Sunday afternoon

[mdlbear]

Walked around the Rose Garden today; that, and pretty much the entire day so far, have been spent working on Quiet Victories. There's a rough but "complete" lyric and a corresponding recording. I may have them up in a few days, but there are some people whose personal stories a couple of verses are based on, and I had to give them a head start in case they wanted to kill me first.

Hmm. Could post some of it...

(first 4 lines instrumental)
Sit down with me and talk a while;
And please believe me when I say
I don't need much to make me smile,
Just tell me how you spent your day.
  Forget heroic fantasy
  That's not the tale I need to hear,
  Tell me of quiet victory
  Of of love and life against your fear.

Don't tell me of the Amazon
The battle-lust that fills her breast;
Just tell me what the mirror showed: 
A warrior's scar across your chest.
Would he still love you after that?
Would you die beneath the knife?
The cancer gave you Devil's odds;
You rolled the dice and won your life.
  And still you see your friends and kin
  Roll the dice, to lose or gain
  Against the old familiar foes
  Grief and fear and death and pain.

...

That tale of dwarves, and rings of gold,
Dragons flying through the air
Is that the movie that your girl
Was watching in intensive care?
And when at last she's home again,
You dread the word you'll have to say:
She asks, can she walk home from school?
You swallow hard, and say ``OK''.
  Tires squeal all afternoon;
  Tbe sirens make your blood run cold.
  She'll be a woman all too soon;
  You let her grow up strong and bold.

  Forget heroic fantasy
  That's not the tale I need to hear,
  Tell me of quiet victory
  Of love and life against your fear.

  Here's to the women, gently brave
  Mothers, daughters, lovers, wives,
  And to the quiet victories
  We seldom notice in their lives.

That last verse made Colleen cry; I'm probably onto something. The first verse, with all due respect to the brave ladies whose posts started me down this road, is about my mother, who earned her Amazon's scars half a century ago.

If you've stayed with me this far, your comments would be very welcome. The overall structure is still rather unstable, especially the first partial verse and the ending.

As for getting much of anything else done over the weekend, well... I'll make some repairs to the drip irrigation system in the front yard, after the gardener (a friend of jilara's) is finished with rakes and shovels and other implements of potential destruction to hoses.

My current web publishing scheme has become distinctly haphazard. It's all because my "main" site is still on rahul.net under thestarport.org, in spite of the fact that everything's really on dreamhost and could be updated trivially by rsync and maybe some symlinks.

6-9 08:14 Will post in full, with music, later this evening after I've had a chance to make a few edits and cut a new recording.

current mood: high

Comments

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

Hm! Well, you've seen my F-locked posts abt my ladythe past 4 wks, so you can guess how this strikes me!
One fix: "Against the old famiar foes" ==> ...fam{il}iar

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

PS: She says hi & sends greetings to your mom.

[mdlbear]

Hi back, and thanks.

Yes, those were part of the inspiration.

[mdlbear]

http://mdlbear.livejournal.com/838330.html

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

Uhhh... "Against the old fam_liar foes" is still cyclopean (one eye short).

[mdlbear]

Thanks. I seem to have had it misspelled two or three different ways in different places.

[harmonyheifer.livejournal.com]

Wow, yeah, I teared up too. You are definitely on to something that I think is more universal than you might realize. I think there are more people out there than anyone might guess who are unwilling to show others, sometimes even friends and families just how hard getting through some days can actually be. Mostly because there is no sense in dwelling on it, but also because it just upsets people.

The truth is, that usually when someone asks you how you are, they really don't want to hear anything but "fine," for a response. Try giving someone a blow-by-blow detailed response sometime just as an experiment and see if their eyes don't glaze over pretty quick if you think I'm wrong. Actually, it is kind of amusing to see someone look that horrified if they get anything but the expected response. Male grocery store check-out clerks freak if you do this. Older women almost always get the joke pretty quick. Some of the really quick witted ones get into the spirit and give it right back. I once got three lanes of women in the grocery store griping and laughing at how they "really were" one day. The poor 18 year old boy that had started it with his innocent query froze like a rabbit in the headlights once we got rolling. It was hysterical, but also a bit sad and we all knew it. Sometimes you laugh cause the alternative is to cry.

And you made me cry. Not many filk songs have ever made me cry and this isn't even finished. This is pretty deep stuff for a self professed "clueless geek." Like most nerd men I have known in my life, you are an onion. The more layers we peel, the more layers we expose. I can't wait to hear the final version.

[mdlbear]

Well, it was _meant_ to be universal, though to do a proper job of that I'd need at least a dozen more verses rather than just the two more I didn't post. It was the last verse that got to Colleen, BTW.

I may have to open it up for suggestions, and let it accumulate verses like "Old Time Religion".

I have the same feeling about "how are you doing?" -- if you don't want to know, don't ask. I get especially annoyed by the stupid joggers who ask it as they brush past you on the bike trail. OTOH, I got a really nice couple of smiles on my walk yesterday when I asked back and stuck around for the answer.

[mdlbear]

http://mdlbear.livejournal.com/838330.html with audio