Hey Paula (A Mama Kat Writing Prompt)

Ever since I decided to do Mama Kat prompt Number 5: List the songs that tell your life story (so far), a prompt inspired by Moments That Define Life, I have been so tempted to pop on over to MTDL to figure out how the heck she did this prompt. But I will not allow myself to do so until after I press "publish."  I'm All By Myself, not relying on any crutches.

[Note - all text in bold is a song lyric.]

When I was born, clearly before the days when ultrasound revealed a baby's gender, I am sure my parents were thrilled to learn..... It's a girl.....

I was a reader and a words-lover through and through. It was crushing to not even make the school spelling bee because I misspelled "judgement" (I didn't use the preferred spelling "judgment") one year; had to miss the school bee the year I had chicken pox, and lost in the finals of the county bee by misspelling "yacht" (I spelled it "yaght"). It's true:

... the words in the dictionary
Are the friends that I’ll have forever

Fast forward to high school, cheerleading, marching band:

On you tigers, on you tigers, roll right down that line.......

We had a cheer dance to "Lady (You Bring Me Up) by the Commodores. I will never forget Debbie Myers being the only one who remembered the choreography after cheer camp and how she taught it to us. She was the epitome of focused.

You bring me up when I'm down.....

Later in our senior year, I competed in the Miss Union County High pageant. Our production number was to "New York, New York." Although I am pretty sure I had wanted to go to NYC since infancy, I was determined to

wake up, in that city that doesn't sleep...

and see

my little town blues .... melting away

Throughout my childhood, teenagerhood, and early adulthood, there was a thread of spiritual music woven through just about everything, including:

Just as I am 

I did go to New York. I did take that bite out of the Big Apple. 

Although Wayne and I did not have a particular song at our New York City wedding, I have always fantasized about having my wedding song be "In My Life":

But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you

I loved picking out song lyrics for the birth announcements of Tenley and Wayne. And I had lyrics picked out for the third too. Oh well. Tenley's was from Marc Cohn's "The Things We've Handed Down":

Don't know why you chose us
Were you watching from above?
Is there someone there that knows us,
Said we'd give you all our love 

And Wayne Kevin's was adapted from an old Broadway musical (The Bells Are Ringing):

Everything we feel for you 

started many years ago

Long before we knew you  

Long before we met you

We were sure we'd find you 

someday, somehow    

I was really fortunate last year to add some real live world music to my listening experience, when I visited Guatemala. I can't remember lyrics so much as I remember the sounds of marimbas, but I do recall a lyric that Bob Hentzen, Founder of CFCA, told us about hearing a Guatemalan child sing:

I sing to drown out the sounds of guns

I suppose I have come to "now" and it is so tempting to use a lyric from Natasha Bedingfield's song:

The rest is still unwritten

But I don't really feel that way. Although I feel that there is a lot of "unknown" ahead and a lot of the path my and my family's future can take is indeed "unwritten," I really hope that 

His eye is on the sparrow 

and I continue to have, despite the ups and downs of the last year and a half,

(click for the song!)

and that as much as I like my "alone time," I ultimately ...

Don't Wanna Be All By Myself

Here are the songs:

Hey Paula

All By Myself

Take It Easy

My Friend The Dictionary 

Union County High Fight Song (derived from On Wisconsin)

Lady 

New York, New York

Just as I Am

In My Life (Bette Midler Version)

The Things We've Handed Down

Long Before I Knew You

Source of the "sound of guns" lyric - unknown

Unwritten

His Eye Is On The Sparrow

High Hopes