Meltdown

This was the first week that I thought I might not be able to achieve my weekly song.

We took a break over the official holiday period (they ran the studio-recorded version of "Vessie Outshining the Moon") but this week was "business as usual"...for everyone but me it seemed.

This week, all of my responsibilities seemed to barge in at once like guests to a Christmas party: freelance writing work for the YMCA and a condominium developer, children home from school and parents visiting from Winnipeg, holiday parties to attend, gifts to buy and distribute, friends to host for dinner...and a song to write for Take 5.

I felt, as I always do when I host a party of any kind, that I couldn't give adequate attention to any of these. In addition, and putting my relatively minor stresses into perspective, we learned that a friend had died after living with AIDS for many years, and that a couple we know is divorcing.

When it came to song topics, the one most on my mind was International Polar Year and global warming, which had been covered in depth on Tuesday's show. As the icecaps melt, temperatures in Toronto continue to soar well above freezing. Ski hills remain closed. And we're all walking around in a state of low-level anxiety.

On Wednesday, all the pressure of everything became too much for me. I cracked, and started to write an email saying that I had to take the week off. I couldn't possibly write a song this week, because I was much too busy.

That's when it hit me. I was having a meltdown.

The only thing to do was stop, breathe, observe. Make the connection between the state of my life and the state of the planet's. Write the song.