Day 2: Call Me North
"With the bitter cold and falling snow
Longing and belonging call me north
To the mellow woods I’ve always known
And a cabin there well-hidden by a storm..."
Many years ago, my family spent some time in Northern Minnesota, staying in a cozy, rustic cabin on a lake rimmed with green trees. Even though it was long ago, that place and time is often on my mind, and I was picturing it as I began writing a new song last December. I had only written a few lines when it came to a halt.
My grandma's health had taken a turn, and she went home to Jesus far sooner than I was ready for. This song I was writing about going home and being with family was hitting me differently. So I set it aside.
Sitting in my grandparents' living room in Michigan a few days later with family I hadn't seen in far too long and hearing these beloved, familiar voices telling old stories, I kept thinking about the Thanksgivings we had in that house. There was a big, beautiful table that we somehow all used to fit around--all twenty-seven of us, and as I looked around, looking for my grandma from pure habit and noticing the frames on her shelves holding photographs of all of us through the years, I thought,
"We all have a place around the table
The empty chairs remain there like we’ve asked..."
Then there were the goodbyes as we started for home again, family by family. Being among the last to leave, those goodbyes were getting harder and harder. I remember my mom looking at me with a small smile and saying, "We should make much of the coming and little of the going."
For a few months, I didn't look at that song I had started before Christmas, but when I finally did, it was a garden. The ground beneath my feet was ready and waiting--the foundation was already there, and all I had to do was write it.
And this was the beginning of the second track on Wintertide. A song about home, about family, about belonging... I named it "Call Me North".
All the love,
Brittany