Showing up for my father

I want to be in a Bauhaus environment - ha ha ha. Tomorrow I'll want something else ....

I'm beginning o embrace the bi-polar in me. Did I tell you that was diagnosed and now getting some real support with this. Finding a way to achieve balance within the polar extremes. It doesn't mean I have to stay on a straight line, there is away to include the variations healthily. I'm not sure how but I am sensing a change.

 

Following a conversation with JB I have been listening this morning to Mike and the Mechanics. I particular The Living Years. Gosh it speaks for a million other people and evidently did followwing the success of the song. As I was watching the You Tube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8mPS0-2Xq8 I was also struck by Mike Rutherford. I don't know why but he strikes me as a humble man. Here he is with a band that I think he heads up and yet he doesn't want to be front man. It really seemed like a team. I am likely to have completely misread the scene. He stuck with being the musician he was where others I thnk would want or need to be the front man. Knowing one's strengths is a strength indeed. Trying to be strong at everything is not useful to anyone.

 

Anyway - the lyrics - so very different from Peter Gabriels Father ,Son song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXoAF_rBgR8

 

Mike and the mechanics' The Living Years

Every generation
Blames the one before
And all of their frustrations
Come beating on your door

I know that I'm a prisoner
To all my Father held so dear
I know that I'm a hostage
To all his hopes and fears
I just wish I could have told him in the living years

Crumpled bits of paper
Filled with imperfect thought
Stilted conversations
I'm afraid that's all we've got

You say you just don't see it
He says it's perfect sense
You just can't get agreement
In this present tense
We all talk a different language
Talking in defence

Say it loud, say it clear
You can listen as well as you hear
It's too late when we die
To admit we don't see eye to eye

So we open up a quarrel
Between the present and the past
We only sacrifice the future
It's the bitterness that lasts

So Don't yield to the fortunes
You sometimes see as fate
It may have a new perspective
On a different day
And if you don't give up, and don't give in
You may just be O.K.

Say it loud, say it clear
You can listen as well as you hear
It's too late when we die
To admit we don't see eye to eye

I wasn't there that morning
When my Father passed away
I didn't get to tell him
All the things I had to say

I think I caught his spirit
Later that same year
I'm sure I heard his echo
In my baby's new born tears
I just wish I could have told him in the living years

Say it loud, say it clear
You can listen as well as you hear
It's too late when we die
To admit we don't see eye to eye

Peter Gabriel's Father, Son

Father, son
Locked as one
In this empty room
Spine against spine
Yours against mine
Till the warmth comes through

Remember the breakwaters down by the waves
I first found my courage
Knowing daddy could save
I could hold back the tide
With my dad by my side

Dogs, plows and bows
We move through each pose
Struggling in our separate ways
Mantras and hymns
Unfolding limbs
Looking for release through the pain

And the yogi's eyes are open
Looking up above
He too is dreaming of his daddy's love
With his dad by his side
Got his dad by his side

Can you recall
How you took me to school
We couldn't talk much at all
It's been so many years
And now these tears
Guess I'm still your child

Out on the moors
We take a pause
See how far we have come
You're moving quite slow
How far can we go
Father and son

With my dad by my side
With my dad by my side
Got my dad by my side
With me