‘Lonesome Dreams’: Song #3 from the Boundless soundtrack
To kick off BOUNDLESS, my newly published memoir, I offer you a song about being an old star. What is it becoming? An invitation to ask yourself what new, young star is emerging from the darkness.
Nothing can make it more obvious that you’re old than hanging out with young people. The contrast is profound. They are stars burning brightly. You’re just trying to keep your fire.
This line from my absolute favorite Lord Huron song, “Lonesome Dreams,” captures the gap between me, as an older mom, and the twins as they set their path for college.
“I lie under starlit sky
And the seasons change in the blink of an eye
I watch as the planets turn
And the old stars die and the young stars burn.”
How had this business of raising my children rushed by so fast? And how had I lost track of myself?
It had seemed like the blink of an eye from first hearing their heartbeats on the ultrasound that announced two babies would come at once—to the winter day when we took their senior photos in the bosque by the Rio Grande.
Was this old star dying? It was true I had left many parts of myself untended so I could give my all to raising the twins. I was a single mother. It was also true that I didn’t feel free to contemplate my future beyond active motherhood, with the twins sharing the home I’d made, until I felt their future was secure.
EXCERPT from BOUNDLESS
If this were my musical, some delicate percussion, maybe
the swish of snare drum, maybe the sorrowful tear of a timpani,
would cue me to turn to the song of my looming loneliness. I
would dejectedly kick the can and turn back to the open street
where I must live now. The danger was I would get swallowed in
street bustle before I even began to sing.
Ah, but the real danger: I am not free to sing until I know the
twins are singing.
I had forgotten to sing. I had forgotten what my song was.
In BOUNDLESS, I try to go back to the song I’d been singing before—magazine journalism—but even that, I was to learn, was an old star dying.
It would have to be something new.
Gradually, I had been becoming no one. I had been busy making someones. I would have to learn to be someone again.
It turns out the answer was right there, where I was looking the most: The twins. I had played a role in making them someones. If I could do that, I could probably figure out how to become someone again.
BOUNDLESS has a soundtrack!
In honor of the December 21, 2024, release date, I give you 12 days of songs that tell the story of Living Boundlessly.
Music runs all through the story because I passed on my great musical inheritance to the twins. (And probably the wordsmithing inheritance, too… Grace wrote a play in middle school, and Paul wrote a sci-fi novel in fifth grade.)
Boundless is available!
BOOKSHOP - proceeds go to Bookworks, an independent bookstore in Albuquerque
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The Sixteen Superpowers of Memoir Writers
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It’s easy to write a memoir! All you need to do is write something with universal resonance that is true and comes from your life.
Let’s get real. To write a memoir, you need a basket of superpowers.
Related posts
Boundless has a birthdate! Coming Dec. 21, 2024
Why Writing Your Book Will Change You As Much As It Will Change the World
From Lived Experience to a Book: The Path of My Memoir, Boundless