ejshea.com – Erin Shea

The Dog Days Are Over*
Florence and The Machine

Happiness hit her like a train on a track
Coming towards her stuck still no turning back
She hid around corners and she hid under beds
She killed it with kisses and from it she fled
With every bubble she sank with a drink
And washed it away down the kitchen sink.

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
The horses are comin’ so you better run

Run fast for your mother; run fast for your father
Run for your children all your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your longing behind.
You can’t carry it with you if you want to survive

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
Can you hear the horses
‘Cos here they come

And I never wanted
anything from you
Except
everything you had
And what was left after that too  Oh!

Happiness hit her like a bullet in the back
Struck from a great height
By someone who should have known better  than that

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
Can you hear the horses
‘Cos here they come

Run fast for your mother run fast for your father
Run for your children all your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your longing behind
You can’t carry it with you if you want to survive

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
Can you hear the horses
‘Cos here they come

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
The horses are comin’
So you’d better run

The dog days and over
The dog days are done
The horses are comin’
So you’d better run

–

I heard this song months and months ago, and never got around to downloading it. It’s not hard to understand why it catches the ear; I mean, I know I have a thing for soul music and Euro Pop Ladies, so it’s not hard for me to understand why I love this song so much. But it’s so unspeakably filled with joy, it practically makes your chest explode from the inside out, no matter your musical taste.

There are so many interpretations as to what the song means, but for me, it encapsulates what growing up, becoming an adult, is all about. Some of us spend a large, misspent, portion of our life mourning what isn’t, missing what is in front of us, sometimes being too consumed with grief that we’re unable to live presently, no matter how obvious our blessings are to the rest of the world. Sometimes even a knock to the head isn’t enough for some of us to get on with it already.

Life is filled with ups and downs and disappointments and unexpected grace. You roll with it. You remain present for it all, you commit to being active for every last drop.

This song is a good reminder to do just that. It’s all short anyway. There is good at every turn if you stop hiding from it.

*If you click the link, it should take you to a blog post where you can stream the song.

I swear on all that’s good and holy, I don’t know how some people manage to update frequently without being in their 20s and without commitments. It’s probably a greater reflection on my laziness as a writer, but mostly I’ve found that my mid-30s are not a fertile field from which to harvest great materials.

It’s mostly get up, work out, go to work, come home, eat and collapse. There are some entertaining bits in between, but I’m usually too tired to share them.

A catch up:

We have no news to share on the baby-making front for the moment. For those of you interested in that part, there was a bit of a blip in my cycle and when I needed to be tested, so there were no final tests performed.

Work continues to be awesome, and a place at which I am thrilled to be. It’s so good, in fact, that even if I played and won the lottery, I would still show up. It’s a nice place to spend the majority of my day, and the people there make me laugh. I enjoy the work that I do, to be sure, but I’ve learned that the real benefits in a job lie in the people who work there. At least for me.

As of two hours ago, my 18-month-old niece Maddie left after spending the weekend with Scott and I. My sister, her mom, went away for a little camping trip with her friends, and her husband was working this weekend. We volunteered to watch Maddie before we could think better. It was…easier than I imagined, to be sure, but SWEET FANCY MOSES all-consuming. I think that’s the thing that gets me about kids, and I think it’s the thing that people like me – who have been a childless adult for a long stretch of time – don’t really understand. Even when they’re sleeping – and my niece is a champion sleeper – it’s still about them. Poor Glin – her incessant need to be near her new, tiny best friend directly conflicted with our need to keep her sleeping. Normally we could slough off Glin’s whining and barking, but not when we’ve got a two-foot-tall tot curled up in a purple Pack and Play in the reading room, that’s not an option. Glin, I don’t think, had ever seen my eyeballs pop out of their sockets quite like that.

Even the dinner planning – the reading room is right off the kitchen, and I knew there was no way we’d be having dinner after Maddie went to sleep on account of there being no door in between the two rooms. So there we were, trying to keep to Maddie’s schedule while making low-fat pasta carbonara. I wondered how single parents do it, because I’m not certain how I could have kept up with Maddie’s needs, our needs and keep the place picked up and minimize the aftermath from the baby bomb that went off in our house Friday evening.

I’m complaining, but we did well and had a good time. There was park time and Phineas and Ferb. We played with random toys and cuddled up to read books. We blew soap bubbles during bath time and I don’t think there is anything cuter than a little girl feeding a very large Golden Retriever Cheerios, one by one, over and over, on a Saturday afternoon.

I get worried, of course. I see the glimpses of the parent I think I might be – no nonsense, orderly, scheduled. There is not much room for deviation, outside of the appointed “Room for Deviation Time.” I put Scott in charge of being The Fun One while I made sure that all stations were go once Operation Evening commenced. Pasta and red sauce were on the menu, and once that started, the next steps in the production line had to be ready and waiting. It is probably more fun to be The Fun One, and not the one setting up Baby Stations, but I’d argue that it keeps everyone happy and calm. It did in our house last night. Plus, less of a mess to clean up.

At the same time, it was strange to see how easily I picked up on her non-verbal cues. I never saw myself as particularly maternal, but I knew what I was doing this weekend and for some reason it all worked. There is some fun in getting a crying baby to stop crying. And quiet.

I’m still not sure I’m cut out for this full-time, but it was a decent, and adorable, dry run.