Twirl Me About...Say it was only a Dream

Listen here

I can recall the sound of the wind
As it blew through the trees and the trees would bend
I can recall the smell of the rain
On a hot summer night
Coming through the screen

I'd crawl in your bed when the lightning flashed
And I'd still be there when the storm had passed
Dead to the world, to the morning cast
Its light all around your room

We lived on a street where the tall elm shade
Was as green as the grass and as cool as a blade
That you held in your teeth as we lay on our backs St Liborius Catholic Church
Staring up at the blue and the blue stared back St Libory, IL

I used to believe we were just like those trees
We'd grow just as tall and as proud as we pleased
With our feet on the ground and our arms in the breeze
Under a sheltering sky

Twirl me about, and twirl me around
Let me grow dizzy and fall to the ground
And when I look up at you looking down,
Say it was only a dream

A big truck was parked in the drive one day
They wrapped us in paper and moved us away
Your room was no longer next door to mine
And this kid sister thing was old by that time

But oh how our dreams went bump in the night
And the voices downstairs getting into a fight
And the next day a silence you could cut with a knife
And feel like a blade at your throat

Twirl me about and twirl me around
Let me grow dizzy and fall to the ground
When I look up at you looking down
Say it as only a dream

The day you left home you got an early start
I watched your car back out in the dark
I opened the door to your room down the hall
I turned on the light
And all that I saw
Was a bed and a desk and couple of tacks
No sign of someone who expects to be back
It must have been one hell of a suitcase you packed

Twirl me about, twirl me around
Let me grow dizzy and fall to the ground
When I look up at you looking down
Say it was only a dream

-Mary Chapin Carpenter, Only A Dream

This song has been in my head for weeks now, and nearly 20 years after first discovering it, I'm still taken away each time - nearly moved to tears. We all have memories we cling to for comfort, times we wish we could retain and experiences so laced with pain that it feels they will never drift from our thoughts - fearing that we're destined to relieve them in our mind with no apparent end in sight. Over the summer and past year, I've tasted all of these as I'm sure you have as well at some point. They are the stuff of life and part of our process of "becoming" - a journey never truly complete; a pilgrimage...which was to be the theme of my sabbatical.

Who among us has not wished to twirl around and discover that is was all just a dream...a horrible, heart wrenching dream? I can't make excuses or pretend I haven't been wondering why all this happening at once...not necessarily "why" on its own, but my God, three life altering event in three months? Not really even, "why me" but just why all at the same time.

Then my thoughts turn to the possibility of not only seeing this as my "dark night of the soul," but also as some profound opportunity or pending experience of joy that has not made itself apparent yet...and that would be the hardest part, right? The not knowing, not understanding...the waiting and not being in control with no particular clue of resolution on the horizon. The sting of being the one not chosen versus the one making the choice.

So in the end, it is all part of the journey - I doubt that's any great revelation to you, and it certainly doesn't make these things any easier. In fact, I want to scream and punch something when I hear some of the platitudes told to me over the past month...particularly the religious based ones. Not because I've lost faith or don't appreciate people's intentions, but because...well, maybe because I wanted to be pissed off for a while and on some level couldn't believe that people were not thinking through what they were saying. But I digress...

In these times the questions present themselves:

What will we do?

Who will we be?

Peace on the Journey!