The Image In Your Heart (Songwriting Week 11--Picture This)

I'm traveling in northern Europe this week with my wife. She's asleep next to me right now on a train from Amsterdam to Brussels. We were visiting my daughter who's studying abroad this semester. She comes home next month. In the meantime, I had the surreal experience of kissing her good-bye for another month plus in the red light district of Amsterdam. Yep. It's just too weird on too many levels so I'll leave it alone.

Back to my other lady love--the sleepy one. I wrote the song featured this week during another weird experience. I was smack in the middle of falling in love not long after swearing on a stack of beer coasters that I never would again. And she was falling for me, an older and rebounding, soon to be divorced guy, after promising herself never to go there. But we did. We both did. Thank God.

Now we're traveling through Europe together, taking pictures as we go, with visions of what lies in store at the next new place along the way, and I'm reminded of the mental imagery that inspired this song. The images that convinced us we could see things that others couldn't, and that sometimes vision is worth the risk. With that as a premise, it won't surprise you that the first serious gift I ever bought my wife was a camera, which was right about the same time I wrote this:

PICTURE THIS

Picture this, two tattered snapshots folded into one
Don't you turn and run, it'll be alright
Picture this, a silent movie classic etched in rough
If we stay tough, it'll be alright

Bet they didn't think we'd get this far
I saw from the start how strong you are
So I hitched my broke down wagon to the star
Of this film noir
It's only black and white, but that's alright

Picture this, the judges and the preachers are all wrong
If we stay strong, it'll be alright
Picture this, the image in your heart is our best shot
Ready or not, it'll be alright

Bet they didn't think we'd get this far
I saw from the start how strong you are
So I hitched my broke down wagon to the star
Of this film noir
It's only black and white, but that's alright

(c) Steve Celestini, 2007

It was tempting to dismiss our chance at a successful relationship because of all the obvious obstacles. The temporal and demographic stuff on the surface was tilted against us, no doubt. We even tried "breaking up" a couple times, self-imposed moratoriums on time together, but that only made sense to others, not to us. So we took some risk, even though we seemed destined for a melodramatic B-movie ending, because all the things we could see, all the things we pictured for ourselves, were trending upwards.

There's a thing about going up, though. It's harder than going down. Falling down tends to happen quickly and be done. Going up is hard work. There's all kinds of physical, emotional and relational gravity pulling against you. You've got to have a picture in your heart, I think, an image that you turn your face towards, like a light at the end of a tunnel, something that helps you overcome gravity.

And it really helps to have someone holding your hand and climbing with you.

Thanks for reading. Next week I'll be coming to you from a plane to Japan. That should be interesting.

To listen to "Picture This" please click here and use Steve's Myspace Music Player.