Jameson - Zella Day

*Words in italics – Song lyrics to Jameson  - by Zella Day  *Go out and buy this song!!!

This song really breaks my heart.  According to an interview with Zella Day in LA Times, she states, “I've never really written a song like that. It's about falling for an alcoholic. It has this hopelessness, but at the same time there's this light at the end of the tunnel, so there's this sort of weird war. It's kind of like love, but being in love with something you can't have because something [else] already has it."

For me, this song is about loving someone you can’t have, someone that’s gone or with someone else, and the war inside is one of bargaining and pleading to let go, but being unable.  It’s all five stages of grief. 

I remember the stage of negotiation, begging God to change a difficult situation, and being completely helpless to change anything.  The only choice left was to face the pain, acceptance, but it was the kind of pain that couldn’t be faced at once.  I remember when my fiancé was deployed to Somalia.  He’d been deployed a few times before, but all those other times he wasn’t mine.  This time, he was my hero, my love, and he took my heart with them.  Many nights trying to get through the day, I’d stare into the stars.  I’d bargain with God to bring my soldier home. I remember saying the words aloud, “The world doesn’t need him like I do, please just bring him back to me.”

Words are meant to be taught.

My hero didn’t come home.  My bargaining didn’t stop with his death.  The only thing that changed were my prayers.  “Please God, you don’t need him like I do, send him back to me.”  When that didn’t work, I told myself every day I was okay, but I wasn’t.  I hid inside middle class morality and wore my mask of obedient compliance and contentment,  yet inside cried and battled a pain that wouldn’t go away.

Love’s not meant to be lost.

You said that if I’m happy you’re cured,

But I’m not.

I thought I’d never feel fire again.  I had loved others, but my soul hadn’t danced in more than twenty years, not until I met a particular soldier.  By all common sense and practicality he wasn’t what I thought I wanted or needed in my life.  I tried to run, to hide, to not love him, but my heart betrayed me.  I tried so hard to be indifferent,  to build my walls, to pretend I didn’t care.  I knew the moment I met him he’d break my heart. I was scared more than I’d ever been. I don’t know if it was because I pushed him away, or he just never felt the same fire, we got stuck and ended up in the friend zone.

I know you have a delicate fate,

You’re a quiet man, but in the worst way,

I’m not a follower and I won’t follow you down

He went on to love another.  I stopped breathing the day I found out he got married. I felt my heart stop. Then the bargaining and war between my heart and head enraged as I became the other woman.

Oh, Jameson, you’ve had your fun, stop holding him I want to be the one.

I promise you, I’ll treat him right, don’t want to fight. You don’t need him like I do.

It was supposed to be a zone of safety, getting to enjoy all the good of him, but safe from me getting my heart broke. Instead, I grew to love him even more, to love his mind, his heart, his courage, his sense of humor, all of his stupid little philosophies.  I tried to find that fire in another set of eyes, another pair of hands, another heart – but it was him I was looking for in every smiling face staring back at me.  He was my last thought before I closed my eyes and the first when I woke, and often the star of my dreams.  So many nights I fell asleep on a damp pillow and stumbled through the day hiding wet eyes behind a smile and a pair of glasses.

I waited in the street outside, sat in my car till my tears dried.

I’m justifying people with pain, tonight.

It’s so easy to say ‘just turn it off’, but I’m finding that’s impossible.  The right thing would be to move one, to forget the past, to open my heart to someone new.   That’s what my head says all the time.  My heart …well, my heart is an idiot. The world has their judgments, and has found me guilty.  Many would say I deserve the pain I feel because I dared to love another woman’s man. I loved him first.  I’m my greatest accuser; my harshest judge, but I have no shame for loving him.

I watched your fingers point at the blame, it’s the darkest of gray when you explain.

I’m not a follower, I won’t follow you down.

I have no right to be angry - not at her, not at him , not even at myself.  She’s just a woman who fell in love with a man.  She’s no different than me, except he loved her back and chose her.  While my heart wants what it wants, I have to learn to survive, I have to learn to heal. I have to learn to breathe again.  Denial, anger, bargaining, depression… acceptance.

Oh, Jameson, you’ve had your fun, stop holding him I want to be the one.

I promise you, I’ll treat him right, don’t want to fight. You don’t need him like I do.

I have no choice.  I have to move on.  I have to breathe.  How does one exist without their heart? One day at a time.  I’ve since had many opportunities to give my heart away. I’ve had proposals and offers for rational, practical relationships – but I won’t settle for anything less than the hottest of fires.

I know I’ll be okay.  Don’t tell me where or which way you go.

Find someone else to take my place.  You want me, but treat me like you don’t.

Oh, Jameson, go have your fun, keep holding him if he’s really the one.  Just promise me you’ll treat him right, don’t want to fight, and need him like I did.

My hope is to love again, and that it not take 20 years for my heart to heal. I deserve someone who will love me, completely, as I love them.  The man who finally gets my heart is going to be a very lucky man, because I already know that I’ll love him with such deep devotion … something beyond my comprehension… something more than words can contain.  How do I know?  I know… because I’ve already done it twice.

Till next time,

~T.L. Gray

Lie to Me, Go Ahead

Okay, so everyone should know by now that I’ve been busy, busy, busy trying to fill my previously defunct music collection over the past few years. Having only listened to gospel music for nearly two decades (nothing wrong with that… loved the music), I’m really behind on my pop culture, often missing cultural references. While I love the music, I mean… I really love music, being viewed as naïve and defunct probably bothers me most.

Filling this collection isn’t an easy task. I don’t just listen to song after song after song. When I listen to a song, I may listen to ONLY that song for days, really letting it soak into my soul. I might also put it into part of a playlist I’m currently working on. Or, I might put it into another productive playlist that I use to work out, or work to. It really depends on the song. MOST often, I listen to it over and over and over and over until I feel I understand it, or I feel the emotion of it, or I feel I’ll never get it –that it just doesn’t mesh with me or my soul. However, 99% of the songs do. I can’t explain what music does to me. It’s a lot like the way stories move me – somewhere deep on the inside.

So, saying all that… this brings me to my current song “Lie to Me” by Jonny Lang. Wow! Oh, man I could have written this song myself. I don’t just feel it, I live it, breathe it, and I weep this song with many, many, many tears. “Lie to me and tell me everything is all right. Lie to me and tell me that you’ll stay here tonight. Tell me that you’ll never leave. Oh, I’ll just try to make believe that everything you’re telling me is true. Lie to me. Come on, baby, go ahead and lie to me. You know what I’m talking about. Lie to me, it doesn’t matter anymore. It can never be the way it was before. If I can’t hold onto you, leave me something I can hold onto for just a little while, won’t you… won’t you let me dream?”

Damn! This is a place I had never wanted to go, never wanted to be, but one I know very well. It’s darkness, it’s pain unimaginable – knowing the truth, and the truth hurting more than any lie. So, I plead for the lie - just to breathe. I still haven’t learned to breathe. Yet (yep… this is the hopeless romantic in me) I’m glad I got to experience what I have – every ounce of pain was worth it. I can’t begin to imagine going through this world never having experienced this kind of love – lost and unrequited love. I’ve had both and they both nearly destroyed me. Hell, they still overwhelm me. I’m fucking crying my eyes out right now just thinking about them. Tell me he’s still alive, still fighting for me, still looking for me and will someday find me. Tell me I’m the one he thinks about first thing in the morning and the last before he closes his eyes - though he chose her, it’s me he really loves. I know the truth – one soldier is never coming back and the other one loves someone else. But go ahead, lie to me, please.

Till next time,

~T.L. Gray

The Greeting of Equinox

I once fell in love with a tree. I celebrated its beauty, dancing among the brilliant colors of gold, green, yellow and red of its leaves, when the first snowflake fell. I took no note of the gathering gray clouds. Though I shivered, I ignored the cold. Dancing made my heart beat faster, adrenaline rush through my veins, and endorphins brought a sense of euphoria; a semblance of happiness. A snowflake landed on my lashes, melted from my body heat and ran down my cheek; the first of many tears to follow.

The air grew frigid, the skies darkened, and I watched as the leaves fell from my beautiful tree, the object of my desire, the tall glorious symbol of my admiration. Helpless to stop the winter storm, I became lost in despair, numb because the pain overwhelmed me, and frozen in fear as a statue. Before the last of my body crystallized into ice, I watched the last leaf fall, flutter through the air as if carefree, and come to rest on the cold, hard ground. As it touched the earth, my heart stopped beating as I entered winter.

The snow fell and its accumulation slowly buried me with my gaze locked onto my tree, for it no longer bore any fruit. Surrounding it, stood other lifeless, fruitless, leafless trees, and my tree reveled in their company. Its bony limbs served as a constant reminder of the loss of its glorious leaves. Though I knew my tree, it no longer resembled the beauty it once exuded. My mind’s eye remembered, and a small hope remained for my tree to return to me. But as the fierce winter winds blew, my fractured heart became frozen; broken.

Believing the winter would never end, I finally forced my eyelids closed and the vision of my tree disappeared with one last icicled tear. I tuned out all feeling, all sound, all senses, and embraced the darkness; I died inside.

~

A warm wind blew, bringing a soft musical note with it, disturbing my cold, silent grave. My hearing followed the sound, though distant, muffled, and strange. Desolation sharpened my senses, and a desperate need to hear again filled me. Too afraid to open my eyes and gaze upon my tree, I feared the notes came from it. But it did not, they resounded all around me. Some came from the left, some from the right, many from behind, their notes soft, beautiful and full of hope.

I tried to shut them out, but they kept playing their song, one after another, sometimes blended together and sometimes all at once. I felt the ice that covered me begin to crackle and split, and I heard the constant drip, drip, drip below me, adding tempo to the melody. Then I silently screamed in pain as my heart shuddered and let out the first beat.

I felt the shards of ice fall away from my eyes. As fear rushed through me, I opened my statue lids. There stood my tree, its bare limbs full of new buds, ready to bloom, surrounded by dozens of others ready to dance before its beauty. My heart skipped a beat at the possibility of greatness my tree could be, but only one beat. For no longer could I call it my tree.

Something else grabbed my attention – a song, a familiar sound, a beautiful melody. My eyes unfocused on the tree and with great effort, I turned my gaze away, and shook away my icy shell. Flying all around me fluttered song birds of spring, reveling in the warm sun shining down upon me. Their harmonies and melodies filled my heart, and for the first time, after a long winter, with the greeting of the equinox, I smiled.

My song birds called to me, their music mending me, filling me with new life, and healing the hole of my despair. I glanced back over my shoulder at the tree and released one last tear. As I wiped it from my cheek, I turned away, and once again danced.