Chris While, Julie Matthews and a Letter to the President

On Monday Sally and I went to see Chris While and Julie Matthews at the Nettlebed Folk Club.

We both enjoyed it a lot. The music was great and it’s special to have a chance to get to hear some of the background behind the songs.

The songs … a mix of brand new and old …. evoked a whole range of thoughts and feelings.

Some of the things I remember from it …

The opening song was an encouragement to try to see beyond whatever the hassles of the moment are … to believe that things will get better … and a celebration of what can be the beauty of life.

A song by Julie Matthews … Hope Springs … you can see and hear it here. I think I maybe mentioned this once before. Julie wrote it in memory of a friend that died of cancer one Christmas eve. The friend was in her mid thirties and had hoped to live into the January so she could be there for her daughter’s first birthday. But it wasn’t to be. And yet, somehow, people find hope even in the midst of despair.

A song from Chris While, Steady Breathing that you can listen to a little of here. Chris wrote this after spending time with her sister prior to her sister’s chemotherapy treatment. That was eight years ago and things are good.

Julie sang a new one that was inspired by her feelings relating to some things she had heard and researched relating to the 9 – 11 remembrance things that happened recently. She mentioned that there had been no room for the rescue services at the gatherings … that almost as many firelighters have died since 9 –11 as died at the time … from illnesses that they likely contracted because of the work that they did in dealing with the aftermath. And that survivors who are dying because of the work that they did have no health cover … there’s some information on this here. Julie said that as she found out more about this she needed a way to release some of her anger. And part of this was to write a song about it … Inconvenient Heroes.

Another song … I’m not sure of the title … but the words I apologise  featured heavily in it. One of those songs where I think just about everyone, in their honest moments, will think … yes … that’s me as well. The smallness of the two words and the way that they can sound like lies even when spoken sincerely. The way in which we hurt each other. Made me cry. Not unhappily. More out of a sense of empathy.

Walking at lunchtime yesterday I thought about apologies and sorrow. Mistakes we make. How it can take a lifetime to build a trust but only moments to destroy it. How easy it is to say something. How impossible it is to un-say it. It seems as though there’s a built in inevitability in life that people who are close to each other will sometimes hurt each other. And there is ever a need for apologies and for forgiveness.

Another thought and feeling provoking song sung by Chris that I don’t know the title of … the sadness and pain of a relationship where people have grown apart and don’t really see how it ever got to be that way … to arrive at a place where “everything we say seems to be goodbye”.

A lighter hearted look at the circles we seem to run in … spending so much time diggin’ holes and filling ‘em in.

It was a really great evening. If you ever get the chance to go and see them … go ahead and do it.

Today I was walking and thinking about the fire-fighters in the USA who have no healthcare and are sick because of the work they did after the carnage of 9-11.

I thought that there’s not a lot I can really do to solve the whole problem. But maybe there is someone that can.

So tonight I spent a few minutes sending an email to him at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact.

These are my words:

Dear Mr President,

A few days ago I was at a concert here in England. Julie Matthews introduced a song that she had written that had been inspired by the recent 9-11 commemoration events.

She had heard that many fire-fighters had died and others are desperately sick because of the valiant work that they did in helping deal with the aftermath. And yet, many of these men and women are without healthcare.

Julie said she had written the song as a way of helping to come to terms with the anger that she’d felt at hearing of all this.

I believe that irrespective of party politics you are a man who always wants to do what is right.

Please would you do all in your power to see that these men and women and their loved ones are taken care of?

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

There’s a lot more that could be said, I know. And I don’t know that it will make much difference.

In the end, though, if enough people say the same thing politicians do sometimes take heed and listen. And, actually, even though I don’t agree with everything that President Obama says or does, I do believe that he wants to do what is right. It’s just not at all easy knowing what is right.

An evening with Chris While and Julie Matthews at Bournemouth Folk Club

On Sunday 03 April Sally and I spent most of the day in Bournemouth. We walked around a while, had a meal and in the evening went to see the Chris While & Julie Matthews Band at Bournemouth Folk Club. It’s a great venue … I wish it was closer.

To summarise … well … it was great.

The CD’s (in this instance I mean Compact Discs rather than Cross Dressers) are great … but there is something special about a live event.

For me it’s the chance to get a feeling for the people as well as the music. To hear a little of where the songs came from as well as what the words are.

Julie Matthews introduced one song. The original inspiration being tales of the Clifton Suspension Bridge near Bristol. Apparently it is amongst the most popular places in Britain for people  to commit suicide. Though in 1885, a 22-year-old woman named Sarah Ann Henley survived a fall from the bridge when her billowing skirts acted as a parachute, and subsequently lived into her eighties.^[12]

From thoughts of this event came the song Angels Walk Among Us.

Chris While talked of a room in her home with pictures of family on the walls and of how she came to write the song Four Walls. She said it isn’t a happy song … but she felt better having written it. Julie said that this is one of her favourite songs from the Album Hitting the Ground Running. It’s one of mine as well.

Julie smiled and admitted to writing lots of sad songs. Quoting another member of the band she smiled as she said she’d been told that there’s money in misery.

And another song that spoke of hope even when all seems despair … inspired by the life of a friend that died from cancer just before the first birthday of her child. Julie mentioned that even as her life was ending her friend could still could smile. At the sight of so many friends and family gathered to see her she quipped “It’s so good to see everyone. I should die more often”.  

Chris introduced the song The Darkside Wood. It’s a song that sounds as though it will end in tragedy. It seems that a friend of Chris’s said that she couldn’t listen to it.

“Why?”

“Well it’s sad. They’re going to die.”

“Did you ever list to it to the end?”

“Well … no.”

Chris  sang Ghost of You with Julie playing keyboard. Sad. Intense. Beautiful.

Go now if you really must

I wouldn’t want to hold the key

The keeper of this shattered trust

So go now if you must

Your finger’s on the window pane

Your silence speaks a thousand words

You start to say them then refrain

No accusations and no blame

Something’s better than nothing

Well I don’t believe that’s true

I’d rather lie alone with my sorrow

Than with the ghost of you

What is done is surely done

So while the door is still half open

Follow where you heart’s already gone

For what is done is surely done

Another song that I like a lot is Shadow of  my former self. It seems that the title was originally going to be I keep running into the shadow of my former self, but it didn’t fit onto the CD. Do you ever empathise with these words?

I can’t go to work, I can’t stay home
I don’t like crowds, Can’t be alone

And there was the chance for the guys to get in touch with their femininity and imagine standing in a line in a netball skirt and to sing along to Class Reunion. Julie explained how she’s been rubbish at throwing and catching. “Hey Julie!” came a voice. “Catch.” Of course Julie dropped it. “You’re still rubbish.” Said with warmth.

And there was … as the saying goes … so much more.

So … anyway … I spent the evening entranced by the bitter-sweetness of the songs. A mirror of the bitter-sweetness of life. It all ended too soon.

And … I do wish there were angels among us.

And maybe there are.

Alone or together?

This afternoon I took a late lunch break and a walk.

It’s cold here at the moment … though the term “cold” is a relative kind of one. A friend in Norway told me that it was –15 degrees C there … making here seem quite warm.

Every so often when I’m walking I wonder about things. In a kind of random way, I guess.

I still kind of struggle with the concept of God. Some of the thoughts …

What’s the point of life? Where does it come from? Does it go anywhere?

How come Paul the apostle got to have a visit from Jesus on the Damascus road whilst most people have a whole lot less evidence to base eternity upon?

How could God be aware of everyone … everywhere … all at the same time … and be interested in them?

Last night I took a look at the King James Version website guest book to see what was new there.

People concerned about the possibility of losing their salvation. Of weather a lady is allowed to wear pants. Not a million miles away from me wondering if a guy is allowed to wear lipstick and a skirt.

These are all pretty basic questions that I used to have answers to. Kind of.

I have answers to less of them now. And the answers to some are different than they used to be.

Tonight when I got home my daughter Katie broke the news that the son of a friend had been found dead today. Sally was out at the boy’s grandmothers. No one knows details of the cause yet.

A lady that used to teach Sarah and Katie died of cancer just recently.

I guess I am in a sombre mood. Not depressed. But sombre.

Last Sunday, at the Surrey Swans I was chatting with Laura and mentioned the conversation I’d had with Jan and Jan’s husband at the wedding the other week.

Laura asked me if it was the fact that I’m a TV that causes me problems with the idea of God and / or the Church.

As my friend Dani mentioned to me recently, God is not the Church and the Church is not God.

As I said to Laura, it’s not just the TV thing. There are other things as well. I think they are associated more with the Church concept of God than necessarily with God. But in lots of ways they are problems with my own concept of God based on my own beliefs when I was involved with the Church. So it’s a little mixed up.

For example. These days I don’t think that all manifestations of pornography are bad. I know that some are. But so are some cups of coffee and pairs of trainers (sneakers) when they have been made by people that are oppressed. Neither do I think all people that work within the sex industry are bad people engaged in badness. Again, I know that some are, but my guess is that people involved in the arms trade do a lot more damage to people than the average person that works in the sex industry.

In my church days pornography was bad … even though I used it. I believed that God thought it was bad. So I felt very guilty about it.

So … these days I’m not able to easily get alongside the Church and the God that I once knew.

It’s curious in a way. Over the past few years, for the first time in my life I think, I’ve learned to be happy with who I am.

Yet I feel that the God that I used to believe in wouldn’t be happy at all.

And it’s not easy for me to conjure up a God that is ok with me as I am.

So … I’m a lost kind of Andrea.

But yet, I’m not unhappy. 

For the moment my purpose in life, I think, is to be myself and to live life in all of it’s fullness … which, actually, is almost a Biblical kind of thing.

Tonight though, at this moment, I feel a great sadness for Cathy and John and Phillipa.

Maybe one day it will make some kind of sense.

A song by Julie Matthews from the CD Hitting the Ground Running (Chris While and Julie Matthews) :

Somewhere I walk alone

by Julie Matthews

Somewhere east of here

There is a storm coming down

Oh the hatches battened down

In some sleepy town

Someone’s life is shattered

Into pieces on the ground

Oh somewhere east of here

There is a storm coming down

Somewhere west of here

There is a baby still born

Oh the mother is forlorn

How to carry on

Or fill her empty arms

When all she dreamed about is gone

Oh somewhere west of here

There is a baby is still born

I could be anyone or everyone

I could be anywhere or everywhere

In this lottery of life

With all the cards we draw

Somewhere I walk beside you

Somewhere I walk alone

Somewhere north and south

There are two strangers that will meet

Somewhere in between

Fated it would seem

Drawn together here by chance

Or pulled by destiny

Oh somewhere north and south

There are two strangers that will meet

I could be anyone or everyone

I could be anywhere or everywhere

In this lottery of life

With all the cards we draw

Somewhere I walk beside you

Somewhere I walk ...

I could be anyone or everyone

I could be anywhere or everywhere

In this lottery of life

With all the cards we draw

Somewhere I walk beside you

Somewhere I walk alone

It’s curious isn’t it. I just switched on the music system … it’s playing random selections from a USB stick with over 30 CD’s on it … and it just chose this song as I pasted the lyrics into this entry.

At the concert I was at last month Julie explained a bit of where this song came from.

It reminds me a little of the concept of infinite Andrea’s.

Just a few days ago on a different walk I thought of how the seemingly trivial and unimportant things we do and decisions that we make actually change the affect the whole of our history … future. The people we meet. Marriages. Children. A butterfly effect kind of thing.

Chance and destiny.

Calvinism and Arminianism.

Feelings, Facts and God

Work is busier than I ever remember. Long weekdays and weekends as well.

Driving back on Saturday I listened to Chris While and Julie Matthews singing. It was their latest CD … Hitting the Ground Running … which I know I have mentioned before. All of it is excellent … buy it and you won’t be disappointed.

The song Four Walls by Chris While is so beautiful. Sad. Haunting. But beautiful. Fills my mind with thoughts. My heart with feelings. Eyes with tears. Here it is:

Four Walls

by Chris While

Four walls surround me

There are days when they close in

Sometimes I turn them into steel

So no one can get in

I regularly paint them

In different shades of blue

And the only one who breached these walls

Is you

I hang pictures on them

Old faces I love

My own perfect family

Watching from above

There’s an open door among them

That I cannot get through

And the only one

I’d go out for

Is you

But you’re far away now

A distant shining star

So hard to reach you

Or get to where you are

No conversation

No holding in the night

But you’re right here

Beside my heart

A fire burning bright

But you’re far away now

A distant shining star

So hard to reach you

Or get to where you are

There’s no conversation

No holding in the night

But you’re right here

Beside my heart

A fire burning bright

I woke up this morning

So sure you were there

Ah just another dream then

That we can never share

I try to relive it

And bring it into view

But the only one

Who knows my dreams

Is you

I try to relive it

And bring it into view

But the only one

Who knows my dreams

Is you

Listening to it tonight I thought of love. Of feelings. Dependency. Hurt. Pain. Sadness. Loneliness. Beauty.

I thought how precarious a thing love is.

I thought of how it seems that we need to feel loved.

I thought of God. Of feelings. Facts. Reality.

I’m not sure about the truth of these thoughts. They are just thoughts mixed with feelings.

I remember a time when however I felt … whatever I thought … I believed I could talk to God about it.

I think that there’s a strange tension between reality and feelings.

I’ve talked to people who have felt extreme levels of depression and yet have known that the feelings don’t fit with the facts. At the time … whatever are the facts … it’s the feelings that matter.

I know also that at times all a person needs is someone that will listen. They don’t have to say anything. Just being there is what matters.

And so … I can see that whether God is real or not … a belief in God as someone that loves unconditionally … and listens … and cares … even when you feel no one else does … a belief in a God that is like that can make a big difference to a person.

These days I find it hard to believe that God is there.

But.

Well.

Sometimes.

I wish.

Evenings with While and Matthews

The two Chris While & Julie Matthews gigs have been and gone.

Both were great … similar to each other but yet different enough to make both worth attending.

“Worth attending”?

Well .. who am I kidding?

The “events” were fantastic. I remember thinking as I sat and listened … at this moment there is nowhere that I’d rather be.

Smiles.

Laughter.

Tears.

Even an invitation for the guys to get in touch with their feminine side … an aid to understanding the pain of being a reluctant netball player  and the feelings expressed in the song Class Reunion.

I think Julie must play guitar with a lot of passion … a guitar string broke at both events. It was especially cute at the Ram Club. Towards the end of a song the string snaps. Julie continues to play. At a convenient point Julie changes strings whilst Chris sings sans musique. A few minutes later the guitar is strung and the next song is about to begin but tuning is not quite complete. “Could you just adjust my G-string a little?” says Julie. “No … the G not the D.”All is adjusted. The show goes on.

A big part of both evenings is the new album Hitting the Ground Running. I’d bought the music a few days before the first gig but only had chance to listen to snatches of it. Hearing the songs live …. together with a little background on many of them … is great. Here’s what I remember of the introductions to some of the songs.

Carved in Stone: Julie was in Spain … beautiful mountainside. A cemetery where the graves were dug into almost a wall. One of the stones had a name carved into it … but everything else was worn away … illegible.

The Coldest Winds do Blow: Chris lives in Southport and at a certain time of year pink footed geese fly overhead from Iceland. How nice to fly away.

Rock of Gelt: The word Gelt,it seems, means money. Julie was one of the five songwriters and two poets that “spent five days in the remote Northumbrian countryside writing a new concert”. There’s a lot more info on this here. It seems a piece of Roman graffiti was discovered on Hadrian's Wall. Translated from the Latin it reads: Domnius didn’t want to do it. This song written by Julie together with Ruth Notman describes how Dominius might have felt. In the live performance Julie included a poem written by Elvis McGonagall. There’s other stuff about the event here and also here.

We’re not over yet is a song by Julie inspired by the style and inspiration of the Everly Brothers and people that wrote songs for them.

The Darkside Wood … by Chris … inspired by stories of Australian bushfires.

Somewhere I Walk Alone. Julie said that a while ago the mobile phone signal at where she lives had died. No mobile phone seemed ultra depressing for a while. And then came news that made no mobile phone seem to be not so unbearable. Things can always be harder.

Hitting the ground running. A break up … and the ensuing tug of what should be love.

Bridge over time. Another song inspired by Hadrian’s wall and the excavations that take place there. Sometimes so little seems to separate us from the past.

If you like acoustic folk rock then buy the album! I love it.

At the second gig they sang Jewel in the Crown … which features on a Fairport Convention album of the same name and also on the Julie Matthews CD Such is Life. The lyrics are here and these are they:

 

Jewel in the Crown

(Julie Matthews)

We are a proud land we stand for freedom
We’ve got the franchise on how to lead them
We’ve got the history and books to prove it
Give us a mountain and we will move it
We rule the waves and the seven seas
We bring the mighty to their knees
We offer hope and inspiration
A fine example to lesser nations
We are Britannia the jewel in the crown

We brought a system to the masses
Divide the nation into classes
It’s in our breeding and on our faces
At least we’re all born knowing our places
We’re raised within our social borders
We only take what our class affords us
It doesn’t matter that it’s not even
This is the nature of the demon
We are Britannia the jewel in the crown

We are Britannia, we crowned an empire
We came and conquered
We tore their borders down
We need no conscience
God is on our side
We are Britannia the jewel in the crown

We are your friendly liberators
We’ll free your countries from their dictators
For a small slice of your oil wells
We’ll send our boys in with their gun shells
We are an ally to the needy
We’re always caring, never greedy
What other gesture could be finer
We’ve given Hong Kong
Back to China
We are Britannia the jewel in the Crown

We are Britannia, we crowned an empire
We came and conquered
We tore their borders down
We need no conscience
God is on our side
We are Britannia the jewel in the crown
We are Britannia the jewel in the crown

History isn’t all a flattering thing if you are Britannia.

While, Mathews, KJV1611, Potties, Candy, Punters and Leonard Cohen

On Friday Chris While and Julie Matthews are playing at The Ram Club in Thames Ditton … not so far away from Windsor … and I hope to get along. I already have a ticket for the gig they are doing in Maidenhead on the Sunday … so twice in 3 days. Maybe I should become a groupie?

The weekend after it looks like Candy Girls on the Friday and Pink Punters on the Saturday.

All is quiet on the King James Bible Believers front. I am soooo tempted to pass on on a link to this wonderful web site:

http://www.pottytrain-dogs.com/ 

in order to help free up some of the web masters time. But I said I wouldn’t pester any more.

And here are a few pictures taken at a recent Leonard Cohen concert in Helsinki … taken by one of my most favourite people:

I’m reliably informed that Mr Cohen has quite a … well … effect upon some people. Wouldn’t you agree E?

A lovely thought.

Party on the Lawn 2010

Just in case you were wondering what Party on the Lawn was like … and if if you weren’t … here’s just a few snippets of video so you can get a tiny little flavour.  I did enjoy it a lot.

 

Being ourselves

Last night there was an item on the BBC 10:00 o’clock news that saddened me a lot at first. The more I think about it, though, the more it fills me with a sense of anger.

According to the story, the Ugandan government is considering introducing a death sentence for certain types of homosexual activity. Or maybe it will only be life imprisonment.

Of course … I know that the BBC is not always totally impartial. And I admit to having biases myself. So the story that I heard and the way that I interpreted it might not be the way that it actually is.

So … please read this as a comment on an attitude rather than an attack upon Uganda.

It was an update of the kind of information presented here.

The news item last night included extracts from an interview with a church man and scenes from a service that he seemed to be leading. I think it was the reporter John Simpson that said to the church leader that he had seldom experienced such hatred as was evident in the church service.

The badges that people wore expressed a vehement attitude against the act of sodomy.

A biblical perspective on this is given here. It’s not pleasant reading.

There is this whole thing about gay sexuality being “unnatural”.

I used to think that way myself.

These days I realise that people engage in many unnatural activities that some religious zealots are happy enough to engage in. To name a few:

• flying
• driving around in automobiles

Surely … if God had intended us to do these things we would be born with wings .. or wheels.

But if God had intended us not to do those things .,.. maybe we shouldn’t have brains either?

There was a time in my life when I had this belief that gay relationships must be about sexual depravity.

Amy Ray and Emily Saliers (Indigo Girls) helped me discover that gay and lesbian relationships … just like heterosexual relationships … can be about love.

In that discovery … fell away a whole lot of misconceptions and prejudices.

I know … some people would say that they have been replaced by a whole lot of other misconceptions and prejudices.

My daughter once shared with me that the thing that she finds hardest when talking with some lesbian friends is that way that some seem to think that every girl should be lesbian.

Of course … there seem to be plenty of heterosexual people that think that everyone should be heterosexual.

There are some Catholics that think everyone should be Catholic. Born again evangelicals that think everyone should be a born again evangelical. Muslims that think everyone should be Muslim.

Me … I’d be happy if everyone agreed with me.

Well no … not really. If everyone agreed with me I’d worry about it because I hate the idea of agreeing with everyone!

One day maybe we will learn to accept differences. I’m still learning and I know that I haven’t got there yet.

There is a French saying: Vive la difference! And I can happily say Amen to that.

Tonight, driving back from the office, I listened to a song by Julie Matthews. It’s called Take these Bones … there's some background info on the song here. It’s about the use of Comfort Women by the Japanese during the second World War.

For me it makes me wonder about the way that people have had a propensity to exploit each other.

There are some aspects of masculinity that are not at all nice things.

It’s strange how some people sometimes seem to be very anti twenty-first behaviour such as consensual homosexuality … pornography … prostitution … and yearn for the sublime past … days of legalised child labour … no votes for women … slaves.

I wonder if there is significance in the fact that it was a woman caught in the act of adultery that was brought before Jesus and not a man. It’s hard not to suspect that it’s because it was a society controlled by men that made sure it happened that way.

In a way I’m maybe a feminist … or at least a laissez-faire kind of feminist … and kinda glad that a part of me at least is a girl.

And yet … even more than that … within reason at any rate … I think it’s good to allow people to just be who they are and not force them to be who we want them to be.

The Here and Now

A few weeks ago I bought a copy of Here and Now by Chris While and Julie Matthews (http://www.whileandmatthews.co.uk/ … http://www.amazon.co.uk/Here-And-Now/dp/B002E2XMDO/ref=sr_shvl_album_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1272105102&sr=301-5)

At last I’ve had a chance to listen to it … and I really love the song The Here and Now … so here it is:

The Here and Now 
Matthews and While
From the Album ‘Here and Now’ While and Matthews

You look for the distant horizon, you live for the turn of the page
You’re spinning in cycles and you won’t disengage
But there’s more than the far destination
Between you and the end of the line
And one day you’ll wish that you’d cherished this precious time

 

‘Cause life is here, now, it’s clear, how
Living the moment, will set you free
From tomorrow and yesterdays sorrow
(You look for the distant horizon,
You live for the turn of the page)
Better to feel the one thing that’s real
The here and now, here and now

You’re dwelling in by-gone places, of halcyon days in the sun
You’re clinging on to a past now dead and gone
Don’t make the people that love you now
Compete with the ghosts of the past
Unlock the chains to your heart, Free at last!

‘Cause life is here, now, it’s clear, how
Living the moment, will set you free
From tomorrow and yesterdays sorrow
(You’re dwelling in by-gone places, halcyon days in the sun)
Better to feel the one thing that’s real
The here and now, the here and now
It’s clear, how
Living the moment, will set you free
From tomorrow and yesterdays sorrow
(You look for the distant horizon,
You live for the turn of the page)
Better to feel the one thing that’s real
The here and now, the here and now

 

The lyrics came from: http://www.whileandmatthews.co.uk/Julie%20website/Song%20pages/The%20Here%20and%20Now.htm

It seems to kind of fit in somehow with the thoughts I was having about virtuality and reality in my previous post.

I know … there are some times …. for some people …. when the here and the now are very painful places to be.

At that point perhaps the focus needs to be on changing things so that the here and the now becomes a place where we can be happy.

The here and now can include virtuality as well as reality. It’s about balance maybe.

While and Matthews, Poles, Love and Fear

Having listened quite a lot more to Chris While and Julie Matthews (http://www.whileandmatthews.co.uk/) , I must say I like them a lot.

I bought the CD from Amazon’s download site and spent quite a while searching out lyrics of the songs somewhere on the WEB … with no luck at all until tonight. Googling for “distant as the poles” came back with a hit …the parent page of which is: http://www.whileandmatthews.co.uk/Julie%20website/Song%20pages/ which has lots of lyrics.

I mentioned the song Distant as the Poles in an earlier post.You can listen to the first bit at: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002E3D0IA/ref=dm_dp_trk6 (click the preview button when you get there) and also there is a version from a fan.

 

And the words:

Distant as the poles
Julie Matthews
From the album ‘Quest’
While and Matthews

You cannot hold her anymore
Though everyday I see you try
She's bursting with the urge to run and fly
And where she's bound you cannot hope to be
As distant as the poles and the poles will never meet

She chases comets in the sky
One day she'll catch one in a jar
You would rather watch them from afar
And what she dreams you cannot hope to see
As distant as the poles and the poles will never meet

The tighter that you hold her
The wider bridges grow
The more you try to mould her
The less she'll come to show

You cannot hold her anymore
So have the heart to say goodbye
And open up the cage and let her fly
A blazing trail of comets in the sky
And love her just enough to set her free
As distant as the poles and the poles will never meet

 

When I first listened to the song it reminded me of the feelings of a parent as a child grows … the pain of letting go. And yet there isn’t another way.

I think that as time has passed I’ve learned, a little at least,  that holding onto people too tightly seems to be a sure fire way of pushing them away.

Driving back from work tonight I thought of the way that futility of getting things by force. The way that compulsion seems to be doomed to failure.

Ultimately, it seems, we do what we want to because we want to do it rather than because we have to do it.

The things we do out of compulsion don’t last. The first chance we get … we do something else.

I think it explains why, in the end, love is stronger than fear.

Christmas, New Year and Photographs

Well … 2009 already seems a long time ago.

A friend that was once the minister of the Baptist church that I used to attend (he’s moved on to pastures new … still working in a Christian capacity) mentioned Chris While and Julie Matthews on the Christmas card that we received … English Indigo Girls was the phrase that he used.

Of course, I couldn’t resist checking them out. They are at http://www.whileandmatthews.co.uk/

I bought a copy of their ‘Best of …’ CD. And I have to admit it’s growing on me. There are some beautiful songs on it  … As Distant as the Poles … Even the Desert Bears a Seed … Steady Breathing … On My Way.

I like Class Reunion as well … the thought of standing in a line in my netball skirt has a peculiar attraction to me.

I listened to Poles Apart driving home from work tonight and it made me cry … not unhappily … more one of those yes I know what you mean kind of moments.

We spent Christmas in Wales. Almost no Internet which is quite a challenge these days. And no Andrea.

The absence of the opportunity to be Andrea still surprises me in the effect it has on me.

One evening, having got back home, Sally said … “why don’t I cook a nice meal tonight while you put on some makeup and a dress.”

It was really sweet of her.

There really are times when the putting on of Andrea is like laying the burden of everyday life down for a while. Not that everyday life is really much of a burden. I guess it’s … well I don’t know exactly … but … it does me good.

It’s a shame that putting on makeup takes such a long time!

The snow was pretty … but some of the side effects I could have lived without. Travelling to work became a problem. And Kathie and Billie had to cancel the January TV (as in Transvestite) dinner.

It seems trite to complain though. There are many people that live with much greater hardships than a single missed dinner … and it’s not as though I didn’t get to eat at home that evening.

Towards the end of 2009 I emailed Tracey & Nikki at TransFemme and booked a makeover for January 15th.

Just before then I had an email from Tracey … she has flu! She’s a sweetie though … she wasn’t feeling well at all but was only really worried that she didn’t want to pass it on and was giving me a chance to re-book.

I’d booked the afternoon off work though … and … schedules being schedules … it was going to be difficult to re-schedule.

So … I took the risk.

And I’m glad that I did. It was a great break from the routine of life.

The journey there was pretty uneventful … most of the snow had disappeared and the traffic was mostly moving well along the M4.

I got there almost exactly on time … so really ..l the traffic wasn’t all that good really … I’d allowed a fair bit of leeway.

We chatted over a coffee. Poor Tracey was very sniffly.

I love the kind of pampered feeling there is in being made up. It’s so relaxing somehow. And I find it a lot easier to sit still and not blink whilst someone is poking around with things close to my eyes.

After the makeup is completed … I try out the new velvety black dress that Sally helped me select just before Christmas.

Here’s how it looks:

 

And then a red dress:

And a skirt:

There are quite a lot more at http://cid-d2a4d9a4c164f3e2.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/2010%2001%2015 … let me know what you think … well … so long as they are nice thoughts.