myjourneysinsight

TAKE ME AWAY – PART 1

Posted on April 7, 2014 by Judy

TAKE ME AWAY

I’m on a road; I’ve traveled so far

not sure where I am or where you are

I long to escape when I go to sleep

but my dreams are so vivid; they make me weep

I know you are gone; I just can’t move on

Take me away to a lovely day

where I’m holding you again

it’s hard to face; I’m crying while I’m dreaming

of seeing you someday, but in my dreams

you take me away

for the first time I’m on my own

everything’s changed; all that I’ve known

I wanted to leave my sadness behind

but memories of us fill up my mind

I know you are gone

I just can’t move on

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Take me away to a lovely day

where I’m holding you again

it’s hard to face; I’m crying while I’m dreaming

of seeing you someday, but in my dreams

you take me away

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Take me away to a lovely day

where I’m holding you again

it’s hard to face

that you’re gone forever

every night and day

in my dreams

you take me away

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For more links to stories, performances, lyrics and recordings: TAKE ME AWAY

I work with an arranger named George once a week. He is very private and prefers that I don’t share any pictures or use his last name.

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George has been a musician his entire life and we have been working together since 2010. We often joke about how it went the first day I came to him. It was only a few months after I started playing my guitar and singing again; I had not done music for over thirty years. I saw his ad on Craiglist and it caught my eye with the words of: “If you’re a songwriter, let me help you sound great!”

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At our first session, I sat down next to George and asked him how many songs I could work on during our three hours (his minimum); I wanted to get my money’s worth. So on that first day, we didn’t arrange anything at all and George recorded me warbling a few songs.

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If I ever want to be reminded of how far I’ve progressed, I simply listen to 10 seconds of any of those recordings! At that time, I hardly imagined that I would passionately embrace arranging my music with him on a regular basis. It was after I separated from my husband that I felt free to do that.

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After our first session, I returned to George to arrange one song at a time during a single session (I usually spend 3-4 sessions now on one song). I would come to him about once every two months.

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For two years, I worked with George to rediscover every song I had written as a young girl. George always told me: “Jude, one day I know you’ll write something new. All this old stuff is just about purging.”

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This is an example of an old song where all I had was this sheet. “No Words” didn’t have any verses and I couldn’t remember the melody.

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He was right; eventually, I began writing brand new songs.

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It was thrilling to rediscover the magic of songwriting after three decades of silence. It began slowly with the expansion of old unfinished songs. In some cases, I wrote new lyrics for songs that had chords written for them long ago. In other cases, it was the opposite; I used lyrics from the past and composed new chords for them.

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I can’t believe that I wrote this page 33 years ago for one of my song compositions. I no longer write out music anymore.

All of my song compositions as a mature woman have helped me to heal. Many of my rediscovered songs addressed my grief over the loss of my son who died in 1992. I was amazed how my sadness and grief from almost two decades before began to ease once music re-entered my life.

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I was far more prepared to cope with the death of my father in 2012, because my song “Set You Free” was truly a gift to guide me. And only a year later, I sang “Set You Free” to my mother as she took her last breath on earth.

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The song that truly changed my life was “The Unknown.” It led me to divorce my husband after 31 years of marriage.

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“It all starts with a magical moment”

There is never a shortage of music for me to create with George. Even when I’m not arranging a brand new song, I enjoy working with him to create new arrangements for older songs. We experiment to find ways of making every song arrangement unique, while at the same time we often go back to certain sounds I love.

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I have sometimes wondered whether there are other singer/songwriters who have as many multiple versions of songs as I do! I love every version and plan to release them all someday.

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There is nothing like the excitement of creating an arrangement for a brand new song. A new song lifts my spirits, but it takes a lot of energy away from other things I want to work on. At every session, George tells me, “C’mon sis, your new stuff is great – just bring me a few chords and we’ll start working on arranging something new!”

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It’s hard for me to understand how I am such a passionate songwriter when I seldom consciously choose to write a song. I cannot compose a new song by simply playing my guitar and wishing for it to appear.

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A song unfolds for me, and it usually happens at a time when I’m very discouraged.

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It all starts with a magical moment.

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Like magic, suddenly I will hear an exquisite melody and beautiful chords appear on my guitar. My life transforms as my new song’s melody envelops me with energy and joy. Despite the beauty of this process, I would not have created my recent songs if it weren’t for George continuing to prod me.

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Last December, I was dealing with eyesight pain and depression as I sat across from him with my eyes half closed. I told him I was definitely not in the mood to write any new music.

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But then, I remembered an old instrumental from 1980 named “Waterfalls.” Because I had studied classical guitar, I had a few instrumentals in my repertoire and had even turned one of them into a song with lyrics before. My instrumental, “Farewell” became the basis for my song, “You Were There.” “Every Season” was also an instrumental song before I wrote lyrics for it.

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I always envisioned how one day the piece “Waterfalls” could become a cool song. It had great chord changes, but how in the world would I compose a melody for such dissonant chords? There certainly wasn’t a chorus with a hook either.

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George’s eyes twinkled. He said, “Okay, let me hear those chords.”

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As part of the process, I share below my instrumental “Waterfalls,” which I recorded in 2011. Click the blue link to play audio:

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I pulled out my guitar and demonstrated each chord for him, note by note. He quickly translated them into piano chords for his keyboard.

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I came home from that session with a single track of keyboard guitar. It was reminiscent of “Waterfalls” but clearly different. It was the first time we had arranged something that was so unfinished. I had an assignment; I needed to write lyrics and compose a melody for it.

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George found ways to shorten and streamline “Waterfalls.” I could feel the verses, but not the chorus.

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A month went by and I was still stumped; I told George I was having trouble developing the song. He added a few instruments to the verses in hopes of inspiring me. Now I really loved those verses. They sounded spooky and cool – and had me imagining that I was travelling somewhere. As I listened with George, I hummed a makeshift melody for fun. I sang, “Take me away!”

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George looked at me and said emphatically, “That’s your song, Jude. Take Me Away!”

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For fun, George added the sound of a tropical rainforest at the beginning. I laughed and thought it was a silly title. I didn’t take him seriously because I felt it wasn’t very original.–

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Another month went by and I still wasn’t able to finish “Take Me Away.”

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Finally, with honesty I told George I didn’t really like the chorus chords that he had helped me write. Some of his chords were taken from my old instrumental; I didn’t care for anything except the verses.

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George tried again and wrote some new chorus chords for me. I liked them more than the prior ones, but no magic melody came to me.

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Then one night, I decided I’d pull out my guitar and see if I could figure out my own beautiful chorus for “Take Me Away.” I started with some of the chords George had written and then I went somewhere else . . .

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It was then when I had a magic moment!

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Within an hour, the chorus chords were formed and the melody began to play. My heart was dancing with joy. This was exactly what I needed to be doing. I was transported somewhere else and taken away from all the stress in my life.

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With anticipation, I couldn’t wait to share what I had composed with George. I came into our session with a big grin and handed him a paper with the new chorus chords on it.

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As we added other instruments, the magic continued. I was hooked and my beautiful new song was born. The song arrangement was gorgeous, but the only problem was I hadn’t written any lyrics for it yet!

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I wanted to finish my song, but I still was not sure what it was going to be about. I searched deep within my heart for words that would move me. It was no surprise that my lyrics were sad and painful. The sentence of “Take me away to a peaceful place, far from pain of losing you,” was exactly what I was feeling as I missed my mother and father.

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I also knew that I was channeling the intense grief of other people. I could feel myself writing and dedicating my song to them. This song was for Tersia, Sammi, Relinda, Julie, Len and Brenda.

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At my next session with George, I was almost reluctant to share my lyrics. He listened and told me he did not like how I mentioned pain. He said, “I thought you were going to write about being taken to a tropical place on a vacation!”

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I let him know how I wished I had been able to. The truth was that I wasn’t feeling like going anywhere and I couldn’t invent words that weren’t honest.

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Still, there definitely was a place that I wanted to go.

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I wanted to go to a place that would heal me.

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© Judy Unger and http://www.myjourneysinsight.com 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Judy Unger with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Tagged a lovely day, acoustic guitar, arranging a song, arranging music, composing, composing music, creativity, escape through music, far from pain, grief, Grief and Bereavement, GRIEF RELATED, guitar, hard to face, haunting melody, having hope, healing from grief, healing music, holding you again, hope, hope of healing, hopeful and optimistic, hopelessness, inspiration, Judy Unger, loss, loss of a mom, love, lovesong, lyric development, lyric writing, lyrics, maintaining hope, Music, music and healing, optimism, original songs, peaceful place, performing, song, song arrangement, song arrangements, songwriter, songwriting, take me away, uplifting music, waterfalls | 3 Comments

SEEING YOU SOMEDAY

Posted on April 5, 2014 by Judy

My post title is a lyric line from my most recent song “Take Me Away.”

When I sing my song, I think of many special friends in my blogging world. I would like to dedicate my song to all of them.

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The process of composing and recording “Take Me Away” happened over a period of four months. Once I discovered lyrics for it, I loved singing them with the new arrangement. It was unbelievably beautiful for me.

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I couldn’t wait to share my song with a good friend, Sonia.

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She was a very honest friend and I was pleased when she said my song really touched her. But then she said, “Judy, when someone mentions going to a peaceful place – I think of death. Being out of pain is great – but I’m not sure about this. Could you find an alternate word like tranquil instead?”

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I heard what she said and understood. The problem was that I liked “peaceful place.” But her words made sense and I started to chuckle whenever I sang my song. It was funny in a way. Even though I had channeled grief, I didn’t want to be dead to see my loved ones. I also realized I wasn’t praying to be taken away. Being far from pain was true, but I knew there was another way to express that. Those were all lines I planned to change.

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The inspiration for me to change those words is a beautiful story that I plan to share soon.

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This picture is from a teary story on Relinda’s blog called “The Promise.” By graduating, she kept her promise that she made to her husband, Doyle shortly before he died. Notice the inscription on the right side of the photo.

This picture is from a teary story on Relinda’s blog called “The Promise.” By graduating, she kept the promise she made to her husband, Doyle shortly before he died. Notice the inscription on the right side of the photo.

It was because of this subject that I wanted to share an exchange of comments with a beautiful writer. Her name is Relinda and she is a heartbroken widow. Her blog can be found with this link:

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http://doyleswidow.wordpress.com

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Here is a link for another post where I wrote to Relinda: YOU HAVE NO HOPE

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A YEAR AGO:–

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Judy says: Beautiful writing, Relinda. Moving forward is never about letting go of memories. I see it as letting go of pain. Grief is all about love. The loss of your husband is far too much to bear. It is of little consolation to imagine that one day you will experience your exquisite memories without feeling the pain. I look forward to when that day happens for you. And it will happen.

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Relinda says: Thanks, Judy. Too often, people forget that they should examine their past and learn from it (and the memories are a source of comfort, although some are painful). It will happen when I see him again. My life is a lonely life.

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Judy says: I do believe you will see him again. Grieving is hard, hard work. It feels endless and hopeless; I remember it well from experience. I buried my son and am thankful not to be in agonizing pain from grief anymore. Hang in there, Relinda. Even though you believe things will never change, I see you looking back some day remembering my words.

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Relinda says:  I appreciate your optimism, but when I lost him, I lost myself. Sometimes, we just wait for the game to be over. I am glad that you have found some peace and in so doing, have found some healing. I still hope that you find the type of love that Doyle and I shared.

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Judy says: And I still hope that you’ll discover “the game to be over” before your own death. That might just happen for you, too. You lost a piece of your soul when Doyle died. It won’t regenerate and no one sees it. You’re bleeding from it daily. I am counting the days for your bleeding to stop – I am certain it will, even though you are not. Scars are scars, but they don’t bleed anymore or throb. You’ll carry the memory of pain instead of the raw wound. That is what I am hoping for you.

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Relinda says: For some, the wounds’ pain lessons, for some, it never lessens or ceases. Thank you for hoping though.

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Judy says: You wrote, “For some the pain never lessens or ceases.” That is a belief (not a fact), which you envision for your future. At this very moment you are in terrible pain and I am so sorry. But for everyone, the future is unknown. I maintain hope that you might let go of that belief, because it actually adds to your misery. I am always thinking of you, Relinda.

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Relinda says: Hi, Judy. I appreciate your thinking of me. I tend to view my statement as fact. It is indisputable that for some, the pain never lessens or ceases. I know he is gone. I also know that I will see him again, but not during this life. Thank you for your concern, Judy. I know that you mean well, but sometimes wounds do not heal.

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Judy says: Relinda, the human body is a testament to the miracle of healing. I hope I am not upsetting you. It takes faith to believe in an afterlife. Use that faith to imagine another possibility: that he will return to you in your lifetime in another form. I’m not saying another lover – but in some way that will allow you to heal. The subconscious is powerful and telling yourself that wounds cannot heal is very damaging for you. I didn’t know Doyle, but I know he loved you deeply. I actually can imagine him telling you right now with every ounce of love in his soul – that he does not want for you to lead this tortured existence.

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Feel Doyle’s love and listen for his wisdom about this. He’s holding you in the darkness. He is reason you are writing. He is the reason you still are alive because you still carry that love in your heart. Death has not separated you from him. You are dying inside to be closer to him.

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One day, he will carry you into the sunlight. I just know it. What an awful experience you have lived through and continue to suffer with. I am sorry, Relinda – I feel tears reading your words.

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SIX MONTHS AGO:

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Relinda says: Hi Judy,   I just wanted to tell you how much I loved your music on the CD you mailed to me. It is beautiful. Some of the songs made me feel as though they were written for me. Thank you so much for sharing your music with me. You are a very special lady to not only read my writing and share it the way you have, but also in the kind way you shared your heart.   Again, thank you so much for allowing me to hear your talent firsthand.  

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Judy says: Relinda, your message is so sweet! You are more than welcome. I am touched that you listened and felt that personal touch. I really thought of you this past week as I worked on my newest one called “Angel in the Sky.” I totally feel it would applicable to you. I know how you long to see your husband when you die someday and that is a very universal feeling with grief. It does take away the fear of death, doesn’t it?

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Thank you for appreciating me. I feel like I push a little too much; I don’t want to appear preachy with a message like “time can heal.” Even though grief slaughtered your hope (it did for me, too), it’s amazing how hope can reappear. I remember clearly wishing I were dead. I am glad my music offered you comfort and thank you for sharing that with me. Please stay in touch.

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A MONTH AGO:

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I received a thank you message from Relinda after posting a link to her blog post about solitude.

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Judy says: I had to put a link to your post because I cannot imagine anyone writing something more heartfelt than what you did. Solitude – isolation – it is all part of the horror of losing someone we loved deeply. It’s hard moving forward in life knowing we’ll never have what we once did. I am fortunate that I have music and other things to fill my own personal void. But there are still many empty spaces, which I acknowledge!

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Relinda says: In sharing my post and recognizing my grief, you’ve really touched my heart, Judy. Thank you so much for your continued thoughts of me, and for ultimately understanding my writing.

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Judy says: I hope I do. I’ve decided that inspiring hope of healing is a bit preachy and offering comfort is more tangible.

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Relinda says: Sometimes, it is just nice to know that someone cares and that is comfort enough.

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Judy says: Thank you again, Relinda. Today you made my heart sing.

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Posted in Grief Stories | Tagged acknowledging grief, acknowledgment, acoustic guitar, adjusting to loss, composing, coping with grief, discouraged by grief, Empathy and Grief, friendship and grief, grief, GRIEF RELATED, guitar, haunting melody, having hope, healing from grief, healing music, hope, hope of healing, hopeful and optimistic, hopefulness and grief, http://doyleswidow.wordpress.com/, inspiration, Judy Unger, loss, loss of a spouse, lyric development, lyric writing, lyrics, mother, Music, original songs, positive thinking, Relinda, singing, songwriting, widow | 2 Comments

FAR FROM PAIN

Posted on March 27, 2014 by Judy

For this story, I wanted pictures that conveyed peacefulness and water. I played around with Photoshop and some old photos taken while on vacation.

I arrived at the tennis court.

As I opened the car door, I stepped out and groaned. I held the top of the car and gingerly pulled myself up. It was a good thing I’d taken a bunch of Ibuprofen tablets at home because I was so sore. How in the world was I going to play tennis?

Yesterday, I had fallen down onto the pavement while on a walk. Other than skinned knees and feeling sore, I was fine.

I walked onto the court and moved very slowly. I smiled at the other three women and was glad I hadn’t let them down. If I had cancelled, it would have been hard to find a replacement at the last minute.

After a few minutes of hitting the ball, my creakiness subsided. But my eyes were bothering me a lot; I could barely open them. My supposedly “dry eye” condition now caused my eyes to constantly water and burn. I tried to ignore it, but tears were dripping down my cheeks. I told my friends that my tears were from my condition, not emotion.

Despite my discomfort, I was very grateful to be outside and getting exercise. I decided my better eating track was paying off, because it lifted my mood. And I certainly had more energy.

One of the women asked me, “Oh, how was that movie screening you were so excited to go to last week? Did you enjoy it?”

That was when I mentioned my daughter was in a car accident two hours before, so I had canceled going.

Now all three women really looked at me with pity. I imagined they were thinking, “How much more can Judy Unger deal with?” I myself was wondering how much more my daughter could deal with, since the week before she had cut herself at work by accident. Yet nothing really caused me to get down this past week.

It was because I had a new song going through my head!

Last week, on the day when I planned to finish my song, there was a hitch that morning.

I almost cancelled my appointment with my arranger, George because of some problems with getting my daughter’s car repaired.

I called George and was anxious about whether or not we should skip our session. He was willing to wait for me if it didn’t take too long.

My daughter’s car had a flat tire from the accident the day before. My friend, Orlando was helping with the repair. He was my former housekeeper’s husband and doing me quite a favor. Orlando could not get the tire off in order to put on a spare. It seemed the tool that came with her old Honda Civic did not fit that particular tire.

Orlando decided to go to a mechanic he knew; I let him use my car. He drove off and came back an hour later with a bunch to tools.

Thankfully, one of the tools worked. As Orlando drove off to repair my daughter’s car, I danced with relief. I called George and was on my way. Although I was an hour late, I was brimming with energy.

Stress could have interfered with the creation of my music, but I didn’t allow it to. So on that day, we finished the arrangement for my newest song “Take Me Away.”

A few days later, I added harmony to my song with George’s talented instructions.

Recently, a good friend noticed there were backup vocals on many of my more recent songs. I laughed after I hung up because she told me that it sounded so “professional.” She had no idea!

George would tell me what I needed to sing. He would hum it and then I would attempt over and over to replicate his falsetto. It could take a long time because I usually keeled over laughing at how bad I sounded trying to sing something other than the melody. Those days of being in a choir were long gone!

This picture is from my high school choir days. I recently visited my beloved teacher, Frankie.

All of what I’ve written reminds me how at a recent solo show a woman asked me, “How do you create music with all the interference going on in your life?”

That “interference” she was referring to was probably the illness and deaths of my parents. Not sure if she was also including my separation, divorce and challenges that came with three children.

My answer was: Creating music has been my medicine!

Turning my pain into a song really is miraculous. It even inspired me to find faith in God.

Therefore, with that thought yesterday I went to the recording place near my house to sing a few vocal lines for my new song. I had fallen only a few hours earlier and limped over to the microphone.

Later that night, I edited the vocals and put them together with the harmony, creating a rough mix.

In a few days, I will record the guitar. A finalized vocal will take awhile because I am still playing around with my lyrics.

I started this post describing my achy tennis match where I was completely soothed because of listening to “Take Me Away” while driving there. It definitely was my remedy for pain.

Of course, I didn’t play a very good tennis game, but I was really glad I pushed myself to get out there.

I tried not to imagine how awful it would have been if I had broken my wrist and couldn’t use my computer for music, art or blogging.

My friends all told me how lucky I was. One woman said, “It sure could have been worse!”

I let her know that was true but not comforting. I said, “Sure, it could have been worse but I wish I were luckier and hadn’t fallen.”

Then I added my latest line of, “But it is what it is!”

The stumble that landed me on the pavement happened so quickly! I had run an errand with my son because I decided to enlist his support after my frustration returning a modem the week before. There was a long line at the cable store, so I told him to run another errand while I waited in line.

The line went quickly and I had about twenty minutes until he would return. I decided to go for a walk because it was a beautiful day.

I sent my son a text message and gave him an intersection where he would find me. I was almost there and decided to go into a gas station on the corner to use the bathroom.

Just as I was walking toward that gas station, suddenly I fell. I landed with a hard thump onto the ground and my knees and wrists absorbed most of the impact. There was a step and I hadn’t seen it at all.

I silently cursed my foggy eyesight and lack of attention.

I lay on the cement for a moment in shock. I looked around to see if anyone had seen me fall. Nobody had. It was humiliating to be on the ground like that – I felt so helpless.

I groaned and sat up. My body really hurt. My pants weren’t torn, but I could feel my knees were bleeding. I could not stand up, so I just sat there.

Eventually, a woman came over to me from a gas pump and offered me a hand. It was a struggle, because my knees really hurt. As she pulled, I yelped and could not stand up. I told her to stop; I didn’t want her to hurt her back.

She refused to stop trying. Firmly she said with a smile, “Come on! One more time.” She clutched my hand and I stood up shakily.

I gave her a warm hug and thanked her. Just then, my son’s car rolled up to where I was standing.

He put down the window and said, “I saw you walking a moment ago while I was waiting for the light, but then you disappeared. Where did you go?”

I got into his car and my tears were gushing all over the place.

I came home and collapsed onto my bed. My daughter sent me a very loving text message. She oozed with appreciation that I had taken care of her car repairs.

It seemed that since my outburst the other day, things were better between us. I decided that my new mantra of not suppressing everything might have some benefits, after all!

I’m on the other side of the glass when I sing.

I rested for an hour and wondered about whether I was up for recording vocals in the afternoon as I had planned. I didn’t wonder for very long.

I came into the recording studio moving very slowly. I told Darrin (the man who records me) that I had fallen down a few hours earlier, but I wasn’t going to let it keep me from singing.

This was going to be another challenging day searching for my vibe!

Only a week ago, I had sung with Darrin just twenty minutes after my daughter had called me from the scene of her minor car accident.

And by the way, she was not too thrilled with me for doing that.

I told her that my singing only took about half an hour. I had already cancelled my evening plans and knew I’d be home by the time she arrived with her wrecked car on the tow truck. But it wasn’t easy singing with the image of her dented car in my head!

A picture my daughter sent me.

I have sung several times a week at this studio with Darrin for over a year. I am quite used to singing while under tremendous stress.

It’s hard to explain how I manage to sing when awful things are happening in my life. Of course, my voice is affected by how I feel.

I work with it and find emotion that I might not have otherwise.

I continue to sing because singing takes me away to another place that is far away from my pain.

I was so excited to sing a vocal for my new song; it was easy to ignore my sore body.

I closed my eyes and positioned the earphones. The exquisite arrangement transported me somewhere else.

My eyes were still closed as I waited for the music to begin. That’s when the vision happened.

I was lying on the ground where I had just fallen. A woman was reaching out a hand to help me up. My heart skipped a beat.

In my vision, the woman who pulled me up was my mother.

She gently hugged me and disappeared. I marveled that I hadn’t broken anything.

I began to sing and I could still feel my mother’s hug. She may have died five months ago, but she hadn’t left me.

Tagged acknowledgment, acoustic guitar, adjusting to loss of parents, beautiful music, car accident, composing, coping with stress, daughter relationship, escape through music, god and music, grief, GRIEF RELATED, guitar, haunting melody, having hope, healing from grief, healing music, hope, hope of healing, hopeful and optimistic, inspiration, it is what it is, Judy Unger, loss, loss of a mom, loss of a mother, love for a mother, lyric development, lyric writing, lyrics, mother, mother daughter relationship, mother's death, Mother's love, Music, music and healing, original songs, parent and child, positive thinking, recording music, recording vocals, singing, songwriting, stress and effects, stressors, suppressing emotion, suppressing feelings, tribute to my mother, vocals | 2 Comments

A PEACEFUL PLACE

Posted on March 24, 2014 by Judy

My newest song arrangement is done and I’ve interspersed my post with a lot of my lyric lines. This song definitely moves me from the moment the first chords of the introduction start playing. My blog has really documented the stages involved with the birth of “Take Me Away,” which hatched from an old guitar instrumental named “Waterfalls.”

Click the blue link below to hear a karaoke. I am still working on recording my guitar, vocal and harmony for it:

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This past week, I went on a lovely hike and had a picnic with my good friend, Carol. Being with her lifted my spirits so much. In this picture, she is assembling a fantastic salad for our picnic lunch.

I see my hand shadow there. It looks like I wanted to just scoop this up with my fingers and eat it ASAP!

This salad was utterly amazing. Take me away for a picnic with Carol anytime!

This salad was utterly amazing, especially with Carol’s homemade salad dressing. Take me away for a picnic with Carol anytime!

I am currently illustrating this flavor for a yogurt label. No wonder I’m craving this!

I am currently illustrating this flavor for a yogurt label. No wonder I’m craving chai lattes!

“It is what it is”

I began my hypnotherapy session by saying tearfully, “I feel like a shell of a person!”

It was because the past two weeks had held many challenges for me.

It felt like every day was far too complicated and I burst into tears easily. Recently I had written about how acknowledgement was a very helpful word – but applying it was harder than I thought.

Only the day before, a simple task of returning a modem to an Internet provider turned into a 3-hour ordeal. My eyes were foggy and I had trouble seeing street addresses. It turned out that the first location on my list was no longer in business. But I had another location to try. When I arrived there and went inside, I was told I needed to go to a third location and another after that. After I found out at the sixth location that I needed a label (which I had left at home), I began sobbing in my car. I drove home and decided I was very angry with my 23-year-old son, whom I wished had taken care of this. I had waited a week for him to handle the return; he told me he was too busy with work and school to help. Now I regretted that I hadn’t waited longer even though I was being charged for it. I had ordered that extra modem for him (his game system didn’t work well with our current provider), but it turned out that it didn’t work in our apartment.

I realized that my situation above wasn’t anything to cry about. But clearly it was a buildup from other things going on.

Two weeks ago, my 20-year-old daughter had a minor accident in the restaurant where she worked. It was 11:00 p.m. and Urgent Care was closed. She was shaking and I insisted she come over so I could drive her to the ER. We arrived and found out the wait was five hours. The nurse that did the checking in kindly said off-the-record that it didn’t look like my daughter needed stitches, so we decided to go home. The cut was very close to her eye and she was lucky.

My daughter’s run of close calls continued with a minor car accident last week. It happened on a day when I had plans to go to a special movie screening. Being invited out by a friend was a rarity in my life and I was really looking forward to it. But only two hours before getting ready to leave, I received a panicked call from my daughter.

She had been working at a far away location as a movie extra. It was her first day and she had slept over at my house. She had to leave at 4:30 a.m. that morning and was very tired when the shoot was over. Because she was so exhausted, she drove home in the wrong direction and had to turn around. She lost control of her car on the dirt shoulder and plowed into a fence. Of course, I was relieved my daughter was okay – but her car was not drivable. It was difficult for the tow truck to extricate it from under a fence and tree.

–

I cancelled my show plans. The tow truck was bringing her and the damaged car to my house. I took it upon myself to help solve her problem by calling a friend who had a car she could temporarily borrow. In the meantime, I would pay my friend to help repair her car. My daughter had been struggling financially to live on her own, working at a restaurant and barely making ends meet. We were getting along much better since she’d moved out. But not on this day. After she snapped at me, I regretted mentioning that I had cancelled my plans to be there for her. She was furious at me for not appearing more sympathetic to her situation. I was completely frustrated trying to soothe her and myself at the same time.

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I like this photo/illustrations better with the blue tones. This is actually the color of the photo from a long ago hike.

Two days later, we drove to the scene of her accident. My daughter didn’t have any information about how to reach the owner of the fence she had hit, but she had shared her insurance information with someone on the property. Our drive was a 3-hour excursion where I hoped to find the owner and request that the repair not go through our insurance company because if reported, it would cause my insurance to go sky high. As we grew closer to the area, my daughter was agitated and upset. I got out of the car alone and knocked on the door of a large sprawling ranch home. No one answered the door, but as I walked back to my car I heard a voice. A woman got off her horse and came over to me with a smile. She was friendly and told me she’d let me know what the repair cost. I was so relieved and glad I had made that trip.

But as I drove home, my daughter said things that upset me. I felt my throat tightening and unleashed a torrent of angry words that I couldn’t stop. After that, the rest of our drive was in silence. A few hours later, we hugged before she went home and I wished I hadn’t had such an outburst. I was so glad when the day was over!

There was something else that had saddened me the past week. I had called an old friend whom I hadn’t spoken with for a long time. She confided to me that I had written something on my blog a year ago, which had deeply hurt her. I felt awful because my intention was never to hurt such a good friend; I thought that what I had written was kind. But she was right; I had mentioned something hurtful without realizing it. Even though I told her I was sorry, I felt terrible that I could not erase her pain. I hoped she would forgive me for being so thoughtless.

And lastly, the day before my session, I had received two written reports about my 17-year-old son that depressed me. The reports were filled with pages listing all his challenges. The truth was that my son was very happy and lately he was doing much better in school. He was truly the sunshine in my life. I decided to put the reports in a drawer and not read them.

–

So when I came to my hypnotherapy session, acknowledging my stress hardly comforted me. I was back to that place of feeling like a failure because I wasn’t grateful enough – things could definitely be worse!

My hypnotherapist, Connie, patiently listened as I recounted all the travails from my past week. Then she gently asked me what stories I was telling myself surrounding my recent challenges. I loved how she was able to have a more detached perspective of my situation.

She was right because with me, there was always a story behind everything. It was the stories that I told myself, which caused me the most pain.

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It all started with when I came in announcing I was a “shell of a person.”

Did I really believe that? I said it because I was teary and felt empty inside. But the on the other hand, over the past week I celebrated how much pleasure my new song gave me. And I had very much enjoyed seeing my friend, Carol.

Yet my new song was definitely about my grief. There was no escaping that fact.

I talked a lot to Connie about the difficulty I had with my daughter. Being there for her was important. But I was confused – was I doing too much for her? I hadn’t felt appreciated, but had my own mother caused me to ever feel that way? The story that came into my mind was that I couldn’t measure up to my own mother.

I also had a car accident when I was 20 years old that left my chin scarred. At that time, my parents took care of everything for me and I didn’t think anything about it.

But now, I was spending a lot of energy focusing on how I bore the financial burden for my daughter alone. It felt unfair. But the last thing I wanted to do was approach my soon-to-be-ex-husband to pitch in (for many reasons I can’t mention). My daughter was already down about her life; taking on the extra job was her own initiative to earn extra money. I wanted to be supportive by fixing her car so she could get to work, but at the same time was I rescuing her from the consequences?

There was an underlying current going on and I wasn’t sure what it was. I was miserable and didn’t want to go to the place of using my eyesight discomfort as the reason either.

–

My trip to Yosemite last December was definitely peaceful.

I settled into the comfortable recliner for hypnosis. Tears were oozing out from under my closed eyelids. I was ready to go to a peaceful place, for sure.

Usually going under hypnosis was simply like taking a nap for me. I closed my eyes and drifted. This day was slightly different. I felt a sensation as if I was really floating and tingling. It was such a relief and my tears finally stopped pouring down my cheeks.

In the distance I heard Connie’s voice. She said, “I’m going to say three words for you to listen carefully to.”

She said, ”It isn’t fair.”

I felt myself tighten up inside. This was a trap – another trigger for me.

With my eyes closed, my voice was sharp as I said, “Whoever said life was fair? There is no fairness in life! I never expected fairness. Okay – at times I can honestly admit being envious of people who haven’t experienced the losses I have. But then there are people who have gone through far more tragedies in life, too!”

I wondered why she had used those words – it wasn’t comforting for me at all!

Instead, those words felt critical. Had I not appeared grateful that my child was okay? Or that my two sons had achieved more than I ever imagined with challenges that made life hard for them?

I remembered my parents and how loving they were to me. I tried so hard to be a loving mother to my three children – taking care of their needs, while at the same time missing having someone who cared about my own.

It was hard to face and I was crying again.

Now Connie steered the hypnosis somewhere else and suggested I go to a peaceful place. I did. I was in a forest near a cool waterfall. My mother was holding me. I began to feel calm again.

–

I said, “It’s hard to face that my parents are gone forever. Sometimes I’m so overwhelmed and unsure of what I’m doing with my own children because I’m still a child inside!”

Connie said softly, “Every person needs love and understanding.”

I said, “There’s no one on earth who could love me like my mom and dad did. Where would I find love like that now?

The obvious answer was self-love. Compassion and understanding from me to me. This was something I was working toward and excited because something had shifted for me after my last trip. Despite all the recent stressors in my life, I had not gone back to using food for comfort. I had lost a few pounds and felt better. On top of that, I had committed myself once again to stop biting my nails and had succeeded.

Now my new goal was to silence the inner critic that only spun stories causing me misery. An example was when I fought with my daughter because I felt she wasn’t grateful enough for all I had done. Then I felt guilty because she was so angry that I wasn’t more grateful she wasn’t injured. On top of that, was I an enabler for rescuing her?

I had so much “black and white” thinking going on. It was always those extremes that led me to pain. There could definitely be alternative ways to see this.

Before I woke up from hypnosis, Connie gently asked me if there was some other statement that would help me deal with those things that burdened me. The first words that popped out of my mouth were, “It is what it is.”

She repeated back my words to me. “It is what it is.” Even with my eyes closed, I could tell by the tone in her voice that Connie was smiling.

I liked those words a lot. I said them over and over. For some reason, I wasn’t spinning any stories with those words. They really allowed me to find the acknowledgment I was looking for.

The anguish and chatter that cluttered my mind faded. So often I would go back to what I wished I had done differently. I was hard on myself and frustrated for feeling weak and crying easily.

Those words were all about moving on and not being stuck.

–

Take Me Away lyrics

A few days later I realized that I wasn’t dwelling on feeling guilty for not being grateful anymore or complaining about unfairness in life. It turned out that the concept of “It’s so unfair” actually was an ongoing theme for me that I wasn’t even aware of.

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I am always amazed at how adept I am at suppressing my own feelings. I just pushed those feelings down that were “wrong” and for decades I never allowed myself to feel.

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So now I’ve decided to allow myself to feel that it certainly isn’t fair when crap happens in my life.

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After that, it is simple for me to switch gears by announcing, “But it is what it is!”

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A picture of my mother from a long time ago

I received this note over 20 years ago. Clicking on it makes it easier to read.

I received this note over 20 years ago. I told my friend that if something happened to my mom, I couldn’t go on without her. My mother died 5 months ago and I was very lucky she lived to be 88. Clicking on it makes it easier to read.