we woke up this morning with “You and Me of the 10,000 Wars” in our head. it is an early Indigo Girls song. (i’m sure most of you knew that already.) so we’ve been playing that album (Nomads Indians Saints) a lot today.
when it got to “the girl with the weight of the world in her hands” it brought back a lot of memories. we remember being a teenager…being so alone and in so much pain. feeling like everyone could see our pain (it seemed so obvious to us) and that they just didn’t care. or too busy with their happiness and busy with their plans.
and i think back on that girl that i was, and think that she was so wise. i can easily see “the way she smiles so knowingly at me gives me the shivers” applying to her.
so much from that song resonated with us. so much of their stuff does.
The Girl with the Weight of the World in her Hands
(© Indigo Girls. All rights reserved. )
She won’t recover from her losses,
She’s not chosen this path, but she watches who it crosses
Maybe move to the right, maybe move to the left
So we can all see her pain she wears like a banner on her chest
And we all say it’s sad, and we think it’s a shame
And she’s called to our attention, but we do not call her name,
The girl with the weight of the world in her hands.
We’re busy with our happiness, busy with our plans
I wonder if alone she wants it taken from her hands
But if things didn’t get any harder
She might miss her sacred chance to go a consecrated martyr,
The girl with the weight of the world in her hands.
I wonder which saint that lives inside a bead
will grant her consolation when she counts upon her need
It makes us all angry though we feign to care
But who will be the scale to weigh the cross she has to bear,
The girl with the weight of the world in her hands.
“Is the glass half-full or empty?” I ask her as I fill it
She said it doesn’t really matter, pretty soon you’re bound to spill it.
With the half logic language of the sermon she delivers
And the way she smiles so knowingly at me gives me the shivers
I pull the blanket higher when I’m finally safe at home
And she’ll take a hundred with her, but she always sleeps alone,
The girl with the weight of the world in her hands.
and then….
“I woke up this morning, grey dawn,
with a prayer on my breath.
I lost something precious,
God’ll save me from losing myself…
I think I know what’s wrong
Pushing the needle too far. ”
(excerpt from Pushing the Needle too Far by Indigo Girls)
we definitely thought we lost something…that we were missing something that everyone else seemed to have…and that was why we were so unhappy…and if we could just figure out the right thing to say or do or whatever….then maybe we could be happy.
i could go on forever…the indigo girls early work touched us in so many ways. listening to it now brings back all those feelings of hopelessness, of pain, of loneliness, of sadness, of longing….but also a sense of hope. because someone out there did know what all this shit felt like. and suddenly i had a few words for all this stuff that i couldn’t normally describe.
i guess i am just rambling…reminiscing…it just helps to get it out when the emotions hit so hard…expecially since the first time around we really were all alone with them. i never want us to be that alone again.