Dawn Is Me

I told you before about some of my recent strolls down musical memory lane, where I’m finally admitting to myself that the ’70s was a pretty good decade.

It wasn’t all disco and polyester, ya know.

In the land of R&B/funk/jazz and the various hybrids boasting real musicians who reveled in experimenting with musical forms from other cultures, it was a real good time.

I’m remembering those days (again) via the appropriately entitled Songs In The Key Of Life.

The biggest difference between Stevie Wonder and Earth, Wind and Fire is that people have heard of Stevie Wonder. It had been such a long time since I’d listened to this amazing album that I forgot just how amazing it was.

(Another case of me having the vinyl and nothing to play it on … )

If you know me at all, then you know that all this musical stuff really, really matters to me. When I listen, really listen, to music and I tell you that it moves me, that means I can feel every instrument I hear in every cell in my body. I can’t even describe what it does to me.

If you know what I mean, you know what I mean. If you don’t, then just do yourself a favor and don’t try to talk to me while I’m singing. Or, at least, don’t talk to me if you expect me to answer you.

So, yeah, about Stevie …

When I was in high school, I belonged to an a cappella group called Octet. One of the traditions of this group was that the graduating seniors got to do a solo that was added to the repertoire for that school year.

My senior year was weird because, that year, everybody in Octet was a senior. So there was a major scramble for each senior to choose a song and for the rest of us to learn it.

My song was one of the last ones added to our … um … act. I wound up doing some Barbara Streisand ballad because the rest of the girls in the group couldn’t get it together to perform the song that was my original choice:

This is one of those songs that I’m talking about when I say I can feel the music in every cell in my body. Especially these drum rolls — they sound to me like spiritual thunder rolling right through my heart:

And, finally, nothing in particular to say about this song except that it’s a lot of fun to sing:

“Genius” is one of those words that gets thrown around a lot when it comes to music industry superstars. Personally, I think Stevie deserves the label.

(Here’s a piece of music trivia for you. Back in 1974 or so, Stevie came out with a surprisingly political song called You Haven’t Done Nothing. Singing background vocals on that cut was The Jackson 5, many years before Michael and Jermaine went solo.

At the time, The Jackson 5 was really, really huge, with worldwide audiences of fainting teenaged girls, etc., the whole nine years. But, rumor had it that they were excited and thrilled and humbled to get to sing with Stevie Wonder … ’cause, hey, it’s Stevie! Not just a star but a legend.)

(I note that WordPress wants me to upgrade to version 2.9, which is now available. Only it won’t let me upgrade WordPress until I upgrade the version of MySQL that my server is running. That’s the only complaint I have about open source software. I generally love the stuff but the upgrades are relentless and never-ending.)

New Year’s resolutions are normally something I don’t bother with because I don’t have any more faith in my ability to stick to mine than anybody else has.

But this year is different.

This year will be different from all others, if I have my way. More on that later.

So yeah … I have only one New Year’s resolution. (Kimmie tells me that I’m missing out because I just don’t spend much time staring at her and Gina’s boobs. Ah … the joys of being a mom!)

It’s this: this year, I’m going to take care of myself.

You wouldn’t think I’d have to make a resolution out of that and you wouldn’t think it’d be a very hard resolution to keep. But, see, I’m out of the habit of taking care of myself.

I’ve been a bit depressed (a bit? well, never mind) and I’ve been pretending said depression wasn’t there, distracting myself by running around taking care of everybody else.

As distractions go, it was highly successful. I can congratulate myself on what a good job I did taking care of everybody I was taking care of (and, by the way, it’s easy to distract yourself with taking care of other people when you have as many kids as I do) and I completely forgot myself.

I forgot myself so completely that, after awhile, I was only going through the motions of all the things I was supposed to be doing involving my stuff. I had lost the joy and I had even almost forgotten why I was doing it.

Right now, I find that I am killing myself. Slowly and in a very underhanded fashion, it is true, but it is also true that I am killing myself as surely as if I had a gun raised to my head and my finger was slowly tensing, ready to pull the trigger.

Only, the more rational part of my brain thinks that it would be better for me to dispense with the thing(s) in my life that make me want to kill myself (coward!) than it would be for me to dispense with me.

Which brings me back to resolving to take care of myself.

Rid myself of the drek that is sapping my strength and making my life a burden to me.

Cherish my body with all kinds of good stuff, everything from facials and hair treatments to good food and fun exercise. (I am one of the few people I know who find exercise fun, so when I’m not doing it, that means I’m punishing myself for some reason or another. FYI.)

Associate with people who enhance me rather than with people who put me down or hold me back. You know who you are … or maybe you don’t but I don’t really care whether you do or not.

I know who you are.

This is the stuff that will make 2010 much better for me than this year has been, never mind what the economy or the Congress or anybody else is doing.

I’m a little early telling you about this but no matter. I expect I’ll have other things to talk about come New Year’s Eve.

Or more things to add to this. We’ll see.

For the record, it’s nine months later and I am still a non-smoker. W00t!

I feel I have walked through the burning fires and emerged a stronger woman. And all because I got Kimmie to clean up her room last weekend. We did all her laundry, got all the clothes off the floor, threw away all the trash and put everything away.

There will be more year-end cleaning over the next couple of weeks.

I sent out the final issue of my newsletters for the year today and now I am ready to use the next three weeks or so to rest, play and look ahead to the other side.

The Other Side??? Is this where we insert spooky music or something? (Oooo-eeee-oooo)

No, nothing like that. I’m just talking about the New Year. Like some other folks I’ve talked to lately, I look forward to 2010 because I figure it couldn’t possibly be any worse than 2009 was.

I need to make plans. All sorts of plans. I’ll fill you in on what they are as time goes on, when it is safe for me to do so.

A number of people seem to think they know me.

I’m beginning to think maybe nobody does.