The desire should be for the conscious and lasting care of the heart. It should involve eating right and it should involve exercising as much as one can fit in. It should involve trying not to let outside stressors - generated in the workplace or elsewhere - affect that relentless pumper. More than anything though, it should get to those things that Austin singer and songwriter Kat Edmonson gets at in her lovely music. Hers is a mood that makes us understand how hard it is to keep all of the pieces to the puzzle behaving themselves and remaining sweet and dear to each another. It takes a goddamn miracle to keep the union intact and unscathed, to even keep the heart working like it can't itself from wanting to.
The other morning, Sam Donaldson mentioned on a Sunday morning political show that everyone was missing the point in looking for answers in the General Petraeus scandal and it's that God jammed us all up with that insatiable need to procreate. He was just doing what he couldn't help. He was just trying to get some, being led around like a dog, by the appendage between his legs. It gets everyone into trouble, this ingrained notion to spread seed, but just like it, the heart goes on loving here and there, spreading it around until something sticks enough to cause it to pause and linger.
There are the long roads that Edmonson sings about and there's that need to recognize the good things when they're breathing hot on you. Her hope is that it will present itself as good enough, as solid enough, that it will never waver because it's been known to quickly do so, when the most basic needs aren't being met. She sings about a workaholic in "This Was The One," who forgets about the lovely wife at home that he knew, from the moment they met, was exceptional, that there was no one like her.
Still, he got bad at love, took it for granted and, "All those long, lonely hours forced that girl to run." The moment that happened, it didn't stop him from believing that she was still the one, it just mad him sadder. Edmonson tends to brings the emotions back around though, believing that the fallen trees will decompose on the forest floor and will someday provide nourishment for new growth. She sings, "Happiness feels like this/Your heart upon your sleeve/There's a place in time and space/Where we can all be free/So meet me at the rainbow's end/We don't even have to pretend what it is we're looking for/Life is just a dream/Lucky you/Lucky, lucky me."