Dear Sonya –
A few days ago, you mentioned sending out Iz Kamakawiwo’ole’s Somewhere Over the Rainbow to your friends. I sure needed it.
When Evan was tiny, not long home from NICU, he would wake often in the night, so I’d take him from the bassinet in my bed to the living room. I’d hold him on the couch and listen to Pandora’s lullaby station until he fell back asleep.
One of the more frequent songs there was, of course, Iz’s take on Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World. It worked like magic. Evan would lie still, quiet his crying, listen to the ukulele and near-whispered lyrics. Sometimes I’d play the song on repeat until he slept.
The song has magic. Iz was a huge man, beset by medical problems and (by some accounts) depression. Whether over his size or the pressures of performing, I don’t know, but I can believe Iz was low. The first part of the song, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, is a search for solace. He is (and we are) looking for that one place we’ll finally find happiness.
And then comes What a Wonderful World, whisper-sung almost with exhaustion, but a satisfied exhaustion, an acceptance that the dreamworld of the first half doesn’t exist, but that this one isn’t so bad.
Ev grew, and while neither of us sleeps well, we left Somewhere behind.
Maybe two months ago, we were in a store when the song came on, and both of us stopped. Just… stopped. I watched Ev: He was still, his eyes far away, responding instinctively to a song he hadn’t heard in years.
It calmed him, just as your reminder of the song calms me now. I’m never going to find anyplace better, but maybe this isn’t so bad after all.
Thank you,
Andy
Like my letters? I wrote a whole bunch of them to the boy: Dear Evan.
And of course there’s weirdness afoot in the letters to Kitaree.
