Music Monday: Release the ..Florence?

Now, I love Florence + the Machine. Love. Adore. Will stop dead in my tracks if she comes on the radio or playlist. But this new one, Kraken, hit me right in the chest with the first line: "Sometimes my body seems so alien to me..."

Anyone that has had cancer treatment can relate, but I think when your treatment involves an amputation like a double mastectomy, it makes that feeling more vivid. My clothes don't fit like they did. I can't trust that I can put things away in a high cupboard or even do things like brush my teeth. My hair was growing back with luscious curls and then when I started on the next to the last phase, Verzenio, it became thin again. 

"...so when your hand reached out I just pushed it farther down..."

I've reached the point where I'm starting to be okay with me and I'm finding the tribe that buoyed me up during active treatment has gone back to their regular lives...and while that is okay, I mean if course it is, I do feel invisible. A lot. To the point that Florence saves me yet again:

"Do you see me now?"

Enjoy. 

Music Monday: Relax my Beloved...Ginny

I was hopping around among playlists on a LONG drive recently and found an old one called "Music for Orana." As I was on my way to a book event in Knoxville (hello LONG delays on I40 from Asheville to the Tennessee state line), I put that on to get me in the headspace to sell the stories I wrote about my Orana characters...who have in many ways become more real to me than some real people in my life. Authors, you know what I mean about the voices that wake you up in the middle of the night to deliver a plot twist...

Anyway, the title for this song by Alex Clare slid onto the screen just behind my steering wheel and I took a quick second to remember what part of the books was inspired by this song. Two seconds later I knew... This is what I imagine it is like for Gin to feel the bond in her mind when Taeben is controlling her but convincing her he does it because he cares for her. 

Relax my beloved, don't worry for me

Don't shed a tear for me, always be near for me

Be confident my love, don't bow your head for me

Promise you'll smile for me, don't ever cry for me

He is soothing her and convincing her to let him take care of her. He wants her to be the best version of herself, unlike the Qatu Sath who wants to hold her back so he has to rescue her. He begs her to smile for him, though her smile is the bit that brings into sharp focus what he is actually doing, and it breaks him a bit each time.

Enjoy. The lyrics are in the video.

Music Monday: Not Irrelevant At All

 I've got nothing to add to this, really, except that this is where I am in this quagmire of a timeline we're living in now, and it helps to remind me what I need to stand for and stand up to...because you can call me irrelevant, insignificant...I won't call on you at all.

Music Monday: May the Fourth be With You...

 ...and also with you. (I am nothing if not a good UMC preacher's daughter/sister/sister in law/niece.) Enjoy.