Let your words be anything but empty*

Brave is Sara Bareilles’ new single for her upcoming album.

The title seems to be a give away on what the song is all about. Midst its inspirational and motivational tone, I am more interested in how it suggests the power of words. A word is but a small element that makes up a statement or a story. One word suggests an array of meanings and one placed after another could mean so much more. It can convey feelings and emotions and beliefs. It can be a weapon, a shield, an armor, an amulet.

Words can hurt, liberate, and inspire.

Listen to the song. What words went right through you?

*Lyrics from the song

Signed, Calendar Girl

If I am lost for a day; try to find me
But if I don’t come back, then I won’t look behind me
All of the things that I thought were so easy
Just got harder and harder each day
December is darkest and June is the light but this empty bedroom won’t make anything right
While out on the landing a friend I forgot to send home
Who waits up for me all through the night

Calendar Girl who’s in love with the world Stay alive
Calendar Girl who’s in love with the world Stay alive

I dreamed I was dying; as I so often do
And when I awoke I was sure it was true
I ran to the window; threw my head to the sky
And said whoever is up there,please don’t let me die

But I can’t live forever,I can’t always be
One day I’ll be sand on a beach by a sea
The pages keep turning, I’ll mark off each day with a cross
And I’ll laugh about all that we’ve lost

Calendar Girl who is lost to the world Stay Alive
Calendar Girl who is lost to the world Stay Alive

January, February, March, April, May I’m alive
June, July, August, September,October I’m alive
November, December, you all through the winter, I’m alive
I’m alive

*Because I found this pretty apt for my birthday and for the past year and for the 276 months of existence. Birthday blogs (yes, that came with an S) coming up soon.

And to this day, when everything breaks, you are the anchor that holds me

One of my favorite Stars tracks to make up for the blog backlog. It’s actually pretty appropriate for today.

I was always late, you never afraid, that we could be falling
All our friends would say, maybe we should wait, but they can’t see what’s coming
And to this day, when everything breaks, you are the anchor that holds me

And that is why we’ll always make it

How I know your face, all the ways you move, you come in, I can read you
You’re my favourite book
All the things you say, the way you shift your eyes
I never knew there was someone, to make me come alive

When the days are long, and the thunder with the storm, can always get me crying
You can make my bed, I’ll fall into it, shattered but not lonely
Because I never knew a home, until I found your hands, when I’m weathered
You come to me, you’re my best friend

And that is why we’ll always make it

How I know your face, all the ways you move, you come in, I can read you
You’re my favourite book
All the things you say, the way you shift your eyes
I never knew there was someone, to make me come alive

And when we’re making love
I’d give up everything up for your touch

How I know your face, all the ways you move, you come in, I can read you
You’re my favourite book
All the things you say, the way you shift your eyes
I never knew there was someone, to make me come alive

When you go to work all the day I wait
For you to come home, recount our time, in our little place

The 11 Tracks of 2011 – Perhaps The Late-st New Year Post

I have mentioned in my previous blog that I am to answer the generic 2011 survey, but I chose to skip it this time since a.) friends have already done it in their blogs b.) I’ve done that in facebook and multiply some N years ago and c.) I don’t feel like answering a roster of questions as if I’m in a talkshow or something.

I’d opt for a mixtape of sorts instead. 11 tracks for 2011. Yes, what a concept concerning numbers! I guess I will have to try to be more creative next time. Also, all links lead to last. fm since it’s the easiest way for me to search and backtrack my 2011 playlist and ponder about last year through music. FYI, I had my last.fm resurrected/reactivated last year. 🙂

So here goes a little of 2011:

  • Friends Lovers or Nothing by John Mayer – Vague boundaries and uncertainties. Proof that one small lacking thing makes a whole lot of difference to the whole. Lessons in unity of opposites learned.

 

 

This is the last time I’ll ever say I love you/This is the last night I’ll fall among these graves/The first and last time that I’ve cried/And walk beneath the dark lonely sky

  • Happy by Natasha Bedingfield – Instant get-happy song. Reminds me of good little things around and all the reasons to foster a positive disposition.

Keep your pride young girl/It’s your life, it’s your world

  • The Quiz by Hello Saferide – My questions and riddles. Your wit and unpredictable ways. Exactly the prelude to our story.

 

  • One Sweet Love by Sara Bareilles – To being lost and found, and the anticipation between. Because all Sara Bareilles songs need not be sad and sappy, some just have to be slow and sweet.

 

 

  • We Will Not Grow Old by Lenka – Says as much as Jewel’s This Way but with a more upbeat and playful touch. Cheers to our youthful hearts!

 

 

  • Your Song by Ellie Goulding – Part of the random mixtape of us I made up in my head. When no song seems to fit us, this might be probably apt. Or so I said because this is one song I wish I could sing you, or maybe I would, one day.

 

Let’s Keep a Random Mixtape for Now

The other day’s raging storm has afforded me to spend its entirety at home. It has also provided me a pensive feeling of sorts, which I usually acknowledge, but chosen to discard since I had deadlines to beat.

In the midst of lay-outing and putting in data for the catalog I am working on, a friend sent me a message asking what our song was. Initially, I was drawn to the Stars’ Heart album which was playing on loop since god-knows-when-time I started working that day. But no, not a single record seemed relevant to us. My phone signaled an arrival of another message. It was my friend again, with some cheesy line of a song she deemed perfect for her and her boyfriend of four years.

“Tides they turn and hearts disfigure but that’s no concern, we’re wounded together… All the wait was so worth it.”

So it said. We are in no way synonymous to that. Not even a tiny portion, I guess.

But I am not in a hurry looking for that perfect  song. All I have now is words, hundreds or even millions of them, and a playlist of more than a thousand songs.

“I know it’s not much, but it’s the best I can do. My gift is my song, and this one’s for you.”

Our young hearts and yet short history can offer one each day. You can even play a different song with your guitar every night. Let’s make a random mixtape of our songs for now – we shall settle for whatever fits the moment.

No need to worry, no need to hurry, because one day we shall just find our hearts singing to that one song over and over again.

Your Almost Lover is Dead*

*Allusion to Stars’ Your Ex-Lover is Dead

When there is nothing left to burn 
You have to set yourself on fire 

God that was strange to see you again
Introduced by a friend of a friend
Smiled and said ‘yes I think we’ve met before’
In that instant it started to pour,
Captured a taxi despite all the rain
We drove in silence across Pont Champlain
And all of the time you thought I was sad
I was trying to remember your name…

It was like a dream.

It was like a nightmare.

To awaken from a deep slumber of our souls and ghosts meeting again.

This scar is a fleck on my porcelain skin
Tried to reach deep but you couldn’t get in
Now you’re outside me
You see all the beauty
Repent all your sin

I have never traced stars on your skin.

Yours were my first constellations.

With every little touch, be it under the rain or midst the cold wind, they sparkle.

You did not have the chance to feel them.

You have not seen them even.

You were gone, long before they existed.

It’s nothing but time and a face that you lose
I chose to feel it and you couldn’t choose
I’ll write you a postcard
I’ll send you the news
From a house down the road from real love…

You were the same words I have spoken since the first day.

We have forgotten the poetry we have weaved together.

But I still use the same rules we have established in writing my love letters.

I have sealed them each in an envelope.

I have kept it under my earth and shall be excavated and sent to your doorstep with a ribbon only when I’m forever gone.

Live through this, and you won’t look back…
Live through this, and you won’t look back…
Live through this, and you won’t look back…

Au Revoir

There’s one thing I want to say, so I’ll be brave
You were what I wanted
I gave what I gave
I’m not sorry I met you
I’m not sorry it’s over
I’m not sorry there’s nothing to save

Our bleeding tongues met in prose and poetry engraved in stones.

So I have bled during confession, yet ceased to do so after which.

And shall bleed of you no more.

I’m not sorry there’s nothing to save…