Here is God’s honest truth, presented with no lace curtains or glitter – we are actively trying to memorize the world, so to speak; every step we take, every journey we embark on, big or small, is another test, another chance for our minds to read and swallow the details of an ever-shifting, ever-expanding world.

We memorize everything, whether we realize we’re doing it or not.  We take note of where two freeway lanes merge into one, which red lights take the longest, where the sun is the most extreme.  We learn which people are the friendliest, what to say to whom, how to get what we want from the people we need things from.  It’s not just us falling into patterns – it’s us scripting our lives, running down call sheets of props and actors.  Every day is another pass through a world that we are, in essence, mastering.

***

It only took an hour
To forget your face and name
I had you in my crosshairs
But never really aimed

I’ll memorize the earth now
The people that I meet
The signals that I’m sending
To my hands and to my feet

But it’s all downhill from here (my synapses firing like an antique gun)
My vision seemed so clear (but I was on the verge of losing everyone)
But oh that feeling of love so near
It’s all downhill from here

You cherish all the stories
Of people you don’t know
The inner strength and patience
Of strangers you’ve been shown

But quietly we’re waiting
For a sign that things have changed
And that we haven’t been forgotten
In the history we claim

***

Rachel and I sat down with our friend Trisha Madsen (sister to previous guest Tyler) and worked through some tricky three-part harmonies.  There’s not a lot to say about this song, because it’s small, and I like it when songs are self-contained and small, when they’re easy to fold up and put away and pull out at a minute’s notice.

Don’t get me wrong: it’s OK for songs to be long and complicated; they can tell stories and carve out narratives and become big, near-unmanageable parts of us.  But sometimes, songs can be tiny little snapshots of a fleeting thought - they can be sketches of our inner life.  They can take place over three minutes, leave as quick as they came, and still make us smile, make us think, make us feel.

***

If you haven’t been afforded the time to listen to the EP, which we are very proud of, then you’re in luck: it’s streaming over at http://anonymousrecordings.com/northerndistrict, and can be purchased on iTunes right this minute.