Grip

I am so easily influenced.  I really do not know if having all this access to random artists and music is good for me.  So many songs paint a picture and take me somewhere.
Though I will never say as much, and I only just thought of it then, my thinking is very much “I’ll take it from here.”  Often what they say is not what I say, but we started at the same place.
I was just listening to a song called “Gripped.”  It, well, gripped me.  It is love song from a man to a woman but what first got my attention were the words, “she mingles madness with goodness.”  I thought, that’s Merril.”
Ok it helps she is a little bit mad as she is married to me.  I reckon she would have to be.  It is the way we both are.  Not the take away and institutionalize type of mad but the left field mad.  So much of what she says makes me laugh out loud.  I have seen her with others.  She gets them laughing to.
Then there is her goodness. None of us has made it, but all I can ask of myself is I give it my best shot.  That is all I can ask of anyone.  I like how often she hits the mark.  I reckon Merril cares about people.  I did not have to spend long with her to know that.  A group to her is not just a mass but a mass of individuals.  She has time for everyone and makes all feel special.  I like that.  I like that people feel confident enough to be themselves around her.  It seems whenever we meet someone new there is a sussing out.  She makes that time short.  Very quickly people know there is no need for airs and graces.  We are what we are, and we are loved.
Later in the song was another bit that made me listen. Oh, she grips my heart, anytime she smiles, anytime she cries/ She grips, she grips my heart anytime she laughs, any time she sighs.  Again that is us.
I have had to learn what is “just Merril,” and what is serious.  She helps people remember her name by saying “just think of Meryl Streep.”  That to me is apt.  Merril is great with drama.  Some things I can basically ignore if I want to, and other things I need to rush to.  Like when Merril dropped a table on her foot.  I knew immediately from what emulated from her, that that was a rush to thing.  I was still learning the difference when she rang me to say she had hit a bollard with the car.  I asked did she need the racq.  She said, oh no, I can drive home.  Fair dinkum I could see the damage but only just.  She made it sound like Russia and American were now engaged in a nuclear war.
It is true she grips my heart anytime.