On the way home from work yesterday, the song "Breathe" by Anna Nalick was playing and whenever I hear it recently, it makes me very emotional. I know it's because my Dad's mother, who will always be "Mamaw" to me, passed away unexpectedly about six weeks ago and it reminds me of how life rolls right along whether we want it to or not. The chorus goes:

'Cause you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable
And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table
No one can find the rewind button, girl.
So cradle your head in your hands
And breathe... just breathe,
Oh breathe, just breathe

As I was listening I also thought about how if I really knew what the writer intended the song to be about, it probably wouldn't match what it means to me very well. I've often thought how we destroy meaning in songs and stories when we try to discover their meaning.

It may sound odd to think this, but just consider a time when you've been watching "Behind the Music" and the artist told everyone how the song you thought was a sweet love story was really about his obsession with heroine.

I don'k know about you but I think the beauty of art is that we are allowed to take it as it is and make it our own. And when I discover the back story, it seems tainted to me in some way, like being backstage at a play or on the other side of the camera. As an art consumer, I don't want to know how or why it came to be.

I just want to know that it can mean whatever is meaningful to me.