The Music Goes Round and Round
Sometimes who we want, who we love, defies expectation. It just sneaks up on us and puts us in a position we’ve never been. What do we do in those situations, when our history and our reason deserts us? Sometimes we just have to trust our hearts and take that leap of faith. In that moment, when Natalia lets go of her relationship with Frank and reaches towards Olivia she’s not entirely sure what’s between them but she knows enough about her heart to believe in the leap without definitions.
Wishing Heart
Lisa Loeb
No teacher to follow, no prophet to tell me how
But I know what I want, I know what I want now
Like water it rushes
The last thing you see when you close your eyes
It’s the one place you want to be…
If you don’t know what your missing
Because you don’t know where to start
Follow your wishing heart
Falling in love with Nicky had been easy, even at sixteen. He was handsome and kind and everything a sixteen-year-old girl could want. It had been expected, and she’d been encouraged by her friends. Losing him and finding out she was pregnant at sixteen had been hard. In the end it cost her more than she ever thought it would. But out of it she got her sonm and though life was not easy, she never regretted it. It was what she supposed to do.
Sixteen years later, with a mountain of expectations, she’d found it easy to continue where that sixteen-year-old girl left off. Even though Nicky was now Gus, and Gus had a family of his own, she was still drawn to him. With the weight of their combined history and the presence of a son they shared, it didn’t take long for them to find their way down the aisle. Again it was what was expected, although fewer people encouraged the union the second time around, she found the decision easy to make. It was what she was supposed to do.
And then just like that, it all disappeared in a blink of an eye. For the second time in her life everything changed. She tried to do what she had done before, simply pick herself up and keep going. And for the most part she had succeeded. Except this time something was different, new. Life threw a wrench into the works. A wrench named Olivia Spencer.
Her Christian heart and forgiving nature allowed her, with great personal difficulty, to let the other woman in. They nursed their relationship, one based on mutual loss, with equal measures of loathing and admiration. Olivia drove her nuts, with her condescending attitude and snarky comments. And she returned the favor with her devout stubbornness and innate kindness. A mutual love for a sweet little girl and a strange sense of loyalty built a bridge between them. And then after a time, it was rushed breakfasts before the morning bus and dinners around a farmhouse table. It was nothing like she expected.
So she met with Frank for picnic lunches and dinners at Company. Frank the good man, everything a single mother could want. And then one night he was down on his knees, in her driveway, holding out a ring. It would be expected and her friends would encourage it. It was what she was supposed to do.
But every moment she looked into his face all she could see was Olivia. Olivia with her foul mouth and even fouler temper, Olivia with her battered heart and unwavering loyalty, Olivia who had somehow found a way into her heart. Her faith deserted her, she didn’t dare speak to anyone, she was at a compete loss. Nothing in her life had prepared her for falling in love with this stubborn, difficult, beautiful woman. It was completely unexpected. And she was sure there was no one in Springfield who would encourage it. It wasn’t what she was supposed to do. And yet, standing at the end of the aisle, looking into Frank’s expectant face, it was the exact thing she wanted to do.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The inherent contradictions of Olivia Spencer speak to me. She tells Natalia, after she returns from her “trip to find herself", that she can’t let herself be vulnerable again. It just strikes me as odd that she’s showing her hurt and pain as a way to tell Natalia that she doesn’t want to be hurt again. The Wreckers speak to that contradiction so well. Their instructions to a would-be lover gone wrong are spot on. Plus I really love country music, sorry.
Leave The Pieces
The Wreckers
And it’s alright, yeah I’ll be fine
Don’t worry about this heart of mine
Just take your love and hit the road
There’s nothing you can do or say
You’re gonna break my heart anyway
So just leave the pieces when you go
It’s the single most painful, yet exquisitely beautiful moment of her life. Of course it has to involve Natalia. That’s just the way Olivia Spencer’s life goes. She falls in love, finds a way to finally do the right thing, think of someone else’s happiness before her own and just before that love is fully realized it disappears faster than Girl Scout cookies in front of a Weight Watchers meeting. Her sense of irony is acute enough that she has to fight hard to keep from laughing out loud.
It doesn’t seem to matter that she’d finally found a way to put her life back together. Or that she’d found the strength within herself to get over her loss and put Emma first again. She’s been able to lie to herself enough for the last two months, so that now she sort of believes that she will get over the other woman. That Natalia’s not coming back, but that she’ll still be okay. Of course that is the exact moment when Natalia walks back into her life. And of course Natalia just stands there looking as beautiful as ever, even with the slight rounding of her pregnant stomach. She’s actually fucking glowing and Olivia has to fight to keep from throwing herself in front of the next car that passes by.
It takes everything in her to say no, to stop herself from taking Natalia back. She wants Natalia so much, despite the pain her actions caused. Her heart and her head are at war. But there’s this persistent ache that hasn’t disappeared since she first felt it, a few months earlier standing on the Bauer’s back lawn. So she uses that pain, she lets it fill her eyes and harden her voice. She uses that pain to ask Natalia to let her go and spare her from more of it.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I really hope this needs no explanation. Good God to see a powerful person brought to their knees by love… My shit kicker roots made it hard for me to decide which version I liked better. I think Garth does it better, more raw, but it was an obvious homage to writer Billy Joel’s influence. So I’ll leave it to you to decide.
Shameless
Billy Joel/Garth Brooks
You see all my life I’ve never found
What I couldn’t resist, what I couldn’t turn down
I could walk away from anyone I ever knew
But I can’t walk away from you
I have never let anything have this much control over me
I worked to hard to call my life my own
Well I made myself a world and it worked so perfectly
But it’s your world now, I can’t refuse
I never had so much to lose
I’m shameless…shameless
If her ex-husbands could see her now, she thinks with an internal snort. The all-powerful Olivia Spencer felled by a sweet Catholic woman with killer legs and a dimpled smile. The temptress, the seductress who brings grown men to their knees, is made mortal. The business shark, the wheeler-dealer who’s had designs on an empire of her own, is leashed. She knows somewhere up in the Roman Pantheon of Gods Cupid is laughing his cherubic ass off. And she can’t find it in herself to care one bit, no not at all.
Buzz had told her once, that one day she’d find a way to trust in love, to allow herself to be loved. And back then, as fond of him as she’d been, she’d not believed it. After all if she couldn’t love Buzz Cooper, couldn’t give her heart to a sweet man like him, then there really wasn’t any hope for her. But that was then, and then was a time before. Before she had met Natalia, before she’d been given the gift of a second chance and before she had found her home and her family.
As all-powerful as she’s been, she’s now the one who bends first, desperately willing to do what ever she can to bring happiness to one woman. As seductive as she’s always been, she’s now the one who’s seduced, drawn in by twinkling brown eyes and tiny dimples that she would do anything to see. As large as her empire is, she’d willingly tear it down, to the last brick, and eagerly devote herself to a quiet life in a little farmhouse on the outskirts of town.
It’s never been in her before, to be this person who loves so completely and allows love in return. But it is now. It’s in her to sit at the dinner table and hold hands and say grace. It’s in her to not even blink at the tiny pious statue of the Virgin Mother on their counter. It’s in her to no longer scoff at the faith of another, but to open her heart enough to let that faith be enough for them both. So she trusts and she loves and they build their life surrounded by life, love, laughter, family and home. And all she had to do was give herself over to her heart, and give her heart over to Natalia
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
That moment when they’re shopping for a wedding dress and they’re standing in front of the mirror, both actresses do such a wonderful job of speaking just with their eyes. Their eyes are asking, reaching out to each other and saying all the things their mouths can’t. But they don’t let their eyes meet until the end, when they’ve somehow managed to stop asking. It’s part of what made the story both so good and so frustrating. It was brilliantly done and oh so painful. Originally a French song, Let It Be Me has been covered by many, from Elvis to Willie Nelson. Performed as a duet by Thomas and Harcourt it becomes a call and answer between two would be lovers, a sweet plea of two hearts reaching out towards each other.
Let It Be Me
Rosie Thomas and Ed Harcourt
I blessed the day I found you
I want to stay around you
And so I beg you
Let it be me
Don’t take this heaven from one
If you must cling to someone
Now and forever
Let it be me
You are so incredibly beautiful and I can’t believe I have you in my life. Your smile fills my heart with love. Your laughter lifts me up. Your grace and strength restore my faith in humanity. I don’t want to let that go, to give it up. I want us, together, forever. Please see me, see what I want, choose us. I shouldn’t be selfish. I want to be as good as you think I am. But everything in me calls out to you, yearns for your love.
I know, watching you marry him in that dress, or any of these stupid dresses for that matter, is going to kill me. I thought I was strong enough, that what you’ve been for me has made me good enough to let you go. But I want you. I want to be selfish again, just long enough for you to choose me. I know it’s not right, but please choose me.
Why do you see me, the real me that no one else has ever seen? Why are you the one that seems to have uncovered the parts of myself that even I didn’t know existed? Why? And why, if you do see those things, can’t you see this? Oh Olivia, I love you. More than I’ve ever loved anyone before. But I’m not brave like you are, I can’t live my life despite the approval of others. I have to have the acceptance of the world at large, it’s just who I am.
But you, you’re not that way. You march to the beat of your own drum. You celebrate your differences, the world be damned. I can’t do that. I need you to do it for me. Please see me again, see how much I need your strength and fearlessness. Please see that underneath this farce of an engagement you are the one I love. Please help me to choose you and us and what we can be together.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
This song screamed Olivia to me louder than any other. She’s a temptress who has enticed so many, but is willing to give up the game for a chance at real love. Yet she can’t help but seduce you just by being who she is. The term glory box was used in England and Australia to describe a chest used by unmarried women to collect clothing and household linen in anticipation of married life. In the context of the song, glory box is a metaphor for a woman ready to give up her life on the prowl and give into a real love. Beth Gibbons torch song voice dragged over the slow burn of the trip-hop beat is pure sex.
Glory Box
Portishead
I’m so tired of playing
Playing with this bow and arrow
Gonna give my heart away
Leave it to the other girls to play
For I’ve been a temptress too long
Just…
Give me a reason to love you
Give me a reason to be a woman
I just want to be a woman
She left Josh sitting at the bar at Towers easily enough. What he’d be offering, and frankly what she’d been all too willing to take, she found was sadly not what she wanted. It was strange how much her life had changed in the last year and a half. Before, she would have found the rush of arousal and the press of another body against her own more than enough. She’d been the ultimate huntress and the spoils of war had always left her fulfilled, at least temporarily. But now…
It was a kick in the gut to discover that it was no longer anywhere near enough. Now she wanted it all. An all that looked suspiciously like Cassie’s old farmhouse, complete with cows and ducks and Emma’s laughter ringing bright. And that all included Natalia in that farmhouse, with the cows and the ducks and Emma, laughing right along with the little girl. It was a picture that looked suspiciously like home and family, a picture that looked like love.
Never in her life had she ever believed this was what she would want. Buzz had once held out a brass ring, and told her she didn’t even have to reach for it. At the time she’d taken it, but she hadn’t really wanted it. At the time she hadn’t been ready to get out of the game, she still craved the hunt. But now, now she is grabbing for that ring, heart in hand, secretly hoping that this is it, her real shot at love.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The three or four conversations Olivia and Natalia share after Rafe is released from prison, but before he knows about their relationship, are filled with a sweet longing on Olivia’s part. Once again her conflict and contradictions stand out to me the most. She’s caught up in the first blush of love and all of the giddiness that that includes. But Natalia’s outside obligations and her reluctance weigh heavily on Olivia. Every conversation between them is a silently plea from Olivia to Natalia to just give in to what they could have. Smoke is that plea. A plea to give into the connection that a fledgling couple shares. The message is made all the more bittersweet by Tristan Prettyman’s lilting voice and the barebones acoustic pop-folk sound.
Smoke
Tristan Prettyman
Things are never what they seem
Lately you’re all I dream
Well I’m running but I’m not getting anywhere and
Do you even care
Shouldn’t it be that easy
To just be happy for awhile
To get lost in a moment
Wasting time trading smiles
She understands, intellectually, that Natalia has her priorities right. Children should always take precedent over everything else in a parent’s life. And really she can’t blame the other woman for doing something she’s been guilty of herself. There isn’t anything or anyone in this world that she would ever put before her daughters’. Natalia says, in a perfectly reasonable tone of voice, that telling Rafe about them, and moving their relationship forward is not what the boy needs right now. In her head she understands. In her heart it’s not hard for her lingering insecurities to resurface, because emotionally it’s a bitter pill to swallow.
She wants this so bad, this love that’s building between them. She’s seen what it can be, how great it is. But it’s a struggle, because as good as it could be, it’s still been hard. Even after they’d finally admitted to themselves and each other what they were feeling, so much of their relationship has been an awkward dance of two steps forward and one step back. It’s hard for her to hold on to them, to not feel like their relationship is some ephemeral thing that slides through her fingers like so much smoke.
She wants to shake Natalia, to tell her it shouldn’t be this hard. But she wont. Because even at it’s worst, this thing between them, this grand love, it’s the best thing she’s ever had. And beyond the obstacles, beyond Frank’s hangdog expression and Rafe’s adjustment period, beyond all of the other crap that really doesn’t mean a thing to her, is something worth having. All she has to do is hang on and wait for Natalia to find her way through.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Standing in the church, reciting her vows, Natalia couldn’t get the words out. She couldn’t let go of her love for Olivia. Ben Taylor’s striped down version of I Try has a quiet honesty that got taken from the original Macy Gray version by radio overplay
I Try
Ben Taylor
I believe that fate has brought us here
And we should be together
But we’re not
I play it off but I’m dreaming of you
I keep me cool but I’m fiendin
I try to say goodbye and I choke
I try to walk away and I stumble
Though I try to hide it it’s clear
My world crumbles when you’re not near
It’s like that nightmare that everyone has at least once in his or her life. The one where you are standing in front of a room full of people ready to give a speech. Then the people look at you and began to snicker. When you look down at yourself you suddenly discover that you’re stark naked. Except it's not a nightmare, that’s just what it feels like. You are not standing in front of the room ready to give a speech. You are standing in front of a church full of people, trying to recite your vows. Your son walked you down the isle, your friends filled the pews, your intended stands across from you and all you can think of is the woman at your back.
Frank looks at you expectantly and you feel sick. You like him well enough. He is, after all, a good man. You try to force the words out of your mouth, the vows that will tie you forever to this man. In front of God and most of Springfield all you can do is sputter and stammer. Because he is not who you love, he is not who you need. The words will not come. You can not bear false witness, not in God’s house, not in front her. Because saying those vows means giving up on her, giving up on what the two of you have together. And that’s something that you just can’t do.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Oh my! Okay see, the thing is I absolutely love Old 97’s. Rhett Miller has a talent for crafting witty yet poignant songs that make you bop your head and think introspectively in equal measure. And I’ve seen them live a lot. So it sort of pains me to do this, except that it fits so well. This is my one attempt to get into Frank’s head after he’s dumped for Olivia. Really the song fits soooooo well.
The New Kid
Old 97’s
The new kid, he’s got my girl
The girl I used to have
He’s got the looks you know, got them from his dad
I should be kissing that girl
We should be so in love
There’s no justice
There’s just dark stars above
I’m gonna toil away
Until my judgment day
I will be rewarded for the good things I did
Believe me every year
There’s another one here
Don’t you see I used to be the new kid
He was that guy once, the guy that everyone wanted. He had been good looking and relevant. He had had the starring role in a beautiful woman’s life. And it had been good. They had loved each other. They even got married. Fortune smiled down on them and the created a family. Life had been good, because he had been that guy.
Now he’s that guy. He’s the one whose wife left him for her career, the one whose girlfriend left him for his father. It hurt, and he’s not so oblivious that he doesn’t notice the sidelong glances he gets. The glances that are usually accompanied by snickers from the guys at the station and pity from the single women of Springfield. All because he became that guy.
But his engagement to Natalia was supposed to change all of that. She was a young, beautiful woman that plenty of other guys desire. And she’d chosen him. Sure she’d been another man’s widow, and very little time had passed between when she’d removed Gus’ rings and agreed to wear his. But she’d picked him in the end. And all of the sudden he felt like the richest man in the world again. Except she hadn’t picked him, not really. He’d simply been a substitute for who she really wanted. And now that she was strong enough to admit it, he was kicked to the curb again.
He had been that guy once, for one split second he’d been handsome and successful again, he had been the one she had wanted. Even if it was just for one second, that had been who he was. But he was that guy now, the one that stood on the sidelines and watched someone else take what had been his, someone new and pretty, someone that she wanted, someone relevant. Someone who was not him.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
So much of this pairing speaks to me through Olivia’s voice. She is infused with this innate contradiction, strong and powerful yet also so very scared and vulnerable. CC manages to convey Olivia’s confident outer persona along with her inner search for identity so well, with a veneer of raw honesty. All the while she still manages to pull you in with a slow burn sex appeal that hooks even the most straight-laced Catholic girl. In She’s Got To Be singer Amy Ray is trying to make sense out of the issue of gender identity and finding a way to recognize and love all of the pieces of what makes us who we are. While the subject of the song is a bit myopic, Ray’s trademarked rasp over a fat bass line and some funky rhythms makes the song lush and appealing. In the end it’s the universal theme of learning to love oneself is accessible to everyone no matter what the underlining issues are.
She’s Got To Be
Amy Ray
She’s got to be with me always
To make sense of the skin I’m in
Sometimes it gets dangerous
And lonely to defend
Marking time with every change
It’s hard to love this woman in me
She’d been so many things in her life: mother, daughter, sister, friend, lover, fighter, and boss. The list was never ending and it changed on a daily basis. Sometimes it changed so much she had a hard time remembering who she really was, because so much of who and what she’d been had always been a disguise for who she really was underneath. She could scratch the surface and stare into a thousand mirrors, but that kernel of who she really was would remain forever buried.
When she’d been a young girl, cocooned safely in her father’s arms, she been a princess. She’d been daddy’s little girl, the one who he always made feel safe. Then she grew up a little, and her father was gone. She became the ungrateful girl who always drove her mother mad. She’d been a pair of too big eyes and needy hands that saw a world beyond her mother’s piety. A world where she no longer knelt before God but rather people knelt before her. And at sixteen she scratched below the surface and stood in front of her bedroom mirror and saw a woman who’s body could get her more then what her mother said she was due.
Of course that was only one view from one mirror, and in the end even that was not who she was, or who she was destined to be. The universe saw fit to remind her in a harsh way. So for a while after she’d been sixteen and after her mother died and after and after and after… she was not at all sure who she was. The only thing she could afford to be was a survivor.
From that point on who ever she was, she was defiantly not real. She wore her masks to keep people out and keep her real self in. As each day passed she reinvented who she was to suit whatever anyone else needed, as long as it helped her to get along. She was a chef, a caretaker, a smart woman who knew how to go after what she wanted. She became someone’s wife, someone’s mother, someone’s boss and someone’s ex. And then one day while she was trying to become the other woman, she became a dying woman.
Everything around her stopped. There was no need for masks when her own body was betraying her. And every piece of who she’d ever been or ever tried to be, didn’t seemed to matter any more. Then a good man died so that she could live and a good woman found something in who ever she was, to want to fight for her. And she had to take her new heart and all of those old masks and really find out who she was, really love who she was.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Okay this is me projecting a little bit. Through the whole mess post wedding, with Frank and Rafe, I felt my frustration mounting. It really bothered me that Natalia seemed to be ruled so much by how she thought other people saw her. And worst of all Olivia was so in love with her she never really called her on it. This little torch song by George Michael speaks to that frustration so clearly.
Kissing A Fool
George Michael
You are far
When I could have been your star
You listened to people
Who scared you to death, and from my heart
Strange that you were strong enough
To even make a start
But you’ll never find
Peace of mind
Til you listen to your heart
She tells me she understands. She tells me she gets it. She says she knows what it’s like to be the one people whisper about, and that she’d been strong enough to do what she thought was right despite the whispers. She tells me not to sell her short. So I choose to believe her, because I really hate that disappointed look she gets when she thinks I’ve done something wrong. And because despite my reservations Rafe is living proof that at least one time in her life she took a stand against the judgments of other people.
So I choose to believe her and I gingerly place my heart in her hands. Of course it’s my heart, so it’s no surprise that she folds under the pressure like a cheep cardboard. The first time I want to identify who we are, to name what we have between us, she goes back to that good little Catholic girl. It might hurt Frank’s feelings, we should be respectful and give him some time. When I want to move Emma and I back to the farmhouse, back to the place even she names as our home, she’s not sure how that would look. Father Ray had disapproved, she doesn’t want to give him any more ammunition. When Rafe has finally been released back into the real world, with his bumbling penis enhanced mentor in tow, it isn’t the right time to be honest with him. He needs to adjust and one more change could throw him off course.
All of the sudden this brave woman who’d once had the strength to go against her parents and raise her son all on her own is gone. The woman who had no problem ordering me around and bullying me back to health, couldn’t find fire enough to fight for us. And I knew, I’d somehow always known, this was how it was going to turn out. That the opinions and approval of the outside world would outweigh what she wanted in her heart and what I needed in mine.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
So thanks for reading here's the music. Enjoy. www.box.net/otaliamix
Wishing Heart
Lisa Loeb
No teacher to follow, no prophet to tell me how
But I know what I want, I know what I want now
Like water it rushes
The last thing you see when you close your eyes
It’s the one place you want to be…
If you don’t know what your missing
Because you don’t know where to start
Follow your wishing heart
Falling in love with Nicky had been easy, even at sixteen. He was handsome and kind and everything a sixteen-year-old girl could want. It had been expected, and she’d been encouraged by her friends. Losing him and finding out she was pregnant at sixteen had been hard. In the end it cost her more than she ever thought it would. But out of it she got her sonm and though life was not easy, she never regretted it. It was what she supposed to do.
Sixteen years later, with a mountain of expectations, she’d found it easy to continue where that sixteen-year-old girl left off. Even though Nicky was now Gus, and Gus had a family of his own, she was still drawn to him. With the weight of their combined history and the presence of a son they shared, it didn’t take long for them to find their way down the aisle. Again it was what was expected, although fewer people encouraged the union the second time around, she found the decision easy to make. It was what she was supposed to do.
And then just like that, it all disappeared in a blink of an eye. For the second time in her life everything changed. She tried to do what she had done before, simply pick herself up and keep going. And for the most part she had succeeded. Except this time something was different, new. Life threw a wrench into the works. A wrench named Olivia Spencer.
Her Christian heart and forgiving nature allowed her, with great personal difficulty, to let the other woman in. They nursed their relationship, one based on mutual loss, with equal measures of loathing and admiration. Olivia drove her nuts, with her condescending attitude and snarky comments. And she returned the favor with her devout stubbornness and innate kindness. A mutual love for a sweet little girl and a strange sense of loyalty built a bridge between them. And then after a time, it was rushed breakfasts before the morning bus and dinners around a farmhouse table. It was nothing like she expected.
So she met with Frank for picnic lunches and dinners at Company. Frank the good man, everything a single mother could want. And then one night he was down on his knees, in her driveway, holding out a ring. It would be expected and her friends would encourage it. It was what she was supposed to do.
But every moment she looked into his face all she could see was Olivia. Olivia with her foul mouth and even fouler temper, Olivia with her battered heart and unwavering loyalty, Olivia who had somehow found a way into her heart. Her faith deserted her, she didn’t dare speak to anyone, she was at a compete loss. Nothing in her life had prepared her for falling in love with this stubborn, difficult, beautiful woman. It was completely unexpected. And she was sure there was no one in Springfield who would encourage it. It wasn’t what she was supposed to do. And yet, standing at the end of the aisle, looking into Frank’s expectant face, it was the exact thing she wanted to do.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The inherent contradictions of Olivia Spencer speak to me. She tells Natalia, after she returns from her “trip to find herself", that she can’t let herself be vulnerable again. It just strikes me as odd that she’s showing her hurt and pain as a way to tell Natalia that she doesn’t want to be hurt again. The Wreckers speak to that contradiction so well. Their instructions to a would-be lover gone wrong are spot on. Plus I really love country music, sorry.
Leave The Pieces
The Wreckers
And it’s alright, yeah I’ll be fine
Don’t worry about this heart of mine
Just take your love and hit the road
There’s nothing you can do or say
You’re gonna break my heart anyway
So just leave the pieces when you go
It’s the single most painful, yet exquisitely beautiful moment of her life. Of course it has to involve Natalia. That’s just the way Olivia Spencer’s life goes. She falls in love, finds a way to finally do the right thing, think of someone else’s happiness before her own and just before that love is fully realized it disappears faster than Girl Scout cookies in front of a Weight Watchers meeting. Her sense of irony is acute enough that she has to fight hard to keep from laughing out loud.
It doesn’t seem to matter that she’d finally found a way to put her life back together. Or that she’d found the strength within herself to get over her loss and put Emma first again. She’s been able to lie to herself enough for the last two months, so that now she sort of believes that she will get over the other woman. That Natalia’s not coming back, but that she’ll still be okay. Of course that is the exact moment when Natalia walks back into her life. And of course Natalia just stands there looking as beautiful as ever, even with the slight rounding of her pregnant stomach. She’s actually fucking glowing and Olivia has to fight to keep from throwing herself in front of the next car that passes by.
It takes everything in her to say no, to stop herself from taking Natalia back. She wants Natalia so much, despite the pain her actions caused. Her heart and her head are at war. But there’s this persistent ache that hasn’t disappeared since she first felt it, a few months earlier standing on the Bauer’s back lawn. So she uses that pain, she lets it fill her eyes and harden her voice. She uses that pain to ask Natalia to let her go and spare her from more of it.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I really hope this needs no explanation. Good God to see a powerful person brought to their knees by love… My shit kicker roots made it hard for me to decide which version I liked better. I think Garth does it better, more raw, but it was an obvious homage to writer Billy Joel’s influence. So I’ll leave it to you to decide.
Shameless
Billy Joel/Garth Brooks
You see all my life I’ve never found
What I couldn’t resist, what I couldn’t turn down
I could walk away from anyone I ever knew
But I can’t walk away from you
I have never let anything have this much control over me
I worked to hard to call my life my own
Well I made myself a world and it worked so perfectly
But it’s your world now, I can’t refuse
I never had so much to lose
I’m shameless…shameless
If her ex-husbands could see her now, she thinks with an internal snort. The all-powerful Olivia Spencer felled by a sweet Catholic woman with killer legs and a dimpled smile. The temptress, the seductress who brings grown men to their knees, is made mortal. The business shark, the wheeler-dealer who’s had designs on an empire of her own, is leashed. She knows somewhere up in the Roman Pantheon of Gods Cupid is laughing his cherubic ass off. And she can’t find it in herself to care one bit, no not at all.
Buzz had told her once, that one day she’d find a way to trust in love, to allow herself to be loved. And back then, as fond of him as she’d been, she’d not believed it. After all if she couldn’t love Buzz Cooper, couldn’t give her heart to a sweet man like him, then there really wasn’t any hope for her. But that was then, and then was a time before. Before she had met Natalia, before she’d been given the gift of a second chance and before she had found her home and her family.
As all-powerful as she’s been, she’s now the one who bends first, desperately willing to do what ever she can to bring happiness to one woman. As seductive as she’s always been, she’s now the one who’s seduced, drawn in by twinkling brown eyes and tiny dimples that she would do anything to see. As large as her empire is, she’d willingly tear it down, to the last brick, and eagerly devote herself to a quiet life in a little farmhouse on the outskirts of town.
It’s never been in her before, to be this person who loves so completely and allows love in return. But it is now. It’s in her to sit at the dinner table and hold hands and say grace. It’s in her to not even blink at the tiny pious statue of the Virgin Mother on their counter. It’s in her to no longer scoff at the faith of another, but to open her heart enough to let that faith be enough for them both. So she trusts and she loves and they build their life surrounded by life, love, laughter, family and home. And all she had to do was give herself over to her heart, and give her heart over to Natalia
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
That moment when they’re shopping for a wedding dress and they’re standing in front of the mirror, both actresses do such a wonderful job of speaking just with their eyes. Their eyes are asking, reaching out to each other and saying all the things their mouths can’t. But they don’t let their eyes meet until the end, when they’ve somehow managed to stop asking. It’s part of what made the story both so good and so frustrating. It was brilliantly done and oh so painful. Originally a French song, Let It Be Me has been covered by many, from Elvis to Willie Nelson. Performed as a duet by Thomas and Harcourt it becomes a call and answer between two would be lovers, a sweet plea of two hearts reaching out towards each other.
Let It Be Me
Rosie Thomas and Ed Harcourt
I blessed the day I found you
I want to stay around you
And so I beg you
Let it be me
Don’t take this heaven from one
If you must cling to someone
Now and forever
Let it be me
You are so incredibly beautiful and I can’t believe I have you in my life. Your smile fills my heart with love. Your laughter lifts me up. Your grace and strength restore my faith in humanity. I don’t want to let that go, to give it up. I want us, together, forever. Please see me, see what I want, choose us. I shouldn’t be selfish. I want to be as good as you think I am. But everything in me calls out to you, yearns for your love.
I know, watching you marry him in that dress, or any of these stupid dresses for that matter, is going to kill me. I thought I was strong enough, that what you’ve been for me has made me good enough to let you go. But I want you. I want to be selfish again, just long enough for you to choose me. I know it’s not right, but please choose me.
Why do you see me, the real me that no one else has ever seen? Why are you the one that seems to have uncovered the parts of myself that even I didn’t know existed? Why? And why, if you do see those things, can’t you see this? Oh Olivia, I love you. More than I’ve ever loved anyone before. But I’m not brave like you are, I can’t live my life despite the approval of others. I have to have the acceptance of the world at large, it’s just who I am.
But you, you’re not that way. You march to the beat of your own drum. You celebrate your differences, the world be damned. I can’t do that. I need you to do it for me. Please see me again, see how much I need your strength and fearlessness. Please see that underneath this farce of an engagement you are the one I love. Please help me to choose you and us and what we can be together.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
This song screamed Olivia to me louder than any other. She’s a temptress who has enticed so many, but is willing to give up the game for a chance at real love. Yet she can’t help but seduce you just by being who she is. The term glory box was used in England and Australia to describe a chest used by unmarried women to collect clothing and household linen in anticipation of married life. In the context of the song, glory box is a metaphor for a woman ready to give up her life on the prowl and give into a real love. Beth Gibbons torch song voice dragged over the slow burn of the trip-hop beat is pure sex.
Glory Box
Portishead
I’m so tired of playing
Playing with this bow and arrow
Gonna give my heart away
Leave it to the other girls to play
For I’ve been a temptress too long
Just…
Give me a reason to love you
Give me a reason to be a woman
I just want to be a woman
She left Josh sitting at the bar at Towers easily enough. What he’d be offering, and frankly what she’d been all too willing to take, she found was sadly not what she wanted. It was strange how much her life had changed in the last year and a half. Before, she would have found the rush of arousal and the press of another body against her own more than enough. She’d been the ultimate huntress and the spoils of war had always left her fulfilled, at least temporarily. But now…
It was a kick in the gut to discover that it was no longer anywhere near enough. Now she wanted it all. An all that looked suspiciously like Cassie’s old farmhouse, complete with cows and ducks and Emma’s laughter ringing bright. And that all included Natalia in that farmhouse, with the cows and the ducks and Emma, laughing right along with the little girl. It was a picture that looked suspiciously like home and family, a picture that looked like love.
Never in her life had she ever believed this was what she would want. Buzz had once held out a brass ring, and told her she didn’t even have to reach for it. At the time she’d taken it, but she hadn’t really wanted it. At the time she hadn’t been ready to get out of the game, she still craved the hunt. But now, now she is grabbing for that ring, heart in hand, secretly hoping that this is it, her real shot at love.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The three or four conversations Olivia and Natalia share after Rafe is released from prison, but before he knows about their relationship, are filled with a sweet longing on Olivia’s part. Once again her conflict and contradictions stand out to me the most. She’s caught up in the first blush of love and all of the giddiness that that includes. But Natalia’s outside obligations and her reluctance weigh heavily on Olivia. Every conversation between them is a silently plea from Olivia to Natalia to just give in to what they could have. Smoke is that plea. A plea to give into the connection that a fledgling couple shares. The message is made all the more bittersweet by Tristan Prettyman’s lilting voice and the barebones acoustic pop-folk sound.
Smoke
Tristan Prettyman
Things are never what they seem
Lately you’re all I dream
Well I’m running but I’m not getting anywhere and
Do you even care
Shouldn’t it be that easy
To just be happy for awhile
To get lost in a moment
Wasting time trading smiles
She understands, intellectually, that Natalia has her priorities right. Children should always take precedent over everything else in a parent’s life. And really she can’t blame the other woman for doing something she’s been guilty of herself. There isn’t anything or anyone in this world that she would ever put before her daughters’. Natalia says, in a perfectly reasonable tone of voice, that telling Rafe about them, and moving their relationship forward is not what the boy needs right now. In her head she understands. In her heart it’s not hard for her lingering insecurities to resurface, because emotionally it’s a bitter pill to swallow.
She wants this so bad, this love that’s building between them. She’s seen what it can be, how great it is. But it’s a struggle, because as good as it could be, it’s still been hard. Even after they’d finally admitted to themselves and each other what they were feeling, so much of their relationship has been an awkward dance of two steps forward and one step back. It’s hard for her to hold on to them, to not feel like their relationship is some ephemeral thing that slides through her fingers like so much smoke.
She wants to shake Natalia, to tell her it shouldn’t be this hard. But she wont. Because even at it’s worst, this thing between them, this grand love, it’s the best thing she’s ever had. And beyond the obstacles, beyond Frank’s hangdog expression and Rafe’s adjustment period, beyond all of the other crap that really doesn’t mean a thing to her, is something worth having. All she has to do is hang on and wait for Natalia to find her way through.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Standing in the church, reciting her vows, Natalia couldn’t get the words out. She couldn’t let go of her love for Olivia. Ben Taylor’s striped down version of I Try has a quiet honesty that got taken from the original Macy Gray version by radio overplay
I Try
Ben Taylor
I believe that fate has brought us here
And we should be together
But we’re not
I play it off but I’m dreaming of you
I keep me cool but I’m fiendin
I try to say goodbye and I choke
I try to walk away and I stumble
Though I try to hide it it’s clear
My world crumbles when you’re not near
It’s like that nightmare that everyone has at least once in his or her life. The one where you are standing in front of a room full of people ready to give a speech. Then the people look at you and began to snicker. When you look down at yourself you suddenly discover that you’re stark naked. Except it's not a nightmare, that’s just what it feels like. You are not standing in front of the room ready to give a speech. You are standing in front of a church full of people, trying to recite your vows. Your son walked you down the isle, your friends filled the pews, your intended stands across from you and all you can think of is the woman at your back.
Frank looks at you expectantly and you feel sick. You like him well enough. He is, after all, a good man. You try to force the words out of your mouth, the vows that will tie you forever to this man. In front of God and most of Springfield all you can do is sputter and stammer. Because he is not who you love, he is not who you need. The words will not come. You can not bear false witness, not in God’s house, not in front her. Because saying those vows means giving up on her, giving up on what the two of you have together. And that’s something that you just can’t do.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Oh my! Okay see, the thing is I absolutely love Old 97’s. Rhett Miller has a talent for crafting witty yet poignant songs that make you bop your head and think introspectively in equal measure. And I’ve seen them live a lot. So it sort of pains me to do this, except that it fits so well. This is my one attempt to get into Frank’s head after he’s dumped for Olivia. Really the song fits soooooo well.
The New Kid
Old 97’s
The new kid, he’s got my girl
The girl I used to have
He’s got the looks you know, got them from his dad
I should be kissing that girl
We should be so in love
There’s no justice
There’s just dark stars above
I’m gonna toil away
Until my judgment day
I will be rewarded for the good things I did
Believe me every year
There’s another one here
Don’t you see I used to be the new kid
He was that guy once, the guy that everyone wanted. He had been good looking and relevant. He had had the starring role in a beautiful woman’s life. And it had been good. They had loved each other. They even got married. Fortune smiled down on them and the created a family. Life had been good, because he had been that guy.
Now he’s that guy. He’s the one whose wife left him for her career, the one whose girlfriend left him for his father. It hurt, and he’s not so oblivious that he doesn’t notice the sidelong glances he gets. The glances that are usually accompanied by snickers from the guys at the station and pity from the single women of Springfield. All because he became that guy.
But his engagement to Natalia was supposed to change all of that. She was a young, beautiful woman that plenty of other guys desire. And she’d chosen him. Sure she’d been another man’s widow, and very little time had passed between when she’d removed Gus’ rings and agreed to wear his. But she’d picked him in the end. And all of the sudden he felt like the richest man in the world again. Except she hadn’t picked him, not really. He’d simply been a substitute for who she really wanted. And now that she was strong enough to admit it, he was kicked to the curb again.
He had been that guy once, for one split second he’d been handsome and successful again, he had been the one she had wanted. Even if it was just for one second, that had been who he was. But he was that guy now, the one that stood on the sidelines and watched someone else take what had been his, someone new and pretty, someone that she wanted, someone relevant. Someone who was not him.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
So much of this pairing speaks to me through Olivia’s voice. She is infused with this innate contradiction, strong and powerful yet also so very scared and vulnerable. CC manages to convey Olivia’s confident outer persona along with her inner search for identity so well, with a veneer of raw honesty. All the while she still manages to pull you in with a slow burn sex appeal that hooks even the most straight-laced Catholic girl. In She’s Got To Be singer Amy Ray is trying to make sense out of the issue of gender identity and finding a way to recognize and love all of the pieces of what makes us who we are. While the subject of the song is a bit myopic, Ray’s trademarked rasp over a fat bass line and some funky rhythms makes the song lush and appealing. In the end it’s the universal theme of learning to love oneself is accessible to everyone no matter what the underlining issues are.
She’s Got To Be
Amy Ray
She’s got to be with me always
To make sense of the skin I’m in
Sometimes it gets dangerous
And lonely to defend
Marking time with every change
It’s hard to love this woman in me
She’d been so many things in her life: mother, daughter, sister, friend, lover, fighter, and boss. The list was never ending and it changed on a daily basis. Sometimes it changed so much she had a hard time remembering who she really was, because so much of who and what she’d been had always been a disguise for who she really was underneath. She could scratch the surface and stare into a thousand mirrors, but that kernel of who she really was would remain forever buried.
When she’d been a young girl, cocooned safely in her father’s arms, she been a princess. She’d been daddy’s little girl, the one who he always made feel safe. Then she grew up a little, and her father was gone. She became the ungrateful girl who always drove her mother mad. She’d been a pair of too big eyes and needy hands that saw a world beyond her mother’s piety. A world where she no longer knelt before God but rather people knelt before her. And at sixteen she scratched below the surface and stood in front of her bedroom mirror and saw a woman who’s body could get her more then what her mother said she was due.
Of course that was only one view from one mirror, and in the end even that was not who she was, or who she was destined to be. The universe saw fit to remind her in a harsh way. So for a while after she’d been sixteen and after her mother died and after and after and after… she was not at all sure who she was. The only thing she could afford to be was a survivor.
From that point on who ever she was, she was defiantly not real. She wore her masks to keep people out and keep her real self in. As each day passed she reinvented who she was to suit whatever anyone else needed, as long as it helped her to get along. She was a chef, a caretaker, a smart woman who knew how to go after what she wanted. She became someone’s wife, someone’s mother, someone’s boss and someone’s ex. And then one day while she was trying to become the other woman, she became a dying woman.
Everything around her stopped. There was no need for masks when her own body was betraying her. And every piece of who she’d ever been or ever tried to be, didn’t seemed to matter any more. Then a good man died so that she could live and a good woman found something in who ever she was, to want to fight for her. And she had to take her new heart and all of those old masks and really find out who she was, really love who she was.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Okay this is me projecting a little bit. Through the whole mess post wedding, with Frank and Rafe, I felt my frustration mounting. It really bothered me that Natalia seemed to be ruled so much by how she thought other people saw her. And worst of all Olivia was so in love with her she never really called her on it. This little torch song by George Michael speaks to that frustration so clearly.
Kissing A Fool
George Michael
You are far
When I could have been your star
You listened to people
Who scared you to death, and from my heart
Strange that you were strong enough
To even make a start
But you’ll never find
Peace of mind
Til you listen to your heart
She tells me she understands. She tells me she gets it. She says she knows what it’s like to be the one people whisper about, and that she’d been strong enough to do what she thought was right despite the whispers. She tells me not to sell her short. So I choose to believe her, because I really hate that disappointed look she gets when she thinks I’ve done something wrong. And because despite my reservations Rafe is living proof that at least one time in her life she took a stand against the judgments of other people.
So I choose to believe her and I gingerly place my heart in her hands. Of course it’s my heart, so it’s no surprise that she folds under the pressure like a cheep cardboard. The first time I want to identify who we are, to name what we have between us, she goes back to that good little Catholic girl. It might hurt Frank’s feelings, we should be respectful and give him some time. When I want to move Emma and I back to the farmhouse, back to the place even she names as our home, she’s not sure how that would look. Father Ray had disapproved, she doesn’t want to give him any more ammunition. When Rafe has finally been released back into the real world, with his bumbling penis enhanced mentor in tow, it isn’t the right time to be honest with him. He needs to adjust and one more change could throw him off course.
All of the sudden this brave woman who’d once had the strength to go against her parents and raise her son all on her own is gone. The woman who had no problem ordering me around and bullying me back to health, couldn’t find fire enough to fight for us. And I knew, I’d somehow always known, this was how it was going to turn out. That the opinions and approval of the outside world would outweigh what she wanted in her heart and what I needed in mine.
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So thanks for reading here's the music. Enjoy. www.box.net/otaliamix