Rolling—and Rolling and Rolling and Rolling in the Deep

“Rolling in the Deep”

And Rolling and Rolling and Rolling

Dancing with Abandon

Living Without Abandonment

From 21 by Adele

“The scars of your love, remind you of us.

They keep me thinking that we almost had it all

The scars of your love, they leave me breathless

I can't help feeling

We could have had it all

Rolling in the deep

You had my heart inside your hand

And you played it

To the beat.”

I danced riotously, joyfully, without limits, having no fear of anyone watching. Rocking out. Another person was present, but enveloped in the emotion of her own dance, she wasn’t watching, and I continued my own.

“We could have had it all. . . .” At the song’s end, she added a name, a single name of the person who had her heart inside [his] hand . . . .” I, too, sang a name aloud, but didn’t stop at one, and added at least a few more, going back to ____, who “played my heart to the beat” when I was 16.

Failed love—a failed relationship—left singer Adele at age 21 rolling in the deep. Here I am at 60, looking back and seeing how I placed my heart inside too many hands, the wrong hands, and rolled in the deep far too many times.

“We could have had it all

Rolling in the deep

You had my heart inside your hand

But you played it,

You played it,

You played it

You played it to the beat.”

I stopped that roll ten years ago and said, “I’ll take my heart out of your hand, thank you very much,” and started my own roll away from that deep, dark place of another failed marriage, another heart played to the beat.

Hearing, feeling, Adele’s words awakened that anguish from years ago, and it was re-felt, re-experienced. Voicing those names also made me pause and led me to question why I gave my heart so often to those who “played it to the beat.”

In answer, I realize that it’s a mistake to give one’s heart over to another and allow it to be “played to the beat.” From this vantage point, scanning the horizon of the past, I know it’s an error to give one’s heart over. A wiser course is to open one’s heart; and rather than let someone else “play it to the beat,” the more heartfelt path is to find someone with whom one can listen to the beat, and sing together, rather than make separate songs.

Adele’s 21 CD can be found at Amazon.com, where you also can listen to part of “Rolling in the Deep.”

http://www.amazon.com/21-Adele/dp/B004EBT5CU/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1356525955&sr=1-1&keywords=21