Summer Eyes

by Angela B. Chrysler

Memories echo strong,

of you and I left undone,

And mem’ries fading gray with you away.

I am lost and you are gone.

And I am left with fading dreams:

Dreams that I relive while I sleep.

Ghosts from my past are haunting me,

When every night the eyes see me,

Like phantoms in the shadows of my dreams:

Watching me from shadows in my dreams.

Within my dreams you are there.

With watchful eyes the shadows stare.

Those haunting eyes I know them to be yours.

Nearly all of me forgot

of once a time when you and I,

Shared that perfect summer long ago.

With summer love and rose-less thorns

With you and I and summer storms:

Grapes and gardens dead now and gone.

Silently watching me.

Forever haunting me.

Knowing that I always had been yours.

Those summer eyes forever there

Haunt me, forever stare.

Within your eyes I see the pain I bear.

Silently watching me.

Forever haunting me.

Always longing for me.

**Turn your volume down. I am loud.

 

From the Author

I can talk about my rapes, my abuse, my nightmares and dreams… But I have such nerves when I perform musically. I published my journal for Freyr’s sake! But Odinn forbid you hear me sing…

I once studied to be a composer, but gave it up when my heart went cold. Long story. This is “Summer Eyes.” I finally found a way despite my limited hardware, to record the accompaniment and sing.

My playing is shaky because I can no longer practice religiously. Any time I play, I can’t write for three days due to the pain in my right hand. The camera is off because my nerves make me pitchy when I see myself on screen.

This is take #8 and I haven’t listened to it all yet, so I may upload a better performance of this later.

I was operatically trained in an old opera house built before they had technology as well as two auditoriums. I know how to fill a concert hall with my voice. As a result, I’m loud. Turn your volume down then bring it up slowly.

The Story Behind the Song

This is a song I wrote for my husband, Isaac, during the ten years we spent looking for each. Isaac and I met when we were 12 years old. Almost immediately we developed a very close friendship and that friendship because the rare beam of light in our lives. Since we were children, we were enamored with each other. In our 19th year, the summer following graduation, he and I spent a summer digging up grapes and planting roses. They were thorn-covered and rose-less things. There was a thunderstorm that day. The clouds moved in, there was thunder and lightning, the wind picked up. But not a single drop of rain fell. He and I stood outside in the wind, waiting for the rains. We were engaged to be married that summer and Isaac proposed just before leaving to go North where he had a job offer.

We exchanged letters and tapes for nearly a year. We spoke on the phone every day until Isaac had saved up enough money to move to Boston and attend college.

One month later, I received a message from Isaac saying he was with someone else, and he had been trying to tell me for a long time that I wasn’t wanted. I asked him if he was sure and he said, yes. So I turned off my computer, deleted all his contact information, and obeyed his last wish. Three months later, after feeling like my heart had been carved out, I realized it wasn’t Isaac. I didn’t know how, but I knew that wasn’t Isaac. I tried calling him. I mailed him letters, but he was gone. I dedicated every day for the next year to trying to find him. That year, I gave up music. It hurt too much to feel. I closed my piano and never played, never sang, again.

I spent the next seven years dying a slow death inside. One day, the pain was so great… I started writing and found that I was able to pull out some of the hurt with words. I wrote Summer Eyes. I wrote Diamond Gold. I wrote Leander. I still wouldn’t touch music.

After ten years of mind-numbing nothing, I signed on to Facebook for the first time, and Isaac found me. That day, we were able to learn what happened ten years previously. He had a “friend” who got her hands on his sign on information. Posing as him, she messaged me to “get rid of me.” She then told Isaac that I had found someone and had told her to dump him for me. Such bittersweet to know we had lost each other—lost ten years of our lives together—over a jealous, lying…

A month later, Isaac came from Boston and we made love. It was December and we listened to the winter thunderstorm.

For the next few months, Isaac would drive twelve hours every weekend to be with me. One day, he asked where the music was. I told him that I hadn’t played since I lost him in 2000. He gently argued, “But music is… It’s you.” His words broke me and I fell to the floor crying. When I looked up, Isaac was gone.

An hour later he returned with my Abigail: an 88 key concert quality portable piano with weighted keys.

The next week I composed Summer Eyes.

And yes… I plan to write a book about our story.

 

Originally published on Nov 28, 2014 @ 21:15