Memorial Day
What was I supposed to say to you?
Listen to Memorial Day: Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple Music | Deezer
Release show tomorrow Feb 21 (7pm doors 8pm music!) at The Owl Music Parlor with Beche, Footwork, Mert Spalty, and Lilith
It’s a diary entry: walking my kid cousins to the lake, soothing the younger one’s (quite justified) fear of dogs, thinking about the previous night’s birthday party on a friend’s rooftop, and getting a text confirming the inevitable. Many of my song lyrics arise from observations throughout the day, and trying to find the thread that stitches these moments together. Sometimes a particular event makes the surrounding moments and places seem more prominent or notable.
On this day, I got that text confirming my grandfather’s death, and my subsequent thought process is burned into my brain. I didn’t pick up the phone when my mom called. I didn’t feel prepared to have that conversation in front of my young cousins. I became more aware about how I was engaging with them on that day.
When the older one tested boundaries, throwing sticks at the pond, he asked “Zoe, am I being bad?” I really had a hard time with that one. I mean, going fishing involves throwing things at the water - is that “bad”? Throwing things at animals because you think it’s funny - that feels a little more clear. Are you having fun and not harming anyone by it?
We talked about it for a bit, I asked him what he thought, and settled on asking him to check in with the lake. “Do you think the lake likes sticks thrown at it?” “What if you were one of those ducks and a kid was throwing sticks at the place you live?” At one point the wind started blowing towards us, and he commented that it was getting pretty hard to throw things at the lake, because the lighter bits of twig and leaf were blowing right back at him. “Maybe the lake doesn’t like me throwing things at it.”
When their mom met me at the park to pick them up, I told her about the pond incident. I was unsure I had handled it correctly and thought maybe I should have just said “no throwing sticks at the pond!” But her answer surprised me, expressing that she wants the other adults in her kids lives to do things differently than their parents. None of us knows everything about raising the next generation or what death really means, so you might as well ask as many people as you can for their answer.
Listen to Memorial Day: Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple Music | Deezer
Release show tomorrow Feb 21 (7pm doors 8pm show!) at The Owl Music Parlor with Beche, Footwork, Mert Spalty, and Lilith
