Soap and Water

We talk about some breaks being "clean" breaks. The speaker here uses the metaphor of "soap," not unlike Lady MacBeth. Well, the speaker here isn't trying to cleanse herself of murder-guilt, just relationship-residue. In both cases, the stain is metaphorical, but they try to use actual soap to remove it.

The speaker asks a lot of the soap. She wants it to "take the day from my hand," and let her begin the night anew.

She wants to "scrub the salt" from her skin. What salt? Was she cooking, or sailing in the sea? More likely this is the salt of tears on her face, or wiped away by her hand.

And she wants it to "slip me loose of this wedding band." Well, when a ring is stuck, one uses soap, or butter, or Vaseline, or something else slick to lubricate it loose. This seems more... permanent. She wants to wash away her marriage.

It's not only her outsides that she wants cleansed-- her "heart," too. After it is clean, she will "hang" it on a "(clothes)line" to dry, where the wind-whipped "sand" will "scour" it. Then she wants it "bleach(ed)" and disinfected with "vinegar" and then polished to a "shine."

This is an almost violent amount of cleaning, even for an organ as resilient as a heart. She must really be needing to get rid of him.  Not just from her house, but from her life and psyche.

Lastly, she asks the soap to "wash the year from my life." Evidently, it has been a very difficult year, and she wants it erased from her memory.

She wants the soap to do the job of starch and an iron, to "straighten all that we trampled." She realizes that the divorce, like necessary medicine, can also have side effects on the route to healing.

And, in having "torn" the family bonds, she left a "cut," which she now wants the soap to disinfect and "heal." What cut? The one "we call husband and wife."

In the two choruses, she addresses the child of this now-ending marriage. In both, she says, "Daddy's a dark riddle." Not just a "riddle," as some of those can be fun or at least unobtrusive, but a "dark" one. Rather than try anymore to solve the riddle, she has decided to simply cut him loose-- she doesn't even care to try to find the answer anymore. There are some boxes labeled "Danger" that are simply not worth opening.

Then she describes herself, alternately, as "a headful of bees" and "a handful of thorns." In doing so, she acknowledges that the split, while necessary, was also harmful. Yes, the relationship was more harmful and had to end, but maybe there might have been a way to minimize the damage caused during the split, and by it.

But... was there? Or was she going through an emotional turmoil herself, what with her marriage ending? Did she lash out, stinging, inappropriately at times? Well, that was wrong... but there was still a reason for it. Her head was buzzing with preoccupations both practical and emotional; as far as supporting others, all she had to offer was "a handful of thorns."

So lastly, she acknowledges that this experience must have been tempestuous for her (their) daughter. "You are my little kite," she says-- totally at the mercy of forces she could not control-- her father's cold absence, her mother's scatterbrained frustration and psychological exhaustion. These, she refers to as a "wayward breeze"-- it's powerful, it's random, and there's nothing the poor kite can do about it.

She also knows that the child was aware of the routine fighting going on between her parents. These, she likens to "household storms" their kite of a child was "caught up" in.

A wayward breeze is bad enough-- a forgotten playdate, a missed birthday party. But for a child to have to hear her the thunder and lightning of her parents fighting is very difficult.

Maybe now the fighting is over, because the father isn't there anymore for her to fight with. But think of a "storm"... and its aftermath. Sure, the sun is out now. That doesn't mean everything is fine, though; what about the felled trees, the downed power lines, the flooded basements left in the storm's wake?

These can be cleaned up and cleared away with some effort. Then, to really make the house look normal again, you're going to need a roller and a can of paint, a mop and a bucket... and a lot of soap and water.

Are there clean breaks? Maybe with inanimate objects. With people, though...


Next Song: Songs in Red and Gray