Courting the Muse

I've been aching to post something here for six weeks. Several things were started and left unfinished. There were ideas! Ideas! IDEAS! But an idea gets you only so far. You have to just start writing and court the muse.

The things started were essays, memoirs, revised chapters of my novel, and many other false starts. So I tried lyrics, and that was what did it. (Or perhaps the difference was that I shut the door for an entire weekend and decided I was going to produce something.)

And then a funny thing happened....

I wrote a melody, too. Here is my first original song, Vera and Tim.

Vera and Tim

The windy wait outside the taproom

Puts us close in space

Facing one another near your friends

After all we said we wanted, there’s a reckoning

So many beginnings, all these ends

Chorus

And we’ll say it was the child in us.

We’d never lose again.

And we’ll say that we were winners.

And they’ll say they knew us when.

Oh, oh, oh, Vera and Tim

How we ache in private, does it show in public places?

Held together silently by scripts

How about forgiveness, does it crease and crimp our faces?

There’s a trace of mercy in your grip

(Chorus)

There you are inside the treehouse

Shuttering one dream

Earnestly assembling wooden toys

From that height I know you have a telescopic view

Up above the neighbors’ girls and boys

(Chorus)

--

I am relieved that I can finally put this story to rest. It's about a miscarriage (not mine) and pieces of this story have emerged elsewhere. With The Answer is Seven I had tried to make a song out of this chorus, but back then it floated around and never turned into anything we could work with. Later I discovered The Nice Trys, who have a song called Mr. Spaceboy that always makes me cry. I know that it used to be called Veronica's Miscarriage. (And I must say that as a superfan, it's a lot easier to should out "Mr. Spaceboy!" at a concert than "Veronica's Miscarriage!") Either way, it's very powerful subject matter so I thought I would return to it, court the muse, and do something. I did.