why can't i stay in the driver's seat?

oh, where to start. first let me say that I am well aware of the strong effects that emotional music has on me. so much so that for about three weeks i drove around in silence, with my stereo volume down to zero (because i don't know how to turn it off completely) and i wanted to hold my course. and i was level-headed, alert, and coherent when i spoke to people. and then i get the natalie merchant "Motherland" album that i innocently ordered used off amazon in the mail. and then the lullaby title track sucks me in to this world of longing, bittersweet, the emotions welling up within me as i listen. have enough? no. then i'm picking out U2 albums. and now in this last week, Coldplay. (and just a little bit of annie lennox ('Why').) there are names for girls like this that i will not repeat. i'm not going to implicate myself.

i will say that listening to the Coldplay album was bound to happen. ever since hearing its new power after being paired with the 9/11 movie. i think as a population we are finally able to fully grieve now that those two are paired together. i'm solemnly serious about that. it got me thinking too about just how blindingly beautiful it is that we get to cover over these huge acts of terror with love for one another. i just have this picture in my head of a warm golden color being smoothed and melted, gently soothed into all the pits and divits of pavement and broken cement. the "small" acts of removing landmines from old wars, building memorials, naming streets, writing songs, writing stories. really, we are very good at studding our living space with landmarks to people who bring more love into this world. it's achingly beautiful.

also in this last week, the last song on "X&Y" album is showing me its shades beyond being a lovely, complex love song. i would say that it is what my soul has been singing to God for a while now, but in emotional clouds - not the words that Coldplay so helpfully introduced me too. and that makes me cry too, finding expression for such a vague storm of emotion. i think i better give all the emotional music a rest. i'd like to start making sense again when i talk to people instead of being in the cloudy right hemishere so much to the point that nothing i say make sense to me or anyone else. and now i must go to bed.