Easy, Breezy, Beautiful, Colored World I'm In Love With You

Do you believe you have a theme song? You know. The one that plays in the background as you go about your everyday life (ala every chick sitcom ever made). You spin around, throw your hat in the air, smell flowers, throw a ball to the dog, toss your hair back and laugh. And in the background, your soundtrack plays. Is it slow, classical, fast, bouncy, fun, sad? My song is the one I believe is perfect, at least for me. Every part, describes me. The playful, and yet heavy, guitar work. The complicated, but catchy, beat. The lyrics, so simple but they shine with truth. Then there's the fact that some of my favorite musicians perform it (shut up, I'll NEVER stop being a fan girl). Anyway, the dichotomy that is me, responds to this piece and I see it as a mirror of myself.  Maybe this song was written especially for someone else. Perhaps it was just a collaboration between some talented people with no real meaning at all. I just know that since the day I got it, it became mine.  When you see me, you’ll know it’s playing in me.  My theme song.

Think about it, what song plays in your head all the time? What song have you made your own???

Super Daydreams

My friend and I are dodging butterflies on the road to the Outer banks. Actually I am the one swerving the car to avoid hitting the fluttering airborne flowers, my friend is winching, fingers dug into the leather upholstery of the rental car. I cry out in anguish every time I'm unable to prevent a collision.  My friend groans.

It's a long trip from Raleigh to Kill Devil Hills. We spend the time listening to the I pod & renewing our friendship by offering insights into ourselves that are normally left unsaid. The topic turns to daydreams.

I am a marathon daydreamer, and I admit to it. What I don’t admit to is what I really daydream about.  I take the safe course.  “If I won the lottery, this is what I would do.”  We discuss the pitfalls and merits of dividing our winnings amongst our families and buying gifts for friends. We seem to be on the same page, as usual, that is why we are so close.  But at this moment in time, not close enough. I can’t share my number one daydream, it seems silly and self serving.  I don’t want my friend to think I’m being all “Mother Theresa”.  So I don’t share.

I have a problem with EMPATHY, a huge problem. I have way too much and can’t control it. My family jokes that every time I had a baby, I stole most of it’s empathy before I gave birth. Other people’s pain and trials roll off of my children’s back like water. I sit in that puddle and let it soak me in misery. All I want from this life is for those I love to be happy. That is what makes me happy. Hence my #1 daydream.

I want a superpower.  I want the power to heal. I want to make all my family and friends healthy and pain free, both physically and mentally.

I have it all worked out in my head. Somehow I would be able to control the mental production of electrical signals that the body uses and redirect them to where they are needed. I would be able tell another persons brain to make more of this or less of that and send it where it needs to go. I would even be able to do this by concentrating on the person (as opposed to “laying on hands”), in a way that some would call praying. To protect myself from the urge to “HEAL THE WORLD” , my power would be unknown, to myself and to others. When it was needed, it would kick in like an instinctive response. No one would know, and everyone would be happy.

I know, every mom’s dream, to protect her children from hurt. And since I mother everyone, my secret daydream shouldn’t be a surprise to any of the people who really know me. Yea, we all need to suffer in order to grow,  but not on my watch…OK? 

Just so ya don’t think in need to be Beatified or something, I do have a little bit of self serving reward built into my daydream.  Every time I use my power, the energy I generate causes me to lose 5 lbs.  When I start getting too skinny,  I’m going to be eating Ice cream all the time……ummm  and Cadbury chocolate bars.

I know you want a superpower,  what is it???

Band Mom

No I'm not selling frozen turkeys and peanut butter cups for uniforms.   Not trying to fund raise with magazine subscriptions for trips to Disney World to perform. The fact is none of my kids were in the High School Band.

My daughters both played Violin in the School Orchestra; they wore their own dressy white shirt with a black skirt or pants. My son was in a garage band (Negative Salute or N/S) for a few years, but they never made it out of the garage.  I am a different kind of Band Mom.

I met my adopted sons when they opened for my favorite band during a road trip in North Carolina. Marty and I were already taking a lot of flack for our second C! trip in a month. We didn't care; we were going to see C! 2 more times, AWESOME . In retrospect, it was the second turning point in my life this year.

Reggae/Rock is hard to explain until you've heard it. Anyone who dances loves Reggae, but think of putting in some riff-rock and a hard edge. Mix it up with some honest, hardworking kids (OK, so they're in their 20's, that = kid to me). Add some real catchy lyrics with a twist. Result??  A Band called Lionize.

Serendipity doesn't come close to describing the star crossed events that intersected to give me 4 more sons. Both fortunate and unfortunate events conspired together.  I'll try to sort them out.

·                     Unfortunate; The vocalist for C! was ill (that was a horrible time for all of us); we couldn't find a hotel room near the second show.

·                     Fortunate; the first show was empty, giving us tons of space to dance. We had to hang out at all day at the venue on the second day.

In Jacksonville NC, we danced our......um.....tushies off to this new sound that we both fell in love with. We brought their CD and played it all the way to Fayetteville, singing along the whole time.  Then in Fayetteville, being the only vehicle in the parking lot besides the bands' transportation, we got invited to hang out with members of all 3 bands (AWESOME< AWESOME)

      

Already in love with the music, we fell in love with the boys.

While C! traveled in their mega tour bus and stayed in hotels, our poor boys traveled in a beat-up van and slept in the back with a generator feeding a jury-rigged Air Conditioner (Yes I know C! started that way too, but that's not my story to tell)

It broke our hearts and we decided we would do anything we could to ease their journey to success. We adopted them.

So what does my brand of band mom do????   Whatever we can do to care for them when we go to see them and whatever we can do to promote them  all the time.

Hopefully, the little things we do will help them get where they want to be a little faster, make things a little easier, and make them happy to have met us and invited us into their world.  

That's all a mom can hope for.