street music

The first album I ever bought of Lionel Ritchie's Dancing on the Ceiling and I remember clearly listening to it with my pink walkman in Grade 4 with my boyfriend, Mark, sitting beside me. I quietly sang, "I only want to say I love you" over and over, along with the song hoping he'd hear me. In grade 5 when my friend was showing me all of her heavy metal cassettes I was completely clueless. I didn't really like them but I thought that maybe I should since everybody else did. So I borrowed some and tried to like it. It never worked and I didn't really care.

In High School, I started hanging out with a couple of guys who had a band. They were shocked at how little I knew about popular music because they expected more from a person who had been taken music lessons for most of her life. They took me through the CD store multiple times, surprised that their recitations of band names was met with my blank look.

These CDs basically sum up the listening I have been doing over the past few years:

Sara Bareilles, Little Voice

In the Heights

Gavin DeGraw, all three albums

Glee Soundtracks

The Essential Billy Joel (2 Discs)

Having such a short list is a stark contrast to the days when I would buy new CDs almost weekly. (There was a year when I claimed close to $1,000.00 on my tax filing for CDs.) I loved being able to find new recordings of all kinds and add them to my collection. It was so easy to go into a store and come out half an hour later with two to four CDs in my hand. (The reality of using student loans to do this didn't hit until a few years later!) CD purchases were one part therapy to help me cope with a hard break up, one part research/professional development and one part entertainment. At this point in my life I nearly lived in my car because of all the places I needed to get to and music played an important role to keep me awake! (Nothing like Bach to keep me calm during nasty winter driving.) Listening to music was important to me.

Nowadays I am beyond clueless as to what is current. The spaces meant for 'popular bands' in Sweet One's book have been left blank. I'm more likely to have Elmo's World in my head than I am anything that is remotely connected to the adult world. But maybe this is a little more informative than I thought. After typing who sings go outside on sesame street episode 4202 into my google search spot I learned that it was Jason Mraz. Now I'm singing a small part of the melody line from I'm Yours. "I won't stay inside, no more, I can not wait to go outdoors...." Oops, that's the Sesame Street one. I guess I still have some work to do to join the adult world!