Patty's Weblog

In my iPod lingo, a "keeper" is a song that I do not delete from the iPod after I listen to it. The following song is actually a sleeper-keeper. It's a quiet song, doesn't have a catchy tune. I just like the lyrics. The "I wanna get off and go home again" reminds me of the part of the Stoney End by Laura Nyro that caught my ear when I was twenty-one: "Mama, let me start all over. Cradle me, mama cradle me again."

Yes, 99% of the time we are all content grown-ups. But now and then, we just want someone to take care of us. Sometimes we don't want to keep going towards the end of the journey, but want to stay where we are.

No, I'm not colorblind
I know the world is black and white
Try to keep an open mind
But I just can't sleep on this tonight

Stop this train
I wanna get off
And go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can
But honestly, won't someone stop this train?

Don't know how else to say it
Don't want to see my parents go
One generation's length away
From fighting life out on my own

Stop this train
I wanna get off
And go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can
But honestly, won't someone stop this train?

So scared of getting older
I'm only good at being young
So I play the numbers game
To find a way to say that life has just begun

Had a talk with my old man
Said "help me understand"
He said "turn sixty-eight
You renegotiate"

"Don't stop this train
Don't for a minute change the place you're in
And don't think I couldn't ever understand
I tried my hand
John, honestly we'll never stop this train"

Once in awhile, when it's good
It'll feel like it should
And they're all still around
And you're still safe and sound
And you don't miss a thing
Till you cry when you're driving away in the dark
Singing

Stop this train
I wanna get off
And go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can
Cause now I see I'll never stop this train

Stop This Train, John Mayer, Continuum.

Some days at work I am doing lots of things at once: helping different students, working on projects, cleaning up messes, getting labs ready for the next day, copying quizzes, yada yada. Last week I was doing one thing when a student needed help on something else and I said "Wait a minute, I have to bookmark . . . my life."

Grabbing a post-it, I jotted down a clue to where I left off on one track that I was on. Then I chuckled, thinking of my life as a book that I could mark and get back to a little later.