A stray kitten born outside my building in my condo complex died. The crazy lady next door to me dug a grave in the ground next to her back deck for the dead, stray kitten and buried it there. She adorned the small grave with flowers and little colored rocks she painted herself. She arranged the rocks in some sort of ritualistic fashion, unknown I’m sure to anybody else but herself.
A few days later, a little five-year old boy was playing outside near by while his mother visited with me. The little boy saw the pretty painted rocks and decided to pick one up to play with it. He was quickly told to put it back by his mother. However, the crazy lady, having seen the little boy playing with the rock while spying out her window, cornered me days later, spewing words of theft on the little boy’s part. She angrily expressed herself while yelling at me for allowing this little boy to steal one of her very special magic rocks. No one could tell her otherwise, and she wouldn’t leave me alone. She just followed me around my deck yelling at me while I tried to work.
Frustrated, I turned around in her face and yelled back, “Get over it! IT’S-JUST-A-ROCK!”
Later that week in early morning, as I looked out my back window sipping my hot cocoa, I saw a “No Trespassing” sign standing tall on the grave for all who pass to beware of. It was reinforced with extra rocks…not colored.
“Well, there it is,” I thought, “The last word.”
“How did she get this way?” I wondered as I continued to eye the latest landscaping and decorative addition to our condominium’s comment elements.
Instead of wasting my energy and writing in a complaint, I decided to put this experience to music. Breaking it down on paper, scribbling away the insanity, I began to realize the reality of things; the grave possibility that I could be her. What trigger mechanism would release those insecurities within me from which I would find too difficult to face? Writing Magic Stones was the only real answer I had.
When I finished, Colleen and Jim (the other members of Sweet Punch at that time) fell in-love with the song instantly. And so, “Magic Stones” was born.