Carry

Carry
(song lyrics) by Tori Amos

Love, hold my hand, help me see with the dawn
that those that have left are not gone

But they carry on as stars looking down
as Nature's Sons and Daughters of the Heavens

You will not ever be forgotten by me
In the precession of the mighty stars

Your name is sung and tattooed on my heart
here I will carry you forever

You have touched my life
so that now cathedrals of sound are singing

The waves have come to walk with you
to where you will live in the Land of Youth

Meeting Tori Amos

Well, once again this blog has been woefully neglected. Life has gotten in the way, but I'm going to try again. I still want to use this blog for the good and positive, but I must start out with one of the highlights of my summer to get caught up.  I met my musical idol of the past two decades - Tori Amos.

If you don't know Tori's work I wouldn't necessarily recommend her to you. It seems like you would have been drawn to her music already if you needed it.  She is definitely an acquired taste.  Many people say they like her from hearing a radio hit or two from the '90's, but to really follow her through the years has been a true blessing in my life.  One of the reasons is because my daughter and I share the same love of Tori.  I'm not sure how that happened, but probably because she was forced to listen to "Little Earthquakes" obsessively in her young teens and she was perceptive enough to get it. We have gone to many concerts together (even once in NYC) and we did that this past August 7th when Tori came to Cain Park in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.

I had read that Tori would greet her fans before the show, so on the day of the show I called the venue and was told the "meet and greet" started at 2:00. It was 12:45.  I called my daughter, we pondered it for a moment and simultaneously said "I'll be ready in 10 minutes and meet you there."  We got there at the same time and went to the end of a line of probably 100 people. We stayed pretty much at the end of that line until 5:30 when we were approaching Tori.

Tori Amos had stood outside and greeted every single fan individually. She hugged, listened, signed things, took photos and treated every single fan as if they were the only ones there. Tori fans, you see, adore HER, not just her music. Her lyrics make you think she's written them just for you.  I was trying to prepare myself for being cut off because of the time because it was one of those too-good-to-be-true moments. My daughter was an emotional wreck as we got closer and closer.

What do you say to someone you have felt bonded to for over 20 years? To someone who has touched and healed you? What do you say to the ONLY famous person you've ever really wanted to meet?

I didn't want to say what the last 100 people had said - your music saved my life when I was drowning in despair - I've loved you since "Little Earthquakes" - I have memorized every one of your hundreds of songs - blah, blah, blah.

So I told her that my daughter and I were together at every concert and that we had a mother-daughter dance to her song "Body and Soul" at her wedding. I told her she had helped me become a poet and I gave her my poetry book "Veracity".  She looked at it as if it was a precious jewel then looked at me and said, "You wrote this Diane? Thank you."

But I wanted my daughter to have the time she needed so I brought her forward and I moved back to take photos of the moment.  The photos show Tori immediately engaged with my daughter, taking her arms and speaking to her with intensity. Somehow Tori knew exactly what to say to my daughter that day - like she had a sixth sense. I won't share what was said, but it was beautiful.

We walked away crying and saying "did that just happen?"A truly surreal moment in life.  One I will never forget.  Even better, my son and his wife joined us for the two-hour spectacular concert that night.

I am not a groupie or an idolizer. I hate celebrities and celebrity worship and everything they stand for in today's society. That is NOT what this is. It is being touched by someone doing what God created them to do. Tori was a child prodigy and got kicked out of a prestigious school as a young girl for rebelling against what she was supposed to play - and that has been her legacy. She is 100% who she was born to be. I admire and respect that. I LOVE her music and the lyrics, and watching her greet every fan as she did that day made me love her even more.

Tori Amos is 51. I am a bit older, but the music is growing with her. Her most recent album contains songs about the experience of aging. I can't get that from a 24 year old pop star.  We're growing together and that is a rare and lovely thing.

Carry

lyrics by Tori Amos
from Night of Hunters


Love hold my hand
Help me see you with the dawn
That those who have left
Are not gone

But they carry on
As stars looking down
As nature's sons
And daughters of the heavens

You will not ever be forgotten by me
In the procession of the mighty stars
Your name is sung and tattooed now on my heart
Here I will carry, carry, carry you forever

You have touched my life so that now
Cathedrals of sound are singing
The waves have come to walk with you
To where you will live in the land of you

I will carry you forever

(Thinking of Louie 2/14/84 to 2/23/11)

The Power of Music and Lyrics

I have sung in choirs and choruses, at weddings and as a church soloist all my life. I've been transported to heaven singing Brahm's German Requiem. I've been honored to sing at weddings of people I don't know. All my life I've had the privilege of choosing songs that were meaningful to me to share with a congregation. But I don't listen to these songs in my car, walking with my ipod, or at home. I exclusively listen to music for lyrics that evoke a certain emotion in me. It's a habit I've had for almost twenty years since a single CD changed me. It was a time when I was experiencing every negative emotion humanly possible, and sometimes no emotion at all. Although it was a tumultuous and frightening time, it also gave me a rush of something new, something swiftly approaching, a nascent hope and a release from the monotony of a former life. Sometimes I listen to those songs just to experience that rush again. Or the one song that still makes me flinch.

There were two CDs that connected to my very soul. One was Tori Amos's Little Earthquakes. With piano sounds and lyrics I'd never heard before, it gave me permission to be angry (which I desperately needed), to scream, to make me feel alive again. I believe I started writing poetry because her lyrics were poetry to me. On the way home from divorce court I loudly sang along with the song "Little Earthquakes" - give me life, give me pain, give me myself again.
The song "Crucify" asked - why do we crucify ourselves everyday? I crucify myself and nothing I do is good enough for you.
"Tear in Your Hand" said - you don't know the power you have with that tear in your hand.
She sang to me - she's been everybody else's girl, maybe one day she'll be her own.
And - sometimes I hear my voice and it's been HERE - silent all these years.
And - these precious things - let them bleed, let them wash away....

Then, the underrated Kenny Loggins made a CD called Leap of Faith, and I thought he was in my brain. It seemed he was feeling the same things I was:
And if I have to make up my mind, maybe now is the time to decide. Every minute makes it harder on me. Why must it be now or never?

Then in "Leap of Faith" he sang - Once in a life you can find the time to see. Then you get to take it down, turn around, temporary sanity. And then the mountain disappears without a trace - and all it took was a sudden leap of faith.

He sang to his daughter in "The Real Thing" - I did it for you and the boys, because love should teach you joy, and not the imitation that your mama and daddy tried to show you. I did it for you and for me and because I still believe there's only one thing you can never give up on and that's the real thing you need in love.


And I played that song for people to try to explain why my life had fallen apart. At the end of that song he sings:
Everybody's got a boat upon the ocean, but not everybody's sailing out to sea. Is there someone there for me? I'm ready to believe...

AND SO - the last song of that album is called "Too Early for the Sun." It was a few years before I could relate to that one:
You're too early for the stars, too early for the wind
too early for my heart to open up again
but when I see you I just laugh, and I believe
I'm right where I'm supposed to be.
I have never known a life like this except in my dreams
one kiss and I arose anew, now I am alive
I have survived.

And so - after seasons of pain and anger, healing and forgiveness - this was our first dance in my living room. This was our first dance as husband and wife. This is our dance every July 6th in our living room. The album Leap of Faith came full circle in my life - how appropriate.

These songs, these lyrics had a powerful effect on me. Some of them changed me, grew me, and healed me. I will always be grateful that these artists sang their truths because they made me understand my own truth. Music still does that for me.

Gold Dust

These are my children at ages 4 and 2 - Oh, so long ago. I think about the lyrics to a Tori Amos song called Gold Dust:

How did it go so fast?
You'll say as we are looking back
And then we'll understand
we held gold dust in our hands . . . .

Children Singing

The voices of singing children always makes me cry - but in this video they are singing a song by my girl, Tori Amos! It is the PS22 school in NYC. I love the looks on some of their faces - they've been watching a lot of American Idol, I believe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfHXm8F13f8

Tori Day

Today is a Tori day - just need to hear her all day. I've had many Tori days. . . . But tonight I have to go to choir and sing Vivaldi's Gloria - gotta love the musical paradox.

Kinda like my life right now - beauty and two varieties of pain.

Winter

A song by Tori Amos

Snow can wait, I forgot my mittens
wipe my nose, get my new boots on
I get a little warm in my heart
when I think of winter
I put my hand in my father's glove

I run off where the drifts get deeper
Sleeping Beauty trips me with a frown
I hear a voice - you must learn to stand up
for yourself 'cause I can't always be around
he says
When you gonna make up you mind?
When you gonna love you as much as I do?
When you gonna make up your mind
'cause things are gonna change so fast
all the white horses are still in bed
I tell you that I'll always want you near
You say that things change, my dear

Boys get discovered as winter melts
flowers competing for the sun
years go by and I'm here still waiting
withering where some snowman was
Mirror, mirror where's the crystal palace
but I can only see myself
skating around the truth who I am
but I know Dad, the ice is getting thin

Hair is gray and the fires are burning
so many dreams on the shelf
you say I wanted you to be proud of me
I always wanted that myself

Never was a Cornflake Girl

I am fascinated and a little envious of people who are blatantly and successfully doing what they were born to do. Individuals given such an obvious and inflated gift that they had no choice but to use it and share it with the world. I think Tori Amos is one of those people. My daughter and I continued our tradition of experiencing our favorite music together this weekend at Tori's Madison Square Garden concert in NYC. (I really hate the way the word awesome has been abused and I rarely use it - but sorry - it was awesome! )

I discovered Tori around 1990 when I was in the middle of a life crisis. Her music gave me permission to be angry, to be a woman, a human being. It was like years of therapy in a CD called Little Earthquakes. I became obsessed with every word, every piano cord, every nuance of the CD. If women had balls - hers would be the biggest. She never sells out, is never mainstream in any way - musically, visually, spiritually. She crosses generations. When she sang Winter my daughter and I held hands and cried.

Tori can do anything with her piano, she can do anything with her voice - they are one artform. Her music has taught me, healed me, and I believe, inspired my poetry. We spent two hours, with thousands of other Toriphiles, and drank in the emanations, the vibrations, and the beauty of the music.

I hope I don't sound like a celebrity worshiper, because I am anti-celebrity if anything. It is just a great experience seeing and hearing someone do what she was born to do.

I Love New York

I am sitting here in New York City - well actually Astoria, Queens - with my beloved daughter. For the last two days we shopped in Manhattan till we dropped and now (as of the fifth inning) we are watching the Indians kick butt. I got to chat with the glorious fashion designer Betsey Johnson. We bought my Italian hubby Italian cookies in Little Italy (and he'll get the ones we didn't eat.) But the highlight was watching Tori Amos sing her beauty for two solid hours last night at Madison Square Garden. Life is good.
Oh! they're playing Cleveland Rocks on the TV - but I'm rambling - a good dinner, a little too much wine and great people will do that to ya. More tomorrow when I come back to the real world.
Kate fell down and got four boo-boos.

It's all good (except the boo-boos - but it was funny.)