Somewhere Over the Rainbow......

Although I can't know for certain what other people experience, it seems safe to say that most people will, on occasion, have a little tune that runs through their minds. It happens to me, and I know My Man recently had a RIDICULOUS song in his head. He (we!) were able to listen to it nonstop for several days, and poof, one morning, he woke up and it's gone. That's how it usually goes. The songs come and go.


For me, the tunes aren't necessarily songs I have recently heard, nor are they songs I really like, although that is sometimes the case. They are usually songs that are pertinent to my overall emotional state at the time. It's as if the songs in my memory make up a thesaurus. A lyric that expresses a bit of my mental state is retrieved subconsciously and then my mind strikes up the tune. Let's say I am super happy to see H-bomb, (daughter #1) then I might start to hear/hum/sing, "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine..." That's a rough approximation, and most of the time it's more subtle than that, but you get the idea. It can be fun, for me, to try to link the lyric and figure out why that tune is center stage.


I hereby confess that I have had a song STUCK in my head for THREE years. People, it's been torture. Yep, ever since I arrived in Italy, I have had the same song running through my head. It has been maddening. I don't even know all the words! I can't even remember the last time I had heard this song.

You'll never guess what song.....that's right, "Somewhere over the Rainbow." While I enjoyed the movie years ago, I have never been a fanatic, or someone who knows all the words to every line in the movie (Aunt Na).

Particularly when I am driving on these narrow, twisty roads, I hear, "Somewhere over the rainbow....." When I am stuck behind a tractor, which is a thrice daily occurrence, "skies are blue...." When I am sweeping the porch, or walking through the market, "and the dreams that you dare to dream, really do come true."


"Where troubles melt like lemon drops...."- really? That's the song that's been chosen for ITALY?! Italy? This is the land of red tape, not rainbows! The troubles don't melt here, trust me people. Red tape, construction delays, random pullovers by the polizia to check your documents....no melting troubles to be found. Italy is not really "a land that I heard of once in a lullaby." Why this song, why oh why can't I (get it out of my head)? WHY??????

I have tried to commandeer this whole phenomena and supplant this tune with other songs, but it has never worked. I can't figure out why.....am I over the rainbow....am I so looking forward to our next chapter in life and THAT'S over the rainbow.....? Why oh why?



Recently, I changed gears. "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
Albert Einstein



I have embraced the song.....it was long overdue. I went to Itunes (love it) and purchased THREE versions of that song, who knew there were so many available! One is kind of reggae, the classic by Judy Garland, and one that's more like a lullaby, artist unknown.

We have been blasting these 3 songs all day, every day. In the car, in the kitchen, in our heads. I know the words now, the kids know the words. Now, I cruise down the stink-filled (pig farms?) roads with this song blaring. We are watching people run red lights and rocking out with rainbows. There's a team of cyclists in the road, and we are humming and wishing upon a star so we might wake up where the clouds are far behind us.



And then it finally dawned on me....I too have been displaced to a land of small people who talk funny and have a very different way of life.....and my kids are here too : )


Come out, come out wherever you are
And meet the young lady who fell from a star
She fell from the sky, she fell very far
And America she says is the name of the star.
(Glinda)