May 16, 2011

• The Songbook

  “It’s like you’ve grown up, and you were left a songbook. And you knew it was important, but there was no one you could talk to about the songbook. The songbook didn’t have the music, it just had the words. So you took your best guess on how to sing “Adrift in Atrium” “By the Waters of Kenzia” and all these songs no one ever heard of, and you sung them to yourself until you thought you had the right tune, but really, there’s no way of knowing. “From the Side of the Mountain” is a beautiful song to read, but to sing…is it “From the” or “FROM the” or…

  And then you’re in the coffee shop in yet another town, like so many times before, and you step out, and you hear a voice singing “By the Waters of Kenzia”, and you don’t even recognize it, it’s been so long since you’ve sung it, and you feel your body shake before you even realize why it’s shaking. And you sneak up on the voice, and it sounds just like you always thought it should, but it pronounces it “KEN-zia” not “Ken-zee-uh” and you feel that the voice is right, that’s how it goes. And you can’t find the voice yet, but you wait, and it starts singing “From the Side of the Mountain”, and you want to cry and laugh the whole time, it was “FROM the”, you always knew it was, it was! And finally you can contain yourself no longer, and you belt out the chorus with the voice, and the voice quiets at first but sings ever stronger, and you both stumble through the song, finding the right notes together, until on the third and final verse you thunder through the chorus together. And you sing so loudly you never hear the footsteps coming down the steps, but you do feel the arms around you, but you can’t stop looking up at the bright night sky and weeping with joy, grasping the hands that encircle your waist as an excited voice says “You know it too! You know the Songbook!”…”

  (Old post).

  • 2:13 pm
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