Learn from the mistakes of others

i have been taking my portable cd player with me on the bus to help pass the time. i have taken the opportunity to listen to albums that i've not heard for a while.

like many people, i associate strong feelings with certain pieces of music. memories flood back from the first few bars of certain songs by certain artists. other songs evoke a strong emotional response completely separate from any particular memory or event.

today i put dido's first album in and set off to return my son to his mummy. listening to it on my way home, rain falling steadily outside the bus, i was suddenly hit by a surge of melancholy. a deep sense of loss. not specific. just deep, profound loss.

and this song was playing ...

Dido
Honestly OK

I just want to feel safe in my own skin
I just want to be happy again
I just want to feel deep in my own world
but I'm so lonely I don't even want to be with myself anymore
On a different day if I was safe in my own skin
then I wouldn't feel so lost and so frightened
But this is today and I'm lost in my own skin

And I'm so lonely I don't even want to be with myself anymore

I just want to feel safe in my own skin
I just want to be happy again

this connected with much of my childhood. the outsider. the forgotten. the misunderstood.

much of this is have since come to terms with, but the pain is obviously still there.

so when i got home, i went for my favourite group for solace, and restoration:

Faithless
Take The Long Way Home

I lift you off the earth mundane and glum
Out the solar system, way past the sun
Till all the fear in your heart is gone, and so on

Walking through the world with no pressure
Inner peace beyond measure
I was leaving wherever I came in
When a man said, stop
I wanna have what you have
And get what you got

I got it sleeping rough on the streets in the rain
I got it learning to share my people's pain
I got it making flowers grow in hearts of stone
I got it 'cos I always took the long way home

I got it 'cos I always took the long way home

I've been walking trough the world with no pressure
Air's fresher, full of vigour, life becomes my mirror
The further I go the more I know
Oh yeah, wherever the wind blow I'll be there

Turned up in places that I never intended to go
And so ended my youth, I once depended on proof
Now I'm in the flow, there I things I know beyond knowing
I've never seen a seed growing, I was going back home
When a man said, stop
I wanna have what you have
And get what you got

I got it sleeping rough on the streets in the rain
I got it learning to share my people's pain
I got it making flowers grow in hearts of stone
I got it 'cos I always took the long way home

I got it 'cos I always took the long way home

and that seems to be my path. the long way home.

i remembered patience. to wait. to live in the moment, and to be.


it also helped that i got an unexpected phone call today.

wherever our paths take us, we have had these moments. we are having these moments.

i have been reminded to listen.


thank you for your gift.