Upon waking this “Mayday” I was greeted by that term on the morning news. The only meaning I have for it is the distress call “Mayday! Mayday!”. In looking back upon my journey through loss over this past year, I have uttered that cry many times. The nuances of “move on”, “let go”, “go forward”, etc. have been thrust upon me by many sources. In my quest I have found that forward isn’t always the best direction to go when trying to heal oneself. Remember the old adage “hindsight is 20/20”. Sometimes looking back to a time in your life when you found yourself in a similar place and rediscovering what helped you save your life back then, might be a good thing to try now. Wednesday night, on American Idol, my Carole King Tapestry album was resurrected. I immediately downloaded it.
Back in the early seventies, when I was a mere youngster in my mid-twenties trying to figure out how to live life as an adult, with a marriage, a mortgage, and a career, that album got me through what was the toughest year of my life, until now. My husband and I became separated for the better part of a year. I can still picture my Carole King cassette, with it’s clear plastic box cracked and the words worn off the cassette itself from so much in and out of the tape decks everywhere I went. I drove with it, walked with it, slept with it, and above all cried with it. Every song touched my soul and spoke directly to our sad situation. It was in those songs I found hope and answers. I did a lot of praying too, but my faith in God was so new back then, He had to find other ways to reach me. It was in those songs, when I was so alone (everyone, including my parents, was on my husband’s “side”) I found words that said “I understand”.
Today, on this Mayday morning, I was happily surprised to discover my download of Tapestry as I set about choosing music for today’s beach walk. As I set off down the street, “I feel the Earth move under my feet …” blared through my headphones. Just as it did, back in ’79, the pavement somewhere inside me seemed to move and another shift toward healing took place. Once again the old cloak of “someone understands” wrapped around my shoulders – a bit musty from the seventies, but nevertheless warm and no worse for wear.
King’s music, in my story, is a perfect example of timelessness. A prolific songwriter whose words still move this old soul in a positive direction thirty years later. If you are ever called upon in life to heal and move on, before you take those first steps forward, take one last look behind you – there may be something valuable you need to take with you to help you in your journey once again.
And so, as another day goes by, “my life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue” that I wouldn’t change in any way, and …I have written.
Loved my tapestry album too. Listened to it for hours and hours, trying to figure this world and myself out. There was so much freedom, reckless abandon jumping into the future. It was also scary, lonely and so uncertain; searching for meaning in the world and in myself.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”
Haven’t got any answers, but I have figured out that its not about the answers.