Everyone grows up singing in the shower or lip-syncing with the hairbrush in the bathroom mirror and imagining themselves in front of a stadium crowd head banging with the best of them — don’t they? When I was a tiny tot I use to swish my little pixie hair cut from side to side and declare “Look I’m a Beatle!”, then proceed to hack I want to hold your hand or some other Beatle ditty in the middle of the kitchen floor.

As a teenager I would write love songs and heart break ballads and then record them on my little cassette tape deck. Back then recording harmony meant having two little hand held tape decks and playing one really loud while singing along to myself and recording the backup vocals. My band consisted of some tiny casio-toy electronic device or the five chords I could strum on an old guitar.  Caribbean Sunset, © 1980

When I came to California to go to college, my father bought me my first MIDI keyboard as my highschool graduation gift. This was a big deal for my high-tech enineering degree Dad — because up until then he had only bought TI programable calculators and other practical peripherals. But a MIDI keyboard? How cool was that?

I continued to write music all throughout my young adult years dabbling in a little rock, pop and trying desparately to write something with a reaggea beat for my then rastafarian mother. But they always seemed to sound like some bar room country and western song that made me scratch my head and realize it was a good decision indeed to go into computing as my chosen career.  We Are All One, © Nancy Parker 1995

I found my calling though in 1988 with the birth of my first daughter. Lullabies! I was a pro at baby ballads. I would write songs and sing to my babies for hours on end. They were my first captive audience! And to this day each of my big kids will on occasion come to me and ask “Can you sing me my lullaby?” Smiles in Your Sleep (aka Patricia's Lullaby), © 1988

I enjoyed my little kindergarten classroom concerts and my parenting group play dates where they all humored me and I could sing for a crowd.

Martha Bea’s Lullaby © 1996,

performed here  in 2001

[zdvideo width=”280″ height=”200″]http://iparker.com/videos/martha-lullaby.flv[/zdvideo]

By now I had the technology edge and I could do digitally now what before was paramount to a shoestring and a paper cup recording.

I loved writing music. One of my proudest moments was when my son entered the school talent show with one of the songs that I wrote. Though I realized even then that I had an autonomic system that simply wasn’t designed to handle all of the excitement.

Daniel Sings “Believe” 2005

[zdvideo width=”280″ height=”200″]http://iparker.com/videos/dan-believe.flv[/zdvideo]

In the 1990’s I self-published a set of relaxation meditations, called Take -10. Ten minute short guided exercises that could restore sleep, heal the inner child or transform the experience of the Now. Recently, through the same company I use to publish my cookbook (The 30-Day Vegetarian) and novel (In The Lila) I could provide those meditation tracks for instant MP3 download on Amazon.com.

It was fun playing with music and seeing where the new technology could take me over the years. But for the most part, my music is something I left behind in 2007 when I had to leave my career. I have been fortunate that I had so many music tracks that I could draw upon for my YouTube videos that I recorded before I became too sick to engage in any kind of active hobby let alone work any longer. I remember the last song that I recorded was a little ditty that I sang with my husband and three kids.

[zdvideo width=”280″ height=”200″]http://iparker.com/videos/moonlight.flv[/zdvideo]

But since that time all has been silent on the western music front.

A while back, one of my kids asked me to record the vocal track for a musical number I had written a few years ago but never finished. I used the musical version on the web — and even started referring to the song as “The Veggie Shuffle” because it was my theme track for my cooking videos. But in truth, it was a little fun tune that was titled “Long Drive Home.” And I had simply never gotten back to setting up the equipment I needed to record the harmony and lead vocal.

Long story short (ok, too late for short — I get that) I’ve been working on this little project off and on for some time now. Little bits and pieces when my body felt up to play a bit on my laptop. Here’s my little “Behind the Scenes” geek-show about how it all came together — and some words about Dysautonomia and how it impacts my life.

And here’s the final music video!

LONG DRIVE HOME, © 2010

It’s nice to be able to finish something …. even after all of these years.