The Winding Way

This song was written around 2007, when I moved to Chicago.  The trajectory of my life had shifted quite a bit just before then, and I landed in Chicago thinking this move would be a short experiment.  Then came marriage, family, and a mortgage.  Fourteen years later, I continue to be surprised by the twists and turns that have led to me typing these notes at this moment.  

"The Winding Way"

Instrumentation: guitar, mandolin

Looking back on a banner year and the days that've happened since

Was it all mean to be, or was it just coincidence

A butterfly flaps its wings and seems to tip the whole balance

Are we all just a bunch of lottery balls, or does it have to make sense

Two years ago, I never would've guessed

I'd be where I am today

It seems without a sound, but with moments profound

I've been walking the winding way

Though my map was stolen, with my spirits emboldened

I trudged on ahead

Never thinking that reality would bump into 

The dreams inside my head 

There was a time not long ago when a woman wore my ring

The warmth in her eyes matched the sun in the sky burning off the fog in the morning

Then one day that sun didn't shine and the rain did start

It flooded our eyes, we said our goodbyes, two feathers drifted apart

There was a time not long ago when this guitar gathered dust

Case like a coffin, strings no longer talking, like last night's pizza crust

Then when things got rough, up was down, right was all wrong

It jumped out of its case like Lazarus from the tomb, singing a John Prine song