Sitting in an English Garden Waiting for the Sun

This past few weeks has been a blur...a fantastic, adrenaline-filled creative blur set to the soundtrack of the Beatles. I have fallen madly, deeply in love with a new novel, one that I am creating myself. It is a massive undertaking, one that I have had in my head brewing for some time now. There were days before I began it when I could feel it welling up inside me, like a child getting ready to be born. There is no other feeling like it, one that I can't even explain. And now it has been born. It's a lot like falling in love with a person. I have trouble falling asleep as I lay in bed making plans for it, I wake up with the characters and story on my mind, and I probably dream about it. Some days I forget to eat, and at midnight I am wondering why my stomach is growling. I use the time when Grace is napping to do the majority of the writing, or after she goes to bed. The other times I am writing in my journal, making plans and thinking up ideas. I am deliriously high on an almost constant basis.

I know that this honeymoon phase will pass eventually, but for now I am enjoying the ride. Wow. I have also been on a MAJOR Beatles kick for some reason. My step-dad (bless him and his wonderful taste in music) has made copies of all the Beatles CDs for me, along with photocopies of the inserts and the covers. I have them playing all day long when I am writing, cooking or cleaning. Even Grace has been walking around the house singing "Goo goo g'joob."
My reasons for loving the Beatles are many....for one thing, they are absolutely brilliant, and for another, there are several very important people in my life who also love the Beatles. I grew up listening to them. The early Beatles music reminds me so intensely of my early childhood when we only saw my dad every other weekend. My brother and I would usually sleep in the same bed as him, and he always had music playing softly. Sometimes it was Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson or Kris Kristofferson. I love that music too, for this reason. But when I hear "I Wanna Hold Your Hand," I am transported back to that time of mixed emotions; sadness, fear, and comfort of being with my dad. The Beatles songs from later years remind me of another person, and the hours we would spend listening to them. Especially "A Day in the Life." I will always keep that in my mind as a treasured memory. And I will not say who it is. Right now the song "Rain" is playing. One time as a teenager, John (my other dad) made me a mix tape that included that song. "It's always been one of my favorite Beatles songs for some reason," he told me. And so I will always think of him when I hear it.

Maybe it's because of John that I have such an appreciation for music, since he is a musician. I could not live without it. I wouldn't want to. There is a connection between the experiences in my life, the people I have known and the music that I have been exposed to. It all cumulates in my writing, this I cannot help. And I wouldn't have it any other way.