the living room

She always dreamed of being a singer, if not for the fame or applause or fortune, then for the feeling. She always knew the adrenaline rush, the endorphins, the physical passion and release, excitement and peace, embodiment of spiritual expression that comes from singing. It was an addiction her soul welcomed and treasured in this life...

and when no one wants to hear your song
sing it softly to yourself in your mind
and when no one wants to understand
compromise and remember to be kind
and you'll find
you can always find yourself in your mind
you can always find your peace in your mind
you can always find your love in your mind
you can always find your song in your mind

He always dreamed of being a provider, a father, a family man. There was no grand design, no lofty plan, just the comfort he felt as a child in his parent's home. He sought no more from life, no other thrill, no greater pleasure than to come home to someone who loved him, someone who would always be there to take care of him. It was a habit he accepted as the way life was meant to be...

and when no one wants to hear your song
sing it softly to yourself in your mind
and when no one wants to understand
compromise and remember to be kind
and you'll find
you can always find yourself in your mind
you can always find your peace in your mind
you can always find your love in your mind
you can always find your song in your mind

But this is her story, or at least her chapter.

She felt crushed at the start of this thought, before realizing the truth in the song above, but him, not so much so, for he has come to expect this. He works 2:00AM to Noon, at least, with Tuesday and Saturday nights off, so he sleeps every evening (his bedtime is about when she gets home from work) except some Saturday nights (when he can stay awake, which isn't often). They met when they both worked night shift and seemed to fit into each other's lives.

Now that she works what is basically a 9-5 weekday gig, there is no time in this space for her to turn up the music and do the singing that brought her peace. That makes it very challenging to call it her home and therefore, in many ways, it isn't. Just one more reason she's not actually moved in to the space he calls home.

Apparently, in a rare moment of Friday night bliss after reading the optimism of her early journal entries visiting strangers she'd like to call friends but only knows through reading their blogs on the internet, she had an epiphany. She was listening to some Elvis Costello and drifting back to very early dreams her heart makes, or used to make and then put on a Harry Chapin CD called Legends of the Lost and Found, hoping to distract herself from the silence (or droning of TV) that she was reluctantly learning to live with.

Suddenly, the Stranger With The Melodies called her out. She almost started singing (what I mean is, she started singing and almost found her voice again. I am not sure if you know what I mean, but when you find your voice and sing from deep within, physically and ethereally, no matter how softly you sing, the flimsy walls of an apartment are nothing and the sound energy passes through with ease).

For a brief few moments, she forgot the mostly dead life she'd become accustomed to living while sharing space in recent years. A life in which creativity is a spectator sport and she suppresses her energy (including the singer) so as not to intrude upon his space so he can do what he loves to do most, fall asleep watching TV. You may know that suppressing a voice and still trying to sing, well, produces singing is not very good. In fact, as Harry would suggest, it sucks... and it leaves one open to honest appraisal (or harsh criticism) of a half-hearted attempt at carrying a tune, even ridicule.

And it woke him, which brought him out to the living room where he turned on the TV and promptly fell asleep with his fingers wrapped around the remote in his lap.

So she stopped singing again. She never really got started and she realized that the space is not available for a person trying to express herself with her voice.

Welcome to the living room.

The irony, or perhaps it is synchronicity, is she returned to browsing the web and found words that reached deep into her sleeping psyche in this entry (perhaps I should include the entry here if this chapter is ever published, but I'll leave that for the editor, or for you to click on and read for yourself before reading on here... go ahead, these words will still be here when you get back) and she felt compelled to share these thoughts in a comment:

the scariest thought I ever heard come from my mind was what you said, "maybe if you become them, you'll understand..."

in my own way, many times, out of loneliness, out of desire to please, out of compromise, out of desire for peace, out of so many well-intended reasons, I tried every way i could to become them, to fit in, to share what they shared, to feel less alone in this world...

nothing worked for long... I always sobered up - or woke up... and everything was the same... they were in what seemed to me to be a fog of pretense and hypocrisy and I was sitting on the sidelines of their games wondering what they got out of them, for they left me unsatisfied and often, feeling stained, corrupted, tainted, spoiled, even dirty...

ah, "stop messing with my mind..."

yes! :)

if you understand what I just said, thank you for sharing this smile :)

And here we are. As if we are sitting in her living room, listening to her confess her private thoughts. We find ourselves reading a chapter from the private journal of a woman unsatisfied with the life offline.

Somewhere in her mind she imagines publishing her writings, perhaps in a blog on the web, in some faint hope of finding the satisfaction, the connection, the release that is missing from her life.

Someone who might understand.

We find her feeling the music, feeling closer to the singer and the song, yet finding no space to let the song energy out. So she comes back to the words and keeps the music in her head. It feels just as good to release the energy into written words, just in a different way. Physical, but not as physical. Real, but not as real. A compromise that allows some sharing, but just not all the sharing she'd like. She's lived alone and sung to the empty space, even sang to her dog, and somehow, as wonderful as it was for the body and spirit, it was so lonely.

There are these moments when she misses singing space and she mourns the distance that has grown between the singer and the person she's become in daily life, but she's come to terms with her decision to share space and therein share what she can share (which depends on those around her), even if it means suppressing some of the physical joy she can experience and share in this life rather than live alone and "share" only with herself. So like her hero, Mr. Tanner, she sings softly to herself as she sorts through his laundry or prepares the meals he'll eat on his schedule.

She treasures moments like these, sitting at her computer, living through the written word and singing softly to herself, and to Wacko, Yacko, and Dot, to Cinderella and Prince Charming, to the MTV Spaceman, to the Scarecrow, Tin Woodsman, and Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz, to Peter Pan and Tinkerbell, and to Wesley from The Princess Bride, her most loyal long-time fans who sit on her monitor smiling lovingly down at her.

She hopes that this does not mean she is dying, she simply living a normal life. She's never been able to lose herself or her dreams, even when she most diligently tried. Given a moment of free time and space, like right now, she forgets her daily life and soars back into herself where she is most at home.

Then, just as suddenly as this thought began, his snoring grabs her attention and she looks over at the couch. She watches him smiling in his sleep and for a moment, dreams of sharing her true self with him. She looks around the living room and realizes she decorated it. She chose the pictures on the walls, the rugs on the floor, and the couch that is so often his bed.

And as she comes through this journey of thought in these words, she is no longer feeling crushed at all, but rather, she is feeling comfortable and appreciated for what she gives that others appreciate. She accepts her compromise for the moment and returns to her dreams. And what no one appreciates, she simply enjoys by herself, inside, where it is most real.

And she remembers the words her mother told her when she was very young, words she might embroider on a tapestry one day as she sees a lot of free time at home ahead.

Stay true to your dreams and your true self, dear friends (and strangers too), and remember where you live and who you are... it is your mind, where your dreams live always, no matter how others might ignore, not notice, or even try to mess with it.

And she sings...

and when no one wants to hear your song
sing it softly to yourself in your mind
and when no one wants to understand
compromise and remember to be kind
and you'll find
you can always find yourself in your mind
you can always find your peace in your mind
you can always find your love in your mind
you can always find your song in your mind