Can't stop now, I've traveled so far*

I love those days when you fall in love again with something about the world that you’ve just missed or didn’t take time to pay attention to or just forgot about. This morning I woke to hear a bird I still don’t know, its morning song was high and low notes, chirps and a shrill whistle. It may have been more than one bird, I was quiet listening for quite a while and then slowly opened the curtain, but the rain and humidity had fogged the window and as the curtain closed the song closed as well. Around the rest of the house, I could hear cardinals and blue jays and even a mourning dove was undercutting the dawn with its low song.

This past week we’ve had another heat wave, it’s been extremely hot and extra humid, so much so that I couldn’t repair the deck where the groundhogs had been coming and going, I’d seen another adult on the lawn and saw that some of the first repairs had been dug out. I had the trap out for a bit yesterday morning but once it got warmer, I closed it, a poor little furry body didn’t need to be in there. My morning weatherman, Anthony, promises cooler temperatures and low humidity for the weekend; I’ve restocked the peanuts, look out flat cat, here I come. Then there will be a completion to the barricade which includes chicken wire and gravel and extra bricks. It won’t be very beautiful but, hopefully, effective.

This morning I had a few errands to run, it had rained overnight but no relief was really offered, so I tried to get in and out of each place quickly. While I was driving back home, I was listening to classic rock, which is a mindless, sing-along alternative to my public radio station. I can go to it when a break is needed from the endless cycle of, what? Doom. Idiocy. Dread. Death. Destruction. Well. I have the option to tune it out for a while. The song I Want to Know What Love Is by Foreigner was playing as I neared home, and suddenly I was lost in time, a nostalgically sweet time. This song was all over as Jerry, and I started dating. I’m sure we probably danced to it. Maybe during his command’s Navy Day Ball, where even when the music stopped, we continued dancing. I wouldn’t be surprised if a carload of us sang it as we drove around Naples one evening, played loud on the tape deck, windows down, earnestness in overdrive.

I gotta take a little time
A little time to think things over
I better read between the lines
In case I need it when I'm older
Aaaah woah-ah-aah

(Now I would joke about the “Aaaah woah-ah-aah” and say I wrote that!)

Now this mountain I must climb
Feels like a world upon my shoulders
And through the clouds I see love shine
It keeps me warm as life grows colder

In my life there's been heartache and pain
I don't know if I can face it again
Can't stop now, I've traveled so far*
To change this lonely life

I wanna know what love is
I want you to show me
I wanna feel what love is
I know you can show me
Aaaah woah-oh-ooh

How important it felt then, how it said everything, as music so often feels as though someone knew, knew your heart. I wouldn’t be able to name another song by Foreigner or any member of the band. Today though it made me stop and listen again. I pulled over, under a tree, watched some birds, sang the song loud and then headed home wanting to dance with Jerry even as the song stopped playing.

I wanna know what love is
I want you to show me
I wanna feel what love is
I know you can show me
I wanna know what love is
I want you to show me
And I wanna feel, I want to feel what love is
And I know, I know you can show me