song 3 : yosemite

I heard the melody in my head for twenty years before I learned to play it.

"Yosemite" is the oldest song I’ve written. The melody first popped into my head in 2002. When I finally started learning guitar, it was one of the first things I figured out how to play. Finally I could produce the hook that had been in my head for almost twenty years!

The origin of the song is pretty sad. Shortly after my mother died, I struck up a long-distance relationship with what became my first real boyfriend. I couldn’t have done anything differently at the time, though of course, now I can see clearly how I was counting on that relationship to distract me from grief. And for awhile, it worked! I was deliriously happy, being loved and cherished for the first time, and I looked forward to every single in-person visit.

You can probably see where this is going. After about nine months, he broke up with me in a very sudden, cruel, and impersonal way. He was in Atlanta and I was in California. To this day, I’ve never seen him again.