Living in the Memory

We make surprising discoveries about ourselves at the oddest of moments. Life has a way of turning on the lights and beaming the answers to our questions when we're looking the other way. Not the wrong way. Just in a different direction. I know you know the feeling. Like when a poem spills onto the page and only later you read what you've written and the shock of your feelings on paper feels like a jolt of electricity to the heart. Like when a song comes on the radio at the right moment and everything stops because THOSE WORDS were written for you and you know the voice is yours and the story is yours but the lyrics are something you've never heard or sung before. How could it all be? How could this all be?

I haven't heard this song in years. I didn't even know until moments ago the song was sung by Linda Ronstadt. Don't ask me to trace the circuit of how I found this song tonight. What matters is that when I heard it, my heart stopped, my eyes closed, and the years rewound to a place where I thought the words were mine and the song was mine.

I still don't have the answers I seek and the words I want to write are still a work in progress. But sometimes a song falls out of the sky and seeps into the notebook you keep, pages filled with memories and dreams you're going to write about... Some Day. One Day.

And that day is now.



Love will abide, take things in stride
Sounds like good advice but there's no one at my side
And time washes clean love's wounds unseen
That's what someone told me but I don't know what it means.

Cause I've done everything I know to try and make you mine
And I think I'm gonna love you for a long long time

Caught in my fears
Blinking back the tears
I can't say you hurt me when you never let me near
And I never drew one response from you
All the while you fell all over girls you never knew
Cause I've done everything I know to try and make you mine
And I think it's gonna hurt me for a long long time

Wait for the day
You'll go away
Knowing that you warned me of the price I'd have to pay
And life's full of flaws
Who knows the cause?
Living in the memory of a love that never was
Cause I've done everything I know to try and change your mind
and I think I'm gonna miss you for a long long time
Cause I've done everything I know to try and make you mine
And I think I'm gonna love you for a long long time

written by Gary B. White, Universal MCA Music (ASCAP)