And it took so long just to feel alright
Remember how to put back the light in my eyes
I wish I had missed the first time that we kissed
'Cause you broke all your promises
And now you're back
You don't get to get me back
Caleb has no time for cinema, he's busy. It's spring and this is birthday season. We'll skip right past Valentine's Day and skip past the upcoming but lesser-known Burns Night because those are Lochlan-holidays and he doesn't get those. And he's becoming a lot less regimented and a lot less formal and way more fun the older he gets, but I probably couldn't get him to sit through a Ghibli movie if I tried, though he did offer to watch one if I really needed him to. He's Howl. Super-agreeable. Can provide whatever your imagination spits out and pushes far too hard until things are trepidous but still highly escapable.
He'll be fifty-eight this year. Still the same age as Tom Cruise but decidedly nothing like Tom Cruise, who doesn't actually age. Caleb has laugh lines and frown lines and is turning light grey around the edges, fully half his beard is white now when he doesn't shave and he lives a practiced, scheduled life, favourites within easy reach, hardly deviating except in that one way and he's as charming as ever, sitting here.
Choose something else.
He wants to buy me something..significant, in his words, with an obviously capital S. Since Christmas did not work out the way he planned. Anything. Name it.
But not the thing I ask for. It's okay, I have a list. I want to sing.
You have a beautiful voice-
I want to hear it. It's so hard to hear it without a half-hour of setup for the monitors and the mix-
I would give you that if I could, Neamhchiontach.
I turn to the edge of the bench. I've been working on Jar of Hearts all morning. It's a little bit of an easier reach for me, which is encouraging because I sat down to work on Speak to Me and it's a lot harder so I was discouraged and when that happens I'll do anything to make that feeling go away.
He sits beside me. Whats happening?
I need to nail the piano and then I can work on vocals.
Then play, he orders.
I start the song and he sings it.
Now your turn.
I'm more than surprised. He sounds pretty good. I've never seen so many of his teeth. I'm usually in his mouth.
Now will you play? Until I get this part down.
Yes.
He played (he plays! They all play, I know, I tell you nothing as I tell you everything) and I sang and we ran through it three times and I finally was happy with it and took over piano and by then those who like the song were in the doorway and those who hate it had to leave the point, because I play so loud. I'm a smasher, I push against the keys, against the pedals, I pound and flourish and one of my tricks to hit the notes I can't hit as a supremely shitty mezzo-soprano is to go louder as I go higher.
Luckily I am a Capricorn rising and not the least bit shy which to me is already a freaking superpower as in I am the one who will make the speech/pick up the phone/take charge/make a fool of myself first and then everyone else will feel more comfortable. I've never cared once what anyone thinks of me and so one of my goals for the future is to get my singing to a place where I don't mostly hate it.
You would think by now I would be there but I am not.