The night before the big departure — Ma, Ba, and Sis all gathered in the living room trying to calm my nerves.  The trunk was packed full laying there in the middle of the floor with my scrappily rolled sleeping bag resting atop.  I must have checked over it twenty times, just to make sure my good luck charms were all well hidden inside.  They tried encouraging me, mentioning that the camp had all sorts of fun activities like swimming, archery, and sports.

“Look at this one!”, my sister yelled out while she raised the pamphlet up high in the air.

Catching a glimpse of a picture of happy kids in t-shirts smiling — I have to admit, this did make me feel a tiny bit better,”I don’t know,” I nervously mumbled, “I.. I just don’t know.”

Being twelve years old, and a young twelve year old at that, school was over for the year, and I was getting ready to leave for summer camp.  This was difficult for me.  Being always the clingy type, hiding behind my parents in public. I’ve never been apart from my family.  Yet here I was, getting ready to depart for the entire summer.  This was just beyond any regular fears.  I was more scared than excited alike the other kids — the ones I saw in the pamphlet.

I was really too afraid to say anything that night.  But, it was already too late.  If there was any way I could hide behind a rock, I would.  If there was any way that would change my parents’ mind, I hoped for a miracle.

That miracle never happened.

And I’m glad it didn’t.  For that was the summer that I grew up from being a young twelve year old to a more adventurous outgoing twelve year old.  One with scraped knees and elbows — the kind that wielded a smile of having done something brave.  You see, that summer taught me some invaluable lessons that it was alright to reach outside my comfort zone.  Alike riding a swing, one realizes they’re able to swing their legs to ride higher, eagerly.

Today… I’m getting a bit excited about the upcoming album.

This album is a collection of songs which were heavily influenced by my roots in Classic Rock, but more importantly, by Megan and Julian. In all honesty, this album was going to be published back in 2011 (eek!), but times were busy — well, times are always busy, and I just needed to have a great goal set and a reason to push things along.

Elizabeth asked me how I would describe this album in one sentence.  I said — “He said… She said…” is a compilation of Classic Rock songs that the kids and I have interpreted together over the past few years.  The name was chosen to reflect that these are cover tunes, but I do hesitate to call them cover tunes.  Whenever I hear this term “cover tunes”, I think of a band playing top 40 hits in bars (I’m not sure exactly why).  These songs are intentionally different from the originals so maybe a better term may be “interpretations.”  Also, I wanted to include references to both Julian and Megan in the name of the album; hence the terms “He” and “She”.

For the actual meaning of publishing this album, for more than anything, I really did want Julian and Megan to make their mark while they are still in their youth.  They are both growing up so quickly, that I felt if I didn’t place this bookmark in time, well, the moment would be lost.  My intention is to bring them along in this journey of publishing an album and it would be encouraging for them to look back on this one day and feel a sense of accomplishment.

You see, I was always the timid type when growing up — so much that it probably held me back from trying different things.  My fear is that Megan and Julian may be too nervous to try new things one day too.  My hopes is that if they ever wonder whether they could accomplish something, anything, maybe for a few moments, they can look back to see what they have done already.  Any challenges they may be facing at that moment may not seem so unsurmountable.  Maybe this album, while it may just sit on their shelf one day, can act as their pamphlet — maybe they’ll catch glimpses of happy faces.  Alike learning to ride on a swing by swinging one’s legs upward, they will feel inclined to ride the swing higher, for I know they can.

I would always want them to.

Chat soon and thanks for listening.

-Peter

P.S. — I thought you may find this humorous.  I was digging around my digital archives and found the original album cover — it didn’t resemble the purpose of the album at the time, and I’m *so* glad this wasn’t used. lol!

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