A Rhyme and a Reason: For the children and the flowers.

At my sister’s on Christmas Day we started talking about American singer-songwriter John Denver. Seeing him in concert years ago inspired by brother-in-love to get a 12-string acoustic guitar and start playing and singing. Naturally, John Denver songs are among his favorites and especially at gigs.

We sat around the dining room table singing “The Eagle and the Hawk” for one. We also debated whether “Rocky Mountain High” was really about a spiritual awakening and after I sang the first verse, my twenty-five-year-old nephew concurred. Now that’s my nephew.

Then I told everyone around the table that Denver’s “Rhymes and Reasons” is one of my most beloved songs so we started singing. And then I cried.

Here are the lyrics:

So you speak to me of sadness
And the coming of the winter
Fear that is within you now
It seems to never end

And the dreams that have escaped you
And the hope that you’ve forgotten
You tell me that you need me now
You want to be my friend

And you wonder where we’re going
Where’s the rhyme and where’s the reason
And it’s you cannot accept
It is here we must begin
To seek the wisdom of the children
And the graceful way of flowers in the wind

[Chorus]
For the children and the flowers
Are my sisters and my brothers
Their laughter and their loveliness
Could clear a cloudy day

Like the music of the mountains
And the colors of the rainbow
They’re a promise of the future
And a blessing for today
Though the cities start to crumble
And the towers fall around us
The sun is slowly fading
And it’s colder than the sea

It is written from the desert
To the mountains they shall lead us
By the hand and by the heart
They will comfort you and me
In their innocence and trusting
They will teach us to be free

[Chorus]

And the song that I am singing
Is a prayer to non-believers
Come and stand beside us
We can find a better way

Why did I cry?

These lyrics touch me so. I have a great love for children and am very protective. My tears are both of gratitude for their sweetness and innocence and of sadness for the way the world can come in on them, blocking their connection to their purity.

It happens to all of us, which is what got me started writing children’s books…for the child within us all.  We can find a better way.

Flowers in the wind.

Flowers remind me of children, delightful and innocent and beautiful and free.

I remember years ago when I walked in the summertime along the way where wildflowers bloomed. They felt like friends I visited daily. I would smile and nod in acknowledgment and they would wave back.

I was shocked one day to see that a large mower had come through and mowed down all of those wildflowers. I cried for their loss. I cried for my friends. I remember how pained I felt.

They weren’t hurting anything, were not in the way, and gave great joy. Mowing them down was senseless to me, and this was akin to the trauma of losing childlike joy.

We can heal the trauma of disconnection from our original innocence. And we can help the children to remain connected in the first place. This is my vision for a better world, my rhyme and my reason.

The Catcher in the Rye

Now here comes a character in American fiction I happened to reconnect with recently who is searching for his rhyme and reason. A coincidence?

More than four decades after reading The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger in high school, I just reread this book at the request of a beloved high school senior who chose it for his free choice reading in English class. This senior is as a nephew to me and we have read and discussed books on and off through the years. It is one of our points of connection.

I was blown away reading this novel as an adult so many years later. The same way “Rhymes and Reasons” touches me so, teenager protagonist Holden Caulfield tugs at my heart.

The title of the book alludes to a poem by Robert Burns entitled “Coming Through the Rye” and references a key part of the story when Holden dreams of being among children playing in a field of rye. He feels peaceful there.

He envisions himself at the edge of the field as the catcher of any children who stray too far. He protects them from harm, from falling over the edge of the cliff. His preservation of their innocence and sweetness points up his inability to connect with is his own and there is great empathy for him.

Extrapolation

Without telling more of the story, Holden Caulfield has been traumatized and become lost, which is the gist of the human condition for us all and reminds us to have empathy for others as well as for ourselves.

None of us will find our rhyme or reason in a place like a field of rye, but in a space that lies always within, if only we can stay connected while we march onward into adulthood gaining our experience.

And some experience is painful. It doesn’t have to define us nor do we have to reject it or block it out but learn from it, embrace it, and make it whole. Then we are not ruled by our pieces but empowered by our courage and strength.

What would we say to a young child who comes to us in pain? How would we speak to such a situation? When we are triggered and pain arises, talk to our inner child in the same way. We can heal the past so we can be more present and free.

In moving through life’s complications, we can return to being simple again like flowers blowing in the wind, like children playing.

May laughter and loveliness clear any cloudy day.

Postscript

I just moved house and have been off the radar for a while because of the all-consuming nature of the moving process. May your rhymes and reasons be as harmonic for you as my move has been for me. Happy Holidays! Happy New Year!

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Photo by Tetyana Kovyrina from Pexels