July 14, 2019:

The other music I found helpful was by a little indie band from Austin called The Reivers.

Their songs were sweet, literary homages to everyday love, where the kids are asleep, and "the greatest love could be at the end of every day, what's left for you and me, at the end of every day." Beautiful.

Where what mattered most to me was the lovely, rich, motherly voice of the woman singer, Kim Longacre. Her voice made the songs feel like lullabies sung directly to my seething, simmering nerve endings, helping me to relax, helping me to sleep. Listening to her was the closest thing to calm I found during the entire long nightmare of my breakdown.

I saw them several times, at the iBeam and I think the Catalyst. There was a funny moment once. I stood at the back in the iBeam where my height wouldn't block the people shorter than me. I was singing along to something, I forget which song, when Kim and I locked eyes and I got silly for a sec, not making fun of the song just being silly with it, which busted her up on stage so that she had to collect her composure. That was fun. Kim if you're reading, that was me.

I don't remember the quality of my mother's singing voice. I remember her singing, at the piano: Irish folk songs, "Tura Lura Lura" and "The Wearin' of the Green". The words are clear in memory and the emotion but not her voice. Kim Longacre's voice filled that need for me, at that time.