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“Are you sure you’re okay to drive home today Mia?” my colleague asked me as I stumbled through handover this morning. “Wind the windows down, please!”
My window was down. The radio was blaring. I’d had black tea before I left. I had water. The only thing I didn’t have was food. Maybe that was the missing link.
When I recorded this half chat half song for you, I’d been awake 27 hours and was still in shock from drifting into the path of oncoming traffic on my drive home from night shift. Thank god when I wandered the driver was still a hundred metres away- or so- actually how the hell would I know? I was falling asleep at the damn wheel! This really frightened me. My heart was thumping as adrenalin coursed through my weary veins. I could not believe what had almost happened in the literal blink of an eye.
Clearly I need a much better strategy for getting home in one piece without becoming a danger to myself and others. Suggestions welcome. Please.
In the meantime, I was keen to record something, anything, in my semi comatose state. I wanted to sing “Lullabye” by Billy Joel. Seemed appropriate. However I didn’t have the music so something drew me to Johnny Cash’s Walk The Line. I adore this song. I haven’t had a bash at it for years, which you will plainly see. I love to do the harmonies, but it’s also fun to sing the melody for a change (with a couple small hopefully inconspicuous changes to accommodate my range).
There are not many times my eyes stay dry listening to the poetry of these lyrics, particularly those last few lines:
“I keep a close watch on this heart of mine/ I keep my eyes wide open all the time/ I keep the ends out for the ties that bind/ Because you’re mine/ I walk the line.”
I can never tell if this is about unconditional love and fidelity, or about duty and self discipline. When my twenty-something year old heart heard this for the first time, it pined, wept, and yearned to know the answer. When it did eventually work it out, it was not what it wanted to hear. A decade later, I don’t need to watch my heart anymore. There are no loose ends going begging. The ties are well and truly bound. He is mine, I am his, and my heart finally knows peace.
Yours, in music x
Thirty-something and Soul-Searching in Suburbia 