these tell the story

of a life I know too well

disoriented in the dark

the way too hard to tell

captured by a restless sleep

longing for some light

I stumble over things unseen

too afraid to fight

excerpt from “scars”

This song has its beginnings in a reflection by Gunilla Norris on what it means to be “embodied”. “Our bodies…tell our stories” the thought which inspired; what stories do our bodies tell about us? the question which compelled.

She was just short of eight when her dad died. Some time after his death – months? a year? more? – her mum played what was probably a very necessary game of musical rooms (if houses hold memories then how much more so its’ individual parts). Rooms were re-decorated, furniture moved. And one night a little girl went to sleep in one room only to wake up, disoriented, in another, or so it feels now.

She woke in the night, got out of bed, climbed over furniture she hadn’t remembered was there. Her room was not her room… Woke in the morning, denied the darkness, the sting of legs newly scarred.

The image of that little girl, hands out in front of her, trying to find her way forward in the dark is the point at which the ink hit the page. That night, however near or far from the event of her dad’s death it actually was, has become symbolic of the disorientation she felt at that time and has sometimes felt since. These tell the story…