Saturday night, as the sun set, I sat on the front porch watching my children play in the rain puddles. I could hear the music my husband was playing for me through the open door. He started with the song “Yellow” by Coldplay, very fitting for the look of the sky just after the rain. As I listened to the squeals of the four kiddos jumping in puddles and the floating sounds of a song I love, I remembered back to a time when I was a different person. Far from who I am today. Far from what I could’ve ever imagined back then. I was carrying my oldest in my womb at the time. I was working in the capital city downtown in a high rise, eating corporate lunches, validating my valet, and commuting to our rent house in the suburbs. I knew life would change, but just how much was yet unveiled to me. In that hour commute each way I would listen to the latest rock music, plan dinner, and dream about the life growing inside me. He was such a surprise. So unplanned. So unexpected. My clubbing had come to a halt by then, as had my drinking and smoking. The changes were already taking form. “Yellow” was popular at the time and just my kind of music. Soft, beautiful, almost haunting, with enough pop to keep it from being too edgy. I relished this song when it would come on. Somehow, it spoke to my unborn. Somehow, it captured a bit of the ethereal feelings I had for this life I didn’t know yet. Somehow, it has become a song of emotion for me.
So, while rocking this newest life growing within me in the chair on the porch, allowing the music to wash emotion over me, I let the tears fall over my smile. This little house in the country that I rarely leave, is only a few miles away from the building I used to find my worth in each day. And, yet, it’s a lifetime away. The unborn that I used to sing this lullaby to, now leads the others through the biggest puddle they could find and yells, “Watch this, guys, do this like me.” And, he, as well, is a lifetime away from what I thought a child would be. I had spent a great deal of my teenage and adult life with children, and yet he reinvented what children were to me. He reinvented what I thought my life would be. And that reinvention of my life is beautiful. So different from my plans. So full of puddles and laughter.
Not long after I crooned these lyrics on that beautifully monotonous drive to my little one, life changed. I was one of many that didn’t make the economic cut. We moved from the city to the crime ridden streets of the ‘hood that my husband had grown up in. We tumultuously rode the ride set out before us. One of poverty, living with parents, and being brought low. But also one of sweet child after child. One of finding our true meaning in life. One of drifting from one another and growing closer than we’d been before. A path that has brought me to a slower life of sitting, rocking, praying. Praying that I won’t soon forget this moment of lilting music and children playing under a yellow sky.
“I drew a line
I drew a line for you
Oh what a thing to do
And it was all yellow
Your skin
Oh yeah your skin and bones
Turn into something beautiful
D’you know for you I bleed myself dry
For you I bleed myself dry
Its true look how they shine for you
Look how they shine for you
Look how they shine for you
Look how they shine for you
Look how they shine for you
Look how they shine
Look at the stars look how they shine for you”
-”Yellow” Coldplay
