“Passing Thought”
The songwriting group I'm in sometimes gets asked to pitch in prompts ... after a pugnacious text thread I never heard back so we didn't get a prompt last week. Happens occasionally. SO I decided to post something that I wrote for the group a couple of weeks ago that has really stuck with me since. It's a little rough around the edges of course and needs some tightening up, but it's probably one of my favorite things I've written in a while.
If you read my last post, you may know I've been in ill-health sort of puzzlingly. I'm doing much better and have a little more information now as to what's up. I have a decision to make about how I want to proceed but feel relieved to know what it is and what I can do to feel better.
I wrote this song after having a dream about a former lover. This one is the one whose memory lingers perhaps the most - maybe it ties with my dear friend who passed a few years ago. It lingers around me like a ghost walking. Despite how happy I am, its grip doesn't let up. But, it's not that I want him back or that I feel like what transpired wasn't the correct path for me. It's just a ghost - a smoky whisper that floats around barely noticed, perhaps always just in front of my face, until late at night in the dark when it trickles into my ear...
A lot of what I've been writing the past couple years has been grappling with this idea: How can I miss someone but still be really happy in the situation I'm in? (I am.) And then, I remember, while I might be missing the person, I'm also missing the me I was with this person - maybe the time in my life, how I felt, the hope I had. Obviously those things don't go away, they just shift, so as trite as it might sound, I think I'm just mourning my youth, how idealistic I was, the support and love I felt before I became the bruised fruit.
In this song I hypothetically describe a moment at his wedding that I obviously wasn't at, and go from there. The prompt for this song was "the more goodbyes you say," and early in the week knew I wanted to pair it with "the pain of it never goes away." I spent the rest of the week trying to formulate a story idea or trying to draw from a personal experience that I could talk about based on this rhyme pair, but, of course, the pool is rather large (and I just couldn't bear to bring Maria into it again at that point) and the dream catalyzed my need to talk about this one situation. But not just talk about it, kinda come to terms with it. It being inconclusive, unfinished... and really... not mattering all that much in my present experience. If I can draw positive remembrances from it, wonderful. But I need to think on it with love, a peaceful knowing that I was loved when I needed to be, that I met a kindred spirit who helped guide me into being who I am. I am grateful for that, but I can't feel pain from it anymore. It doesn't serve me. And if he feels the same, I hope he'll never think on me except with a loving heart.
rewards access:
