March 2015 Update

NEWS & MUSE
Where Did You Go?

Dear friends,
Heart of My Heart carries its own credentials. The last email i received about it told the story of a mother and teen who, after hearing this song, pulled over in the car and wept in each other’s arms.
This is why i write songs.
And here is how this one got written. One fine afternoon about five years ago in Franklin, Tennessee, my cowriter Karen Taylor-Good and i stepped into the fray of what was a real-life situation. Like i report in the video, Karen walked in and i said to her,” Girl, you look like hell!”
“If you were raising a teenager, you’d look this way too,” was her comeback. Karen speaks to this in her own words here from her book On Angel’s Wings, available at StoweGood.com.

Teenage Mutant Alien Pod Person
By Karen Taylor-Good

I gave birth to my only child on July 22, 1983. My life changed forever. All of a sudden, there was a tiny human being who needed me. I was the most important person in her life. I rocked. I ruled. Her eyes lit up every time she saw me. I was so cool.
Then I blinked and she was six. She still needed me. I was still the most important person in her universe. She loved every outfit I ever brought home for her. I was Mommy. I was cool.
She’s seven. She adores me. She’s eight, nine, ten. We go camping together with the Brownies. She’s so proud of me. She’s eleven. She loves to go to the movies with me, out to eat with me, just to hang. She adores me.
Blink. She’s fourteen. Uh oh. What’s going on here? Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The Pod People have come and replaced my precious baby. She won’t be seen with me. She looks at me with such disdain. “I HATE YOU” she says. But Rachael… it’s… ME… Mommy… remember?
Your best friend…..remember? Nope. I am stupid. I am clueless. I am NOT cool.
Rachael, my Rachael. I miss you terribly. I ache for you. Where did you go?
…KTG

Heart of my Heart

What happened to the child that loved me back? In his classic work The Prophet, Khalil Gibran reminds us, “Your children are not your children… They come through you but they are not of you.”
After hearing this song, audiences often ask me if i have children. My answer is: yes i do, just not any of my own. (Also, i still am one. Not child-ish, i hope, but child-like. And how could you possibly not have what you are?)
Lacey and my god-daughter Margaret Emma… let’s play
As a godfather, uncle, brother, friend, mentor and protector, i daily aspire to walk in the way of the warrior who is the consummate parent. It’s been incredible fun, and, as KTG so eloquently described above, i’ve felt that “kick in the guts” when those i love so fiercely turn away.
i take great care as to when and whether i unleash this song on an audience. Easing into it, i listen as the words and melody intertwine with the sound of hearts being wrenched open on their hinges. The air is sucked out of the room, things get blurry, and it all falls under the wheels of the wildest of all rollercoasters, the one named parenthood.
With Heart of My Heart, Karen and i put words on the raw joyousness and disappointment that come hand in hand, heart in heart, with that whooshing rollercoaster drop, the one that happens when your children start to pull away. i think that if my own father had a few words like these, so much pain and suffering could have been avoided. i love to see men in the audience shedding the tears their fathers never cried, turned free at last. It brings me hope.
After 35 years of men’s work, here is what i know: being a good consistent parent matters. Being perfect doesn’t. The struggle is love. It’s tough; there is no rule book.
When children start to separate (which they will do if you’ve done your job), how much resistance they feel is all-important. If you’re afraid they will fall they may never fly. It really is a balancing act and you will, at some stage in the performance, fall.
That’s ok, fall. If you are afraid to fall, you may never fly either. Independence works both ways.

A Stitch of Hope
This song is a suture for the heart. The end doesn’t say, IIF you’re in there.” It says, “i KNOW you’re in there.” And “I’m here for you, dear one” when you want to come home again.
Much has happened since this was written. Rachel, Karen’s daughter, is a teenager no longer. Rather, a magnificent young woman making her creative way in the world. Karen and Dennis survived, as did Rachel, and they are stronger for it as a family.
Parenting is playing the long game. As hard as it may be, the descent, the uncertainty, feelings of abandonment, and even hopelessness is as much a rite of passage for you as it is for your children. This age-old separation process is both heartbreaking and life enhancing. And, like the rest of the human condition, requires a good solid sense of humor.
It is so beautiful seeing elders and those in the audience who have been through these times and are now at peace with it all. Maybe they are just happy it’s not them anymore. Or maybe they have seen that most times it really does work out ok in the end. It truly takes a village to raise a child. Do you have your village?
My favorite recent movie is The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. In it, Sonny, the lovely young Indian hotel owner, whose hotel is not quite up to expectations, has a great philosophy:

“Everything will be all right in the end… if it’s not all right then it’s not yet the end.”

Gray
Live Wild, Dream Hard, Love Big,
…w