Weight Loss and a Song

So I hadn’t really noticed how severe my weight loss was until my Dad showed me this video he took of me performing last summer.

My face is so much fuller in this footage, my arms look thicker and there is a glow in my eyes that I haven’t seen in a long time. I forgot I used to look like this.

I guess since it all happened so gradually I never even noticed my body changing. Sure, I knew I seemed a little thinner, my jeans were looser and my chest was smaller, but I never saw how drastically different I look now. I can see why my family was so concerned when they picked me up from college. The video really startled me. But it was a good reason to treat myself to a little coconut chocolate ice cream. Yum!

This song is called "October Snow". I wrote it my freshman year of college. The song was inspired by the custodian who cleaned my hallway. I'm an early riser, so I got to know the cleaning staff pretty well. I was always up when they were mopping the bathrooms. Our custodian was a very sweet woman who would always smile and say good morning to me but she had a deep sadness seeded in her face, a heavy tiredness. I wrote "October Snow" hoping to bring out what seemed to be her story, a story of loneliness and isolation. I think sometimes we overlook people, people who work hard, just because they are foreign. So many immigrants feel secluded because they are not always respected in the way that they should be. People are just people, we all go through hardship, and we all feel joy. We are all basically the same. I hope this song is a relatable, human narrative.

"October Snow" Lyrics:

The girl with the brown paper bag kicks the leaves on the ground

To watch them separate like the waves of Sinaloa

Her shoulders slouch and round and fold her body inside out

As October snow collects on her scalp

And weaves it’s frozen fingers through her hair

She wears her powdered sugar crown

A little less often now

A little less often now

Feeling two-dimensional she wraps her arms around herself

And tries to squeeze the noise out of her ears

Stuck in a Chinese finger trap the more she moves the more the world reacts

And tightens its grasp

She runs her frozen fingers through her hair

And stares into the sky

Stretching with her eyes, she wishes that her feet weren’t anchored down

And she sees angels dressed n ragged clothes

Hanging on a laundry line

Their flimsy angles frantically flip in the wind

Pinched by clothespins

And she says “even they aren’t free to fly when they please

Tethered to that twisting string

If I were an angel I would wear my wings like a shawl on these cold autumn days

Cause Mexico seems so far away

So far away”

The girl with the brown paper bag kicks the leaves on the ground

To watch them separate like the waves of Sinaloa

Her eyelids trace the ground

A refuge for her doubt

She wishes that her feet weren’t anchored down

And weaves her frozen fingers through her hair

She weaves her frozen fingers through her hair

She wears her powdered sugar crown

A little less often now

A little less often now