Although I’m a writer, I also dabble in storytelling through singing ballads. Here is one that just seemed to fit this week’s prompt on “Stuff,” and it’s a reminder (as if we needed one) of how we hang on to past failed relationships too long by keeping their artifacts.
We get reminders about hanging onto the past from ballads as well as memoirs.
This is my cover of that Mary Chapin Carpenter ballad, Almost Home. The refrain goes, “I’m not running, I’m not hiding, I’m not reaching, I’m just resting in the arms of the great wide-open; Gonna pull my soul in, and I’m almost home.”
Here’s to decluttering and moving on!
Jim WillisI am a writer, college professor, and author of several nonfiction books, including three on the decade of the 1960s. Several wonderful essays of gifted Retrospect authors appear in my book, "Daily Life in the 1960s."
Characterizations:
moving, well written
Bravo Jim for letting the failed relationship go, but no harm in keeping the album!
I still have one.
I found this very moving Jim. I do hang on to tokens of old relationships (a few years ago, I found old letters from the college boyfriend before my husband; we exchanged emails about them- I scanned a few and sent them to him. It gave me a sense of closure). It was good to hear your voice, another form of communication. Though I sing in a formal chorus, I was singing to myself in the car while running errands today. It’s good to have another form of expression. Thanks for sharing yours with us.
Where would we be without music, Betsy? I sing bass in our choir. When I’m alone with my guitar, I sing whatever I feel.
I didn’t know that song, but lovely words. BTW—just traveled through your old haunts of Oklahoma yesterday, speaking of wide open spaces. Where the wind was sweeping down the plains as advertised.
Thanks, Khati. Those wide open spaces prove handy. You can see the twisters coming for miles!