My household is in the midst of yet another powerful transition as Rebecca truly embarks on her law school journey. Since this change must be dizzying to her, part of my role as her partner is strive to maintain stability wherever possible in our domestic life. I don't yet know how hard or easy that will be. I'm also bracing myself for her departure into the depths of her studies, and the inevitability of being left idle to occupy myself in her absence. I don't know what that will be like either. These concerns form the anxiety present in this song.
Here is what I do know: this change of circumstance will alter the course of our lives, both in the shortest of short-term and in the remotest corner of our future together. It's impossible to predict the shape of the change, but we get to try to encounter it with hope and wonder. The joy of that realization accounts for the windows flying open and the song flooding our ears in the refrain.
Rarely do I experience satisfaction with myself as acutely as those weeks when I attempt to capture whistling on one of these recordings. It is hard to record whistling in my experience, so I rarely ever try. It is a shame because my lips are truly my primary instrument, whistling as I am wont to do all around town whenever I am out and about by myself. I probably seem like a crazy person, but I've come to terms with that since the city where I live provides such convenient cover for people acting out of the ordinary. The threshold is high around here. I did a simple whistle harmony toward the top of this number, and I felt glad about it, but I digress.
lyrics
On the way up
We are looking at strangers faces
Lines that we know
Add up to misplaced shapes
And tales we've been told
On the way up
I thought of all the years you've been breathing
Each spoke a word
Even your past believes in what we'll become
All of the windows open and worlds come in
They open and songs come in
We've never heard that one
We've never heard it before
On the way up
We are talking about plans we're making
Each is a poem
Each is a breath I'm taking
Each holds a song
On the way up
I thought of how you look when you're crying
Your shoulder conceals half of you
And I would be lying to say I'm unmoved
All of the windows open and worlds come in
They open and songs come in
We've never heard that one
We've never heard it before