Wednesday, August 02, 2006
up up up up up up
up up up up up up points the spire of the steeple
but god's work isn't done by god
it's done by people
up up up up up up point the fingers of the trees
the lumberjacks with their bloody axes
are on their knees
and just when you think that you've got enough
enough grows
and everywhere that you go in life
enough knows
half of learning how to play
is learning what not to play
and she's learning the spaces she leaves
have their own things to say
then she's trying to sing just enough
so that the air around her moves
and make music like mercy that gives what it is
and has nothing to prove
she crawls out on a limb
and begins to build her home
and it's enough just to look around
and know she's not alone
Ani Difranco
I woke up with this song in my head. I was hearing it in my dream.
There were people.... not unlike the church community I grew up in, and we were supposed to be singing praise and worship songs, but I fell asleep. A woman was upset with me, because I should have been worshipping God.
I argued with her. Everyone doesn't relate to God that way, I said, but she said that it was the proper way to worship God. The argument escalated until I yelled in frustration that I hate singing, and then we were in a forest, a cross section from a particular place from my childhood, and I began scratching words onto tree bark and rocks. They were the words to a song that only I understood and the words were scattered through the trees, but as I began singing it to myself I recognized the tune.
And that is the story of how I woke up with Ani in my head, even though I've been listening almost exclusively to bob marley for the last month.
The thing with Ani songs is that many of them, while I like them, I don't understand them, and the magic of it is that one day I'll go through something, or learn something, and it will be the key that brings meaning to that one song. Maybe the meaning that I understand isn't the meaning she intended, but it will suddenly make so much sense that I feel I understand the sentiment exactly, if not the circumstance.
Today I feel that "up up up up up" does a fantastic job of describing how I feel about life in general.
9 days till Ani plays in Regina. I am a happy girl.
but god's work isn't done by god
it's done by people
up up up up up up point the fingers of the trees
the lumberjacks with their bloody axes
are on their knees
and just when you think that you've got enough
enough grows
and everywhere that you go in life
enough knows
half of learning how to play
is learning what not to play
and she's learning the spaces she leaves
have their own things to say
then she's trying to sing just enough
so that the air around her moves
and make music like mercy that gives what it is
and has nothing to prove
she crawls out on a limb
and begins to build her home
and it's enough just to look around
and know she's not alone
Ani Difranco
I woke up with this song in my head. I was hearing it in my dream.
There were people.... not unlike the church community I grew up in, and we were supposed to be singing praise and worship songs, but I fell asleep. A woman was upset with me, because I should have been worshipping God.
I argued with her. Everyone doesn't relate to God that way, I said, but she said that it was the proper way to worship God. The argument escalated until I yelled in frustration that I hate singing, and then we were in a forest, a cross section from a particular place from my childhood, and I began scratching words onto tree bark and rocks. They were the words to a song that only I understood and the words were scattered through the trees, but as I began singing it to myself I recognized the tune.
And that is the story of how I woke up with Ani in my head, even though I've been listening almost exclusively to bob marley for the last month.
The thing with Ani songs is that many of them, while I like them, I don't understand them, and the magic of it is that one day I'll go through something, or learn something, and it will be the key that brings meaning to that one song. Maybe the meaning that I understand isn't the meaning she intended, but it will suddenly make so much sense that I feel I understand the sentiment exactly, if not the circumstance.
Today I feel that "up up up up up" does a fantastic job of describing how I feel about life in general.
9 days till Ani plays in Regina. I am a happy girl.
posted by ursa smaller at 9:20 PM |
1 Comments:
Alas, I have to wait much longer to see Ani. She plays Reno, NV in September...
I've felt like that quite often, where the stuff I intellectually know (like "not everyone relates to God in the same way") is in conflict with my emotional truth (so I feel guilty if I don't worship in the same way my mom does). When the reality of that conflict hits me, it wrecks me emotionally. Reconciling your intellectual truth and your emotional truth might be key to finding some sort of closure. It's not easy, though -- 17 years of therapy and counting for me.
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