Booking through Thursday

Here is my Booking Through Thursday post. This week the question is about words for songs, and how those speak to people, so you can see what you make of this when you are a big girl!

Q: What songs … either specific songs, or songs in general by a specific group or writer … have words that you love?

A: My answer to this question would probably be different had I answered this question 5 years ago, and 10 years ago, and 15 years ago. My taste in music doesn't ever seem to change, but it grows broader and more inclusive as I get older. I do sometimes listen to the radio in the car, and I hear my Dad's voice come out of my mouth when I tell my husband, 'Now, that is not music - that is just noise....' when something very modern comes on. But equally I love some really strange contemporary things too, so there is just no telling.

I love songs that make you want to jump around and dance, really upbeat things that you can sing along too loudly, and badly, and watch your little face in bewilderment at all the unfolding nonsense! But lyrics that touch you are something else indeed.

The singer and songs that most speak to me now are ones that I only started to listen to about 2 years ago. Daddy introduced me to Joni Mitchell, and I sometimes have a wee quiet cry in the car when one of her songs come on (more so when I was pregnant and overflowing with all the hormones Mother Nature was pumping round my system, gotta love the way you become the Mother of all Living when your baby is dancing along to the music in your belly!) Her voice is so poignant, and her lyrics so affecting. The ones which really do it for me are:-

'I remember that time you told me

You said "Love is touching souls"

Surely you touched mine

Cause part of you pours out of me

In these lines from time to time'

These are from 'A Case of You' - and I actually have a version of Brian Kennedy singing this (from years ago) which I loved, before I realised it wasn't his song. I will play both to you when you are older and you can choose your favourite, sweetie.

And the other one that makes me cry without fail is from 'Little Green' - another one that blows the pregnant mind. I think I remember reading that Joni Mitchell wrote this for her little girl, who she had secretly while at college and had adopted without telling anyone. They were later reunited when her daughter was older, but having had a daughter of my own hearing this song reduces me to sobs as soon as it starts, just thinking about what she went through alone with her little baby girl.

Child with a child pretending

Weary of lies you are sending home

So you sign all the papers in the family name

You're sad and you're sorry but you're not ashamed

Little green have a happy ending

It is nice to know though, that having been reunited in later life both did have that happy ending.

Booking through Thursday

These questions are so appropriate at this time of the year, and since one of my New Year ASPIRATIONS (!!!) was to read more than I did in 2008 I am looking forward to answering the questions very much!!

I started a list of books I would love to get around to reading in 2009 on my blog so that it would remind me every time I logged in that I could be reading a book instead of other peoples blogs - but aren't they the same thing??

Two books I have owned for a number of years (shamefully too many to admit....) and always been too daunted by their size to start (because something was always coming down the tracks that would get in the way...) are the Gormenghast Trilogy (Mervyn Peake) and A Suitable Boy (Vikram Seth) Perhaps this is the year that one or both of those books finds their way into my handbag. That would be very pleasing.

I should also read more historical books - to get a better understanding of the past that has brought me to where I am today - but I think sometimes reading historical books is tinged with a sadness for what has been lost rather than what could be coming!

Whatever I read will be shoe-horned into those few hours my darling daughter is asleep and I am not, and the endless visits to The Wheels of the Bus - which I suspect will be what I actually end up reading in 2009.

7 things to be thankful for....

Darling Baby Kay - I found the nicest blog today - it's called Booking through Thursday - and it's a bit like a project blog. It gives you little things to do or think about, and you add them to your blog, and it hopefully gives people an insight into who you are. Lists of things, and questions, and 'to-dos' and all sorts of other things - all to do with reading and books, which you will come to find out are very important to me. I am going to give one of them a go here and maybe you can read it someday and find out a few things about your Mummy that you didn't know.

Here are 7 things I am thankful for:-

1. You - my darling little girl - and that you are happy and healthy;
2. Your Daddy - my best friend, my soul-mate - and the kind of man that I hope you will grow up to marry someday too.
3. Right now in our lives everyone is healthy and life is good - this has been a year of wonderful babies - you, Baby M, Baby E - a year of additions, rather than last year which was a year of losses.
4. Having wonderful friends - old ones like Jude and Kate B - but also new ones, like the lovely Joanne next door to us. When you get past 35 sometimes it seems like it is harder to make new friends, but other times someone crosses your path and it's like you are meant to be there for each other going forward. I hope you are blessed with the kind of friends that your Mummy has been lucky enough to have in her life.
5. I am thankful that because of your wonderful Daddy I do not have to go back to work just yet, and that I get to spend every day with you. I am there in the mornings, I get to feed you during the day, read to you, wriggle on the floor with you, see your smiles and listen to your adorable laughs when you get the giggles. I am not missing this unique time with you; time I would never have again and which it so precious for me.
6. Our wonderful, warm, safe home - where I feel settled and content, and am in a place where I feel like I could be for a very long time (DV...)
7. Finally I am thankful to have the freedom to be who I want to be, to read the books that interest and challenge me, to say what I think and have my beliefs honoured and respected, to not live in fear and to be able to close my eyes at night and feel that I am blessed.

I could go on and on here - but I will leave it at those 7 things. At times like this when the economy is in trouble, and the weather is cold, and the evenings draw in early it can be so easy to forget the things in our lives that are good.

I hope you grow up to be an optimist like your Daddy - and that your glass is always half-full my darling.