Tears in my eyes: Paul Simons Kathys Song.
Where do you begin when you want to write about not only a song but also a writer, a composer, who changed your life.?
Somewhere in my distant memory, I am between the age of four or five. And there I am with a small cassette player, you know the flat horizontal ones with black buttons. I placed the cassette in the machine and played Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits.
A deeply emotional feeling came over me as I listened to the album for the first time. I needed to obsorb and be within the music, feeling safe and sound. I placed the player on my bed and settled.
Do you remember the first time you were enchanted?
To find yourself interwoven with music is a deeply rewarding experience. In through my ears, body, waking my spirit.
I had found one of my first fascinations, passions. Being so young I wanted to know why these words, this sound. was making my body so alert, waking up something in me that, had been dormant.
When you hide in your room
If I remember correctly, the second track on this spiritual awakening was, I am a Rock. I was sitting there on my own in my bedroom. Trying to disappear, not make a sound or again be a nuisance to those I lived with. If I stayed in my room and did not ask for any attention or love I could go under the radar. But here I was with this lovely man called Paul Simon telling me how it was. Many kinder ones avoid the knocks by hiding, walking on eggshells, and trying not to disturb the slumber of a yearning to belong. Epiphanies can start at a very young age, and I suppose this message confirmed that to avoid terror you have to be good at being a rock. The strongest memory of hearing that song for the first time is the reflection back to me that the artist had himself done lots of gazing from windows, something I contended myself in doing, for many deep and dark winter's days.
I had tried to be here and be loved but there was none of whatever that was, other children received. So this island never cried, well only whilst going for long walks on my own in the woods and in the bedroom, door closed.
I worked my way through the album, knowing I would listen to it over again and again until every word, and note was implemented into my soul
By the end of the album I was moved beyond any feeling I have ever known. It was if I had found a friend, a support mechanism. To be trusted and relied on whenever I needed support. My go-to song throughout my childhood would be Bridge Over Troubled Water.
It would allow me to cry and then, after the tears, focus on my strengths.
There were people, outside of home that believed in me. Loveing books and finding wonder in so much around me made me an outcast at home but that would not be for ever. I was a "snob", and as one brother added "one of them" and "didn't belong".
The ghostly sound of Kathys Song resonated with my short lived years.
I spent hours looking out the bedroom window, over the allotments, down the lane to the railway bridge. I would watch rainsrops run down the other side of the glass. From a watery blob at the top, getting thinner, finding its own path and avoiding the big drops that would obsorb it and steal ite energy.
I suppose at a very young age I did doubt all that I held as true. Love, cuddles, family warmth, support, companionship, communication. I would relie on myself and somehow find the safest path like the little raindrop infront of me.
To be continued......
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