How does grass smell, anyhoo?

So, this week's post was the zombie cave performance of "Smell of Grass". The song is about indecision and the damage it does. The character in the song is a person who is nearly paralyzed due to his self-consciousness and inability to be content in his present circumstance. Nothing is quite right in his life, he blames his lover, and yet is pretty much convinced this is as good as it gets.

I can honestly say that I don't really know where this song came from. I'm not sure if it reflects my personal feelings at a certain point, if I was thinking about people I know or I was just making something up. Its probably a bit of all the above. It kind of reminds me of the movie, American Beauty, although it wasn't based on it.

Regardless of its inspiration, and the mostly bleak theme of the story, the twist at the end provides a spoonful of hope when the speaker's lover leaves him. Hope you say? Yes, she actually makes a decision, finds "her voice" and gets out of the hole. That leaves our speaker "no longer waiting for a reason to change". That's great news I think. Change is inevitable. Life isn't really about our ability to control the change around us. We can't. In fact, the more we resist change, the more painful it is when change comes. The challenge, I think, is how we carry ourselves through change; with hope and good character or in miserable, self obsession. Honestly, if you're like me, we probably average somewhere in the middle most of the time.

Life in the zombie cave at times has felt somewhat stalled. However, our circumstance is more about waiting then resisting. Either way, it can be a difficult place to be. That stalled dynamic creates a tension that breeds anxiety and heightens conflict. In our case, walking through our daughter's recovery, we're dealing with subtle changes and choices daily. Right now we're facing some tough decisions around medication changes that will put her at risk for seizures and hospitalization, but they are a necessary risk. The grass definitely smells good where we stand right now, right in this moment, but we need to move and walk through the change that's staring us in the face.

Zombie out!