Chewymom

I got exactly what I wanted for Mother’s Day yesterday. A lazy day at home with my family, and a bunch of ooooold Dan Fogelberg tunes on my iPod. Today I set out for my walk/run. And might I add I ran for THIRTY MINUTES, y’all!! I had the iPod play all Fogelberg, and I reminisced.

In high school, I was ALL ABOUT the Dan Fogelberg albums. I could put them on my record player (yes, I am that old) and listen for hours. I would get lost in the songs about love. I would croon right along with Dan and get so caught up in the plight of the gambler, that I would momentarily forget that the cowboy-wannabe who had introduced me to Fogelberg had just dumped me. I would listen to the words of “Windows and Walls” and want to weep as I thought of my widowed grandmother living with us, primarily in the room below me, and how lonely she must be. Some of Dan’s songs were so deep I wasn’t sure I really understood them at all, but I put in hours trying.

Today I relistened to and relivedmany of those thoughts and emotions as I ran. And then a song came on that caught my attention. It seemed almost to be a good-bye song. And perhaps it was. I had not heard it before, so I suspect it is from a newer album, perhaps written after Fogelberg learned that he had prostate cancer.

I was so grieved back in December when I learned that Dan had passed away. Which seems odd because it isn’t like I knew him or anything. I wouldn’t be looking around my table at Christmas, grieving over the empty space. But because Dan shared his soul through his music in a way that spoke to me and that walked me through many years of teenage angst, I guess I felt a kinship with him and felt like I had a window into his soul. And today I was just thinking how thankful I am that sometimes God creates a life and breathes depth and skill and music into it that allows it to weave amazing lyrics that touch the hearts and lives of so many people in with haunting and soulful melodies that stir the soul. And I’m thankful that Dan Fogelberg and his music were such a part of my teen years and beyond, and that now–even though the records are long since scratched beyond recognition–I have those songs available to me again on my iPod.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 at 7:35 am and is filed under This and That. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.