Addison Road

Today I am breaking the silence. I find myself at 4:15 in the afternoon with forty-five minutes until my first student arrives.  The voice inside my head is asking, “what do you want to do with the  next 45 minutes?”  This is a question which circumstances very rarely allow to even come to the forefront of my brain.  I won’t go into the reasons why that is…I will just say…mother of two children by day and wannabe rock-star by night. Look out Hannah Montana!  I looked over at the empty desk where Chad is usually parked in front of the computer.  I sat down.  I logged in.  And a brilliant idea occurred to me.  I should blog!  That may sound silly for most of you seeing as blogging is as much a part of your daily routine as drinking coffee in various forms is a part of mine.  Anyhoo…here I am.

What to blog about….the first thought that came to my mind was to share about a moment I had this week while preparing for the recording process.  So, here goes.  Many of you may not know this, but Chad and I have intentionally set up a process in our household with the express purpose of giving him time to write songs.  It goes like this…I wake up on Monday morning and plan some insane activity/day-trip for the kids, thereby getting the house completely empty for Chad to create his art.  Some of these activities have included Disneyland trips, trips via Amtrak to Santa Barbara. trips to the Getty, trips to the beach, etc.  It has been affectionately named, “Monday Fun-day.”  Well, since all of these trips involve me, by myself, with two children under the age of 5, at the end of Monday Fun-day, I am completely wiped out.  Chad is equally exhausted from the “pulling-from-the-void” that is the songwriting process.  So…we put the kiddos to bed, Chad plays me what he is working on, I make dinner, and we park it on the couch to check our brains at the door of some form of entertainment, be it TV, a movie…you get the drift.  I tell you all of this to get to my point, I promise!

So two days ago it becomes apparent to me that, during the upcoming recording session, I am going to have to sing the band  through one of the songs that Chad has written for my voice.  The song is entitled “The Tide” and it is a song that was born awhile back during a much needed, night away at the Hotel Del Coronado.  We came up with the music of the song together, but Chad had written the lyrics on his own in the weeks that followed. Keep in mind, I have been listening to these tunes over and over on my ipod, but, as we all know, listening is quite different from singing.  So…he lays into the piano part, gives me the intro and I start singing it for the first time.  I barely made it halfway through the first chorus before I started weeping.  Puzzled, Chad looked up from the piano.  All I could say in that moment was, “It’s so beautiful.”  The lyrics, the melody, the way he seemed to get inside my head, connecting with my soul and writing a song that I could communicate to an audience…not to mention that fact that he wrote a song specifically for me to sing. I was so overwhelmed.  

I am sharing this because I want to express to my appreciation.  I want to give props where props are due.  Many times I would come home from “Monday Fun-day” and listen to Chad’s “work for the day”, and I would treat it as less than it really deserved to be treated.  These songs are special.  You’ll know what I mean the minute one of them manages to pierce the shell of the mundane and hit right at the core of the soul.

Well..my 45 minutes is up.  Happy blogging!