"You're The Rock That I Will Cling To"

The Rock in question is Ineke, my exotic, foreign, Dutch wife.

I wrote this line, and the accompanying song, after a row over the phone when she was away somewhere up the road. Because she has been a rock, through all the 28 years of our sometimes  rocky marriage. I've got my strengths, but they tend to be mostly up at the creative, intuitive, wordy, imaginative...moody, temperamental, emotional, end of the spectrum. And though I sometimes make semi tongue-in-cheek remarks about our incompatibility the fact is that she is the paradoxical balance to the equation that equals: Us.

It hasn't been easy to live with each other. What with our different dreams, or lack of dreams, totally different perspectives, different ways of thinking, different most things. But the quality of Ineke that I have most appreciated is her Rock-ness. She has been as steady as a beautiful piece of chiselled granite (with me doing a lot of the unintentional chiselling) throughout our married life. When I've had my seasons of doubt, depression, and occasional despair, she has continued holding everything together, without any fuss really. Perhaps this sounds a little bit stereotypical. But it's what she does, and it is the kind of quality that too often goes unappreciated.

I appreciate it Ineke.


The line "You're the rock that I will cling to" was chosen by Eryn Fee, and is from my song A Human Being from the album of the same name.