Music Monday: Sometimes you just need a good drum

 So this song has just turned up in my Shazam, and if I had to guess I would say it's from one of the myriad of programs that we've been binge-watching during the pandemic. No idea which one. It could also be from Tiktok, considering the overabundance of sea shanties and the like over there lately. 

The lyrics spoke to me about my MC, Scarlet, and I could imagine her Mamó singing this song to her on the front porch of the cabin up in the mountains. But the drums...sometimes you just need a good drum. Enjoy.

Little Margaret by Rhiannon Giddens

Little Margaret, sitting in her high hall chair
Combing back her long, yellow hair
Saw sweet William and his new-made bride
Riding up the road so near

She threw down her ivory comb
Threw back her long yellow hair
Said, "I'll go down and I'll bid him farewell
And I'll nevermore go there"

It was late in the night
They were fast asleep
Little Margaret appeared all dressed in white
Standing at their bed-feet

Saying, "How do you like your snow-white pillow?"
"How do you like your sheet?"
Saying, "How do you like that pretty fair maid
Who lays in your arms asleep?"

Very well do I like my snow-white pillow
Well do I like my sheet
Much better do I like that pretty fair maid
Who stands at my bed-feet

He called his serving man to go
And saddled the dappled roan
And he rode for her father's house that night
Knocked on the door alone

Saying, "Is Little Margaret in her room
Or is she in the hall?"
"Little Margaret's in her coal-black coffin
With her face turned toward the wall"

Unfold, unfold those snow-white robes
Be they ever so fine
For I want to kiss those cold, cold lips
For I know they'll never kiss mine

Three times he kissed her cold, cold hand
Twice he kissed her cheek
But once he kissed her cold cold lips
Then he fell in her arms asleep

Music Monday: Welcome Home, Scarlet.

Back in November, I was working on a piece that was supposed to be a ghost story based on my experiences at a small college in the mountains of North Georgia. As predicted, though, by anyone that knows me, it turned into a weird paranormal mythology-influenced story...with a wolfhound. There are bits of my original idea still there: a girl grows up steeped in her family's legacy and duty, taking care of the old gods of the mountains to keep them from swarming down into the human population and causing havoc. So I'm going to let that biz ruminate for a while. 

I worked on a cover for the book because apparently, I have flipped the normal process for writing and need to have the cover ready for a manuscript that may or may not be written. As I was getting it ready to put on Tiktok (because I'm one of those middle-aged women authors that discovered the app during the pandemic) I found a song that I thought was perfect for the little 60-second cover reveal: Welcome Home, Son by Radical Face. It is very much like my main character, Scarlet: sweet-sounding and cozy on the outside but a hot mess on the inside. Enjoy.

Welcome Home, Son

by Radical Face

Sleep don't visit, so I choke on sun
And the days blur into one
And the backs of my eyes hum with things I've never done

Sheets are swaying from an old clothesline
Like a row of captured ghosts, over old dead grass
Was never much, but we made the most
Welcome home

Ships are launching from my chest
Some have names, but most do not
If you find one, please
Let me know what piece I've lost

Peel the scars from off my back
I don't need them anymore
You can throw them out
Or keep them in your mason jars
I've come home

All my nightmares escaped my head
Bar the door, please don't let them in
You were never supposed to leave
Now my head's splitting at the seams
And I don't know if I can...

Here beneath my lungs
I feel your thumbs press into my skin again

Notes from Exile: End of a Weird Nano/Semester/Year/etc.

Well, that's that.

Well, that happened.

It happened a week ago, and I don't really have anything to say about it other than I am clearly NOT a horror writer and should stick to what I know, which is character-driven, has paranormal elements, and possibly includes some romance. 

I don't know what Legacy is going to become, but I haven't completely thrown it in the dumpster fire that has been 2020.

So here we are, in the last month of one of the weirdest years on record. I'm sure that the survivors of the Spanish Flu felt a similar sense of relief/trauma/fear mixed with a healthy dose of What the Hell was THAT? I'm also battling a lot of apathy, if I'm honest, about everything in my life, and I know I'm not alone in that.

My semester at the DayJob™ ended this past Friday and the students are in exam week now. They all went home at Thanksgiving and everything was online afterward, a decision that I think was very well reasoned. I mean, until we have a vaccine for this thing for a few months, I think that online everything is the way to go, but no one asked me. 

The end of the semester also signals the end of the calendar year, and as it always seems now that I work in academia, suddenly there is a flurry of things to do for Christmas/New Year. Only there isn't. I had so hoped that we would be going to the UK for Christmas this year. We were supposed to go in August for my father-in-law's 80th birthday but that didn't happen either.

Christmas hasn't been the same, if I'm honest, since we lost my father in April of 2018. Thanksgiving is hard now, without my mother, but Christmas was always my dad's holiday. The man was not cheap in his decoration of their house - garlands hung from every low hanging light fixture and there were wreaths with big red bows on every window. They had stockings on the mantel with a tangle of garland and plastic reindeer/Santa above it. Candles were in the windows that burned all night every night. Once he was no longer able to do these things, some of the sparkle went out of Christmas for me. 

I haven't found it since. Being unable to travel, unable to even go out for a long, loud, boozy meal with my friends here has made me just want to get this season over with and move on to 2021. I mean, I tried - I put up our tree and got hives from "Artificial Christmas Tree Syndrome." 

And this time next week I will be on Winter Break from Clemson - maybe then I can find my mojo. Or maybe I can get some editing done, or at least write a better, more uplifting blog post. Thanks for spending this year in exile with me. I hope you're well, and that your holiday season is as magical and bright as you can make it this year.