Home

“Home” is one of the bonus tracks on my album Elements. (You can find it on iTunes here.) To formally introduce you two, here’s an audio stream of the song for you to listen to, as well as a little explanation of what the lyrics mean to me. My childhood was pretty wonderful. So wonderful, in fact, that often when I reflect back on it, look through pictures, watch old home movies, etc, the overwhelming nostalgia makes it feel as if I’m mourning its loss. My sisters and I have all grown up, moved out, and started wonderful lives of our own, but there’s this piece of me that struggles with the idea that our past, and with it our intricate little family unit that once lived together under one roof, is gone. In this song I recount some of those memories and try to frame my feelings in a new light. While those days are over, as long as we’re here living and breathing and remembering them, they aren’t gone. Below are the lyrics of the song interspersed with a little commentary regarding what they’re about. Paper made into sailboats Running ‘round in our raincoats I was free I was five years old When it rained, my dad taught us how to make little boats out of newspaper that’d we’d float down the gutter. We’d coat them in candle wax to keep them afloat. I remember all of us running down the street in puffy neon jackets chasing our boats (and saving drowning earthworms while we were at it). Daddy told me he loved me I picked his tie in the morning Every morning before my dad left for work he’d let one of my sisters or me pick out his tie for the day. By that point he’d have his pants and shirt picked out, so it was a fun creative exercise for us to complete the outfit and (hopefully) make it match. He had a couple tie racks with a gazillion different ties to flip through. At the time it really felt like he was entrusting us with a pretty important decision, and it was one I loved to make. And he showed me the stars at night A favorite memory of mine is stargazing during camping trips with my dad. He’d unzip the door of the tent and we’d lay on our backs with our heads just poking out of the opening so we could look up at the night sky. He’d teach us the names of different stars and constellations. Take me home My collection of stickers My little sister, Emi, and I had sticker collections. It’s silly thinking back on it, but I remember looking through these hard-bound notebooks full of pages of stickers and it just feeling like magic. Our mom would let us pick out sticker sheets at the store, and when we’d go home we’d peel each sticker off individually and place it in our books. These were drawing notebooks, mind you, so once the stickers were placed, they were stuck there for all eternity, never to be used again. There was something nice about the permanence of that. Violin with my sisters My sisters and I all played violin starting around 4th grade. Our favorite song to play together was Canon in D (which, coincidentally, was the song our parents walked down the aisle to at their wedding). Galaxies in an unknown sky My dad instilled a sense of awe and wonder about the universe in my sisters and me growing up. He’d often ask us questions to help us try to wrap our brains around the enormity that is the universe (and existence in the first place). We all needed each other Be protected, protect her Couldn’t let them go out of sight Growing up as the middle sister I was both protected (thanks Misa) and a protector (hey Emi). The line “protect her” is also a reference to a very old song of mine called, you guessed it, “Protect Her.” I was very much in love with my sisters growing up and the thought of anything happening to either of them was more than I could handle. Once my older sister wandered off in the grocery store (she was fine—she’s always been very independent) but I nearly had a heart attack because of it. Take me home Take it back Keep holding on As long as we’re here Take it back Keep holding on As long as we’re here it’s never gone Take me home For some reason none of my millions of memories with my mother made the cut, so for fun, here are a couple of those: - Crab catching at Dana Point Harbor. We’d tie a tiny piece of raw bacon onto a fishing line and dangle it between the rocks. When you felt a tug, you’d pull it up and lo and behold, you’d have a tiny crab! We’d keep them in a bucket and let them go at the end of the day. - My mom is an incredible artist. Instead of coloring in coloring books, we’d simply walk up to my mom with a blank piece of paper and ask for a pretty lady. She’d then whip up an amazing drawing of a woman in an ornate gown for us to color in—it was different every time and basically the best thing ever. To sum it all up: I really like my family. A whole lot.