And if you love me you'll know. And you'll come back home, the way's not dark. The feeling still, That same old spark. We've never felt alone. Come back home. Come back home. Please come back home.

 I am very tired from cumulative nights of not enough sleep and so am heading to bed early (for me) now because Griffin will likely wake me up with early morning cuddles or early morning zoomies when the birds start rustling in the tree outside the windows (or at least that was his normal at the full moon to be completely manic chais mode at all hours but especially from like 2am to sunrise, but I have a harder time sleeping at full moon as well so I understood, he's been doing it less since the moon relaxed into waning gibbous -- mostly he perimeter checks all the words than hops up to cuddle lay across my chest or by my head if I'm asleep at 3am -- except when the moon was full lol) and also I want some quiet hours slow morning tomorrow before taking my gran to her 1pm appointment (which means picking her up by 12:30 because she moves slowly and has knee pain getting in the car which means dropping my dog off at noonish which means making me brunch because I'll not have time for lunch til like 2:30 or later otherwise. So a slow morning, sleeping in if I want, with time to make brunch and coffee if I don't fritter away time sounds nice for tomorrow.

I wanted to listen to it before Mercury goes retrograde later today (curiously at the exact same degree it went direct last December) not because I see retrogrades as a cursed time. It's just not a time for growing something new -- it's a time for reviewing and revisiting and rewriting and renewing and do-overs and finishing your unfinished projects/plans/stories but not a time for starting new contracts or new things -- unless they're actually old things you're finally finishing or revisiting to do better than you did before. It's time to go back over the past and rework it where we may have gone awry to try again and (hopefully) rewrite it and renew it to get it right. So I wanted to get my first listen before the planet of communication goes retrograde and then relisten after the retrograde. Which I did manage to  listen to to it early this morning but I did NOT get to listening to the new album last night as planned (though I did pour myself a dram of Spirit of the Bear) because I first put on the downloads so far from 100 Songs while I was cleaning up in the kitchen and Griffin had opinions about most of them. Like, tail lashing then deliberately jumping up on the table walking on my keyboard until he muted Somewhere Somebody Somehow for the repetitive driving instrumental part of it he didn't like and then despite getting chided that laptops are for humans not cats, going back to pawing at stepping on my keyboard and then not just muting but somehow actually deleting Where Have You Been? out of my library entirely he disliked it so much that I had to go find where on my hard drive it was to add it back into the library.... He liked the rest to varying degrees but he does NOT like those two songs at all.... They upset him more than me taking back the piano bench and daring to put it back by the piano where it belongs instead of letting him keep it in my closet where he had it when that was his dedicated safe space. 😆 That upset him until he realized he can still sprawl on the piano bench but now he can do it while watching bird TV in the choke cherry tree out the balcony door.  What's funny is that other than hating bagpipes and accordion sitting in the hallway yowling as lous as possible until I turned it off (sorry Martin and Skerryvore, my cat is not yet a fan of your music despite his Welsh/Scottish names) he usually just goes to my room when he dislikes a song. He has mostly been reactive to instruments not vocals until last night, liking best piano and strings and harp and classical/acoustic guitar and disliking bagpipes and accordions and harmonicas and electric guitars, but not had much reaction to vocals. But he actually really loved Eric's vocals, came chirping to the computer to try to find the voice, it was specific parts of the verses that were a "nope, and we're done" for him. 

But, his naughtiness isn't why we didn't get to listening to extended Exactly What I Asked For last night before I went to bed as planned  (side note in case I get tired forget to state the obvious: we did listen to it this morning with coffee while I was cataloguing new books in my computer and it is absolutely gorgeous has the loveliest flow to it and I loved it! And I have a very cinematic "where are the cameras" moment that happened with the sun coming out just before the line "she's a light, she's a spark" and then a gust of wind blowing snow and golden leaves all around through the red berries and blue skies and sunlight leading into the instrumental shift of the bridge and all the robins flying out of the choke cherry tree (actually southward) right at the appropriate time in the song before settling back down to eat some more while we were listening to the earlier mix download of When I Started Loving You. I read the entries on the songs after downloading to my laptop but didn't have time to listen/watch all the clips to get home before the snow and that was the only song clip hat caught my eye as a download not a listen so I downloaded it and listened to it (on repeat) as well this morning.)

 Anyway, it wasn't the songs the cat didn't like as well that stopped us getting to the new album extended version first listen, it was the intensity of how much Griffin loved Come Back Home. It's the first song I've ever seen him completely smitten with and the first time it ended he just repetitively soft paw tapped at me like, "play that one again please" so I did and then it ended and he did it again so I just put it on repeat for him. And so it probably played 50 times on repeat with him curled up on me absolutely beatific happy purring loudly (loudest whenever I was singing along to him) when I finally told him, "I'll just leave this on repeat for you until you're done with it and head to bed now and we can listen to more songs in the morning." I closed the laptop partially so he couldn't get on the keyboard while I wasn't watching him and do something I couldn't easily fix and then at some point when he got early morning zoomies he closed the lid to make his zen song stop... I didn't check the play count but it's a short song so it probably now has the highest play count in my music library, lol. 

Don't get me wrong, I also love that particular song of his very much or I wouldn't have let my cat insist on repeating it that many times or falling asleep with it on. (My dreams last night were really happy and full of warmth and love sleeping with Come Back Home on loop, I don't really remember them all just the feeling of them. And one of them was a polar bear dream, just one of the ones of being curled up protected and held between the chest and forepaws by the polar bear tucked under his head and talking and watching the stars and/or northern lights together somewhere in shared dream space til I fall back into waking world. I don't always share about them when I have them because they aren't a shamanic dream space lessons or any quests or any have tos, just the cozy isness of being together in dream space enjoying the bond and the shared love in it. Which is personal but not something to do or achieve or a warning or something to be healed, just a good place of rest and love and feeling at home together even in the middle of shamanic shared dream space where incarnating old souls can show up in spirit/power animal forms and the old gods/goddesses and the fae still walk.) it's a song that just feels like stepping into the warmest cozy hug where everything is understood and forgiven and you feel surrounded by light and love coming in from being out on a bitterly cold wintry snowless moonless night. At least, that's the way the song makes me feel whenever I listen to it. So I love the song for itself, not just because my cat loved it enough to want it on loop quite that many hundreds of times last night. But I can very definitively say is that Come Back Home is so far Griffin's absolute favorite song ever and he will purr along to me singing him the chorus of it even when I got home tonight. He loved Eric's voice generally, and a lot of the songs made him calm down and purr happily, but Come Back Home was the one made him melt into a puddle of weak kneed smitten kitten goo of purring love and beatific zen. 

And I wanted to tell that truth. I can write more of my reactions or tell more precisely the story of that cinematic moment of the world outside my balcony door turning into a Disney movie moment for listening to the more dramatic earlier mix of When I Started Loving You. It was gorgeous in a very surreal romantic fallacy way. (Romantic fallacy as in the English lit trope where the weather and mood of the outside world reflects or paints the emotional landscape of the protagonist(s) and the storyline, not meant like a snide commentary about the state of being a hopeless romantic.) 

But if you were waiting to hear, yes I did listen to the album once through this morning with my coffee, yes I do love the album in its extended form even on first listen, yes it's very beautiful and thoughtfully laid out and heartful, yes I had a cinematic Disney romantic fallacy first listen to that dramatic mix of When I Started Loving You, yes I will listen to it more times and try to remember to write more when I can better words. Just remember, as overly full of words as my ADHD writer/poet/prophetess brain is and as much as I speak the right words at exactly the right time in a state of flow, the more deeply you touch my heart or the more tired I get the harder it is for me to words and if you stir my emotions deepest I can lose the words all together for a bit. Which isn't a bad thing (though it can be an annoying thing that leads to missed opportunities) it's just how it is with me. The more deeply you touch my soul truths and stir up my emotions, the more I will struggle and need time to find words for thise emotions -- and that coexists right along side my normal words tripping over each other ADHD quick thinking/speaking falling sometimes exactly how I want in my quick stream of conscious first draft spit balling. It just depends on if it's the language part of my brain or my deep seas of feeling part of my brain in dominant control -- and the more intensely you reach the waves and beaming sunshine and storms of my emotional seas, the quieter the playful words language focused communications centers get.  So it might take me a while to be able to words about the things that caught at my heart and moved me deepest -- in listening to the album but also in general. You will have to trust in the brightness of the soul shine beaming back at you if you can't see the emotions writ across my face and shining in my eyes until I can find the words. 

O before I forget! This week's astro poets horoscopes came in today so here you go before I get distracted and forget

"Week of 11/9 in Libra: Something that was seen. Could not be done again. And so it did not find a way in. So it made its way in. So it went in." 

"Week of 11/9 in Pisces: Dancing. And with wings. And with a heart. Let it beat there for you. Let it be there forever."

*yawns* ok, bedtime for real now. The chamomile tea is gone so I'm going to rinse the mug and turn off the lights and  shamble off to bed to snuggle down under the blankets. To sleep perchance to dream. 

Bonne nuit. The moonrise and the stars were gorgeous tonight here.  I hope they shone their beauty on your path through tonight as well. 

[Post title: lyrics to the end version of the chorus in Come Back Home by Eric Hölljes, which you can download still for free if you sign up for the 100 Songs project on his site. Or i guess now I can sing it to you since it's been stuck in my head for over 24 hours after so many repetitions upon discovering it's my cat Griffin's new favorite song of ever that instantly calms him down -- unless I stop replaying it or stop singing it before he's ready for it to stop.]