Sweet Surrender

My mom brought up my sisters and I belting out songs in the car. The shortest trip was occasion for a family sing along. Her musical taste didn't exactly set us up to be on the cutting edge of high school music fashion. Knowing all of the words to Lemon Tree and the ability to recite the entire score of Oklahoma! (where the winds come sweeping down the plains) are not skills that up your popularity factor.

It was quite an education. Peter, Paul and Mary. The Kingston Trio. The Beach Boys. Kenny Rogers. I know them all. Every word to every song. And then there was my mom's favorite.

I love my mom and her 60s folksong/cheesy musical scores taste in music, but I swore on my high school canopy bed with Tiffany blaring on the radio and a mix tape of The Who and Pink Floyd and Rush in my hand - created by a sweet boy named Dave who finally decided to educate my uncool ass - that I would never, never let my children reach the age of 16 so oblivious to current music trends. At the very least, at the very least, I would tune into a current rock/pop station in the car. I would not, under any circumstances, play the same tape (okay CD now, the van forces me to move with the technology times) over and over. My children would understand that there was life beyond CCR and Buddy Holly.

It's just not that easy to escape your past. Those melodies, those lyrics, are engraved in my soul. They are, for me, the soundtrack of love and security and family.

I sing them as lullabies. I barely realized when it started. The quiet ones bubbled out of me after the lights were out. I folded and put away clothes while they all lay, silent and content in their cribs, and sang the songs that I mocked so easily a decade and a half ago.

Had an uncle name of Matthew, was his father's only son.

You fill up my senses, like a night in the forest.

Misty taste of moonshine, teardrops in my eye.

Soon, I was taking requests. I know them all. They know them all. At four and four and two, they know them all.

Talk to God and listen to the casual reply.

If I had a song, that I could sing for you.

The fear that it within you now, it seems to never end.

Cue struggled up the steps the other night ready for bed, his feet covered in fuzzy pajamas. He mangled his favorite joyfully, mouth full of marbles, but he had the tune. "Wessergina. Mou-ouMomma. Take me home. Cuntwy Woads."

I stopped at a local book store later that night on the way home from some errands. Our town drips this time of year, a cold faucet left on over our existence. The wet parking lot reflected the strip mall lights in the unexpected wind. I ran for the cover of the front door and stood there feeling furtive and silly. I forced myself to bypass the stacks of tempting novels beckoning from the front tables and walked to the back, pawed through the used CD section until I found it and paid my few dollars for my prize. I left hurriedly, trying to laugh at my ridiculous guilt.

They love it. We belt in the car every day now. Before their buckles are even snapped, they are calling their requests, sniping at each other over favorites.

They know them all. Country Roads. Feather Bed. Sunshine. Rocky Mountain High. Matthew. The soundtrack of my childhood.

I look at them in my rear view mirror, smiling and singing and I can't get the words out around the clog of tears and memories and emotions in my throat. There is one they don't like. They always ask to skip it. It's my favorite. Isn't that always the way?

I turn it up. I'm the mom here, after all. And the child.

Lost and alone on some forgotten highway
Traveled by many, remembered by few
Looking for something that I can believe in
Looking for something that I'd like to do with my life
There's nothing behind me and nothing that ties me
To something that might have been true yesterday
Tomorrow is open, right now it seems to be more than enough
To just be here today and I don't know what the future is holding in store
I don't know where I'm going, I'm not sure where I've been
There's a spirit that guides me, a light that shines for me
My life is worth the living, I don't need to see the end.

Sweet, sweet surrender
Live, live without care
Like a fish in the water
Like a bird in the air

Singing it, I think I understand the word "anthem" a little better. I wonder if my mother ever cried, watching us fill her rear view mirror.

I'm closing my comments for most of the month of November while I participate in National Novel Writing Month and National Blog Posting Month. I can't ask you to talk to me every freaking day for thirty days. That's cruel and usual punishment. My email is always open - anymommyoutthere@gmail.com.




E&E Tally: 6064 words (I'm on pace for 18K words, not 50K. Slight difference. Better than none though, right?)
Blog posts: 10/30 (I think I can crank out 30, question is can you all bear with me to 30 ;-)