My name is Leah, and this blog is where I come to gain perspective, share thoughts, stories, a few laughs, and pieces of our home with friends, family, and the occasional curious surfer. I love visitors here and I especially love feedback, so feel free to leave a comment before you move on!
If you know Ellie, you probably know how much she loves to sing. It's a bit like living in musical some days, where everything reminds her of a song and she just has to sing. She would feel right at home in The Sound of Music, I think. No, she doesn't always know all the words, and no, she doesn't always sing loudly. It's often quiet and somwhat indestinct, but for the girl who couldn't sing a thing or speak a word not so long ago, every song is a wonderful thing.
She sings preschool favorites, songs she's heard in movies or on Sesame Street, songs they sing at school, songs she hears in the car, and, all year 'round, Christmas songs. Her little voice has become the soundtrack to most of our days.
In spite of all the singing we hear, she has been extremely shy about singing on camera or when asked. Several times I have tried to get her to sing a specific song for someone, or to sing almost anything on camera, and she refuses. She's more apt to stare mutely or run away than she is to comply, so I've settled for soaking it up real-time and leaving the recording until she's ready.
But, miracle of miracles, she obliged her teachers at school last week. So here, to spread a little Christmas love, is Ellie's quiet rendition of Rudolph:
When I was a kid, my parents listened to a lot of folk music, including the Irish folk of Makem and Clancy. If I'm not mistaken, they even brought me to a Makem and Clancy concert as a child. I have vague memories of being in the audience and listening to them play songs I knew from Mom and Dad's records at home. Most of the music was great for the crazy running around and dancing that kids love to do, but some of the songs were heavy. Waltzing Matilda used to make me cry, as did this one: it's the story of a man who falls in love with a seal-person who gives her life to save him from a storm...
Yes, yes, of course I was a sentimental child! Now it may seem sacharine, but then I took these things very seriously. And the images from the song--the seal-woman's sacrifice and her single-minded devotion, the fisherman's fierce if fool-hearty independence and their doomed affair--are printed forever on my psyche as only things from childhood can be. I always pictured her staring out to sea waiting for his return, missing both the water she'd abandoned and the man for whom she'd given it all up. I imagined her as one forever out of her element, estranged from the people around her in the Kagen's fishing village, and irrevocably separated from her family at the same time--a creature of the wild, free ocean accepting the limitations of land for the one she loved.
I remember loving to swim, too, and diving deep--down as far as I could comfortably go--reveling in the cool stillness, the weightlessness, the peaceful, perfect quiet. I would stay there as long as my lungs would allow, thrilling in watery flight. I even had a recurring childhood dream that I was a dolphin, swimming in a pod with other dolphins, fast, sleek, weightless--it was like flying and dancing at once. It was the most exhilarating kind of freedom and joy I could imagine. I was always sorry to wake from those dreams. I imagined that the seal-woman's memories would be like that as she gazed out to sea, tethered to gravity on the shore.
The reason I've been thinking about this almost-forgotten part of my childhood is that Ellie's appreciation of water is snowballing. She has always loved the water, but lately it's become almost all-consuming. She loves baths, showers, puddles, the sink--she'd even play in the toilet if she had the chance. She will stand at the bathroom sink for ages, playing, splashing, swishing, pouring, running the water over her arms. She doesn't seem to care that she's getting her clothes all wet or that she's splashed water on her face and hair. She's transfixed.
It's exhausting to facilitate this kind of play. I'd much rather that she color or play with something less messy. I've been grumbling about having to remove everything from the bathroom several times a day, about the clean-up and the multiple changes of clothes, and of course the melt-downs that occur when she can't get to her beloved water.
But then I stopped and watched her for a while. Really watched. Listened to her voice trill and her eyes light up as she played. In the water she is at ease--really comfortable and happy. She isn't constantly looking for me, frustrated or temperamental. She is in her element in a way that she can't be here, with the rest of us. She loves us, certainly, but she doesn't relate to us the way she relates to water. Relating to us is work, but water is pure pleasure--the perfect escape. She is the seal-woman trapped in our village, and seeing that I know I can't stop her from reaching for the comfort of the water.
Get up and dance with me! It's a beautiful morning and I've a new dancing love: Brazillian wonder Daniela Mercury. If she doesn't make you want to dance you might want to check your pulse!
