There is a tear in my soul.
They want me to smile,
all the time, they want me to be fine,
this world.
But I am not
(though I am.)
There is a weeping tear.
A wound unhealed and breaking
ever deeper,
every day.
I will tell you this:
I am fine.
And I am,
six colours of the rainbow, fine.
The seventh colour.
It is a golden tar.
An aching soul,
searching.
An aching child
within the hardened walls
of a happy one.
I knew it would take me there. To the place beyond everything, the place that shows me, really quite beautifully, who I truly am.
I can’t remember the last time I watched Legends of the Fall. A very long time ago. A lifetime ago, you might say, and if you did say that I wouldn’t argue with you. I last saw the movie before I had truly lived. Before I had truly ached. Before I had truly felt loss, and the echoing stillness of life’s fragility.
Last night I watched the movie through new eyes, and it tore me apart. Very beautifully, it tore me apart, but it tore me apart all the same.
It reminded me of the depth and softness of who I am.
It reminded me of the beauty of the human connection.
And it reminded me why I write: to feel and to help others feel, too.
Thank goodness I watched that movie, last night.
Thank goodness.
Love.
The great creator of song.
Without love
there is no heartache.
Without heartache
there are no scars
to weep music
from the soul.
Oh, aching heart.
Open to the wind and the rain and the blossoms that fall.
Bring me my one true love.
The girl who knows me.
The girl who’ll always catch my heart,
and hold it as if it were a little bird.
Beautiful spirit inside, light my way.
Send me the Sun.
Send it soon.
Moon sat at the edge of the rainbow,
where the dark clouds shone silver in the sky.
‘Rain if you must, dark clouds. I am ready.’
And when the rain came, moon wept
for the day that had come to an end.
‘It’s time,’ Moon said.
‘It’s time for the bright new day to begin.’
It’s the ‘broken’ people
we should be listening to.
Because it’s the ‘broken’ people
who
have
already
faced
the pain we are yet to face.
Song Writing. It’s the mash-up of my two great loves: music and writing. In fact, to be truly romantic about it, I really must confess that songwriting is also a mash-up of my heart and my soul.
I’ve written about my love of music before but the fact of the matter is— I’ve not written about it enough, and shame on me.
Because music is life.
It’s one of the most powerful universal tools we have available to us, and it should be celebrated with all the pom poms held high. Or, at least, I think it should be celebrated, and I dearly hope you’ll agree.
I know I’ve been banging on about that word lately: humanity, but I’ve come to think that it’s the sharing of our most human moments that brings meaning to these lives of ours. And here’s where music comes into it. Music lifts us, doesn’t it, it connects us? It’s our chance to link broken hearts and say, ‘You too? Doesn’t matter. We’ve got this.’
Song Writing—as with many of the creative arts disciplines— is cathartic. For me, sitting in front of that lovely little electric piano of mine, putting my inner world to music… it’s like writing a journal. It’s therapy. And it is the only energy I’ve ever felt that so closely resembles the feeling of ‘home’.
But ‘my baby’ (yes, that’s what I named my electric piano, lol) is getting old. What happens when she finally says, ‘No. I will not play for you, today, Brooke. I will not play for you ever again.’ Gosh. I can’t even think about it.
So, I’ve decided to write all the heartbreak out of me before it happens, turn my impending pain into a heartache that others can relate to: the demise of a great love. So! Let my therapy be yours. Let’s do this broken heart together, shall we?
I know that I can live without you
But do I want to try?
My everything is breaking
And you’re the reason why.
I took your song for granted
I made you play my life
Now every minute’s burning
With every twist of the knife
But I know life will go on
And to me, you’ll just become…
My forgotten love song.
(I have posted a video of me playing this song on youtube for you to have a listen to, just for a bit of something different, a bit of an interactive blog post of sorts! Please, feel free to check it out!)
If words are the darling of my mind, then music is the darling of my soul.
Today I remembered it.
Just today. When I sat at the piano and sang my soul into the moment all around me.
What darling bliss it was.
I used to write songs, you know? My first experience of the muse and its silent, roaring power.
That power.
Can you imagine? A life as a song?
My life.
Memories, and loves, and the deepest of heartaches.
Today, I remembered them all: the gifts that music gave to me.
Darling, darling music.
Same time tomorrow?
brooke-cutler.com 