Alexandersmap

    Category: Music

    • Without Memory

      Mama says he can’t remember
      Daddy thinks that he still can
      I’m going back to see him
      While he still knows
      Who I am
      This time I’m gonna hug him
      Instead of just shaking hands
      Gonna tell him that I love him
      While he still knows
      Who I am
      — Kenny Chesney, While He Still Knows Who I Am

      There are moments when you hear a song on the radio and you want to pull over to listen to it in its entirety. That moment happened to me with this Chesney song as I was merging onto Interstate 95 between the George Washington Bridge and the Alexander Hamilton Bridge. In other words: not a place you want to pull over. But I multitasked my way through the song and Washington Heights safely anyway, thinking I’d have to listen again sometime soon. Technology puts songs at our fingertips nowadays, and so it would be.

      Having a father with dementia, the lyrics land as body blows. When you lose someone while they’re still with you, it’s a different kind of loss than the losing of someone who’s had their last heartbeat. I’ve lost two fathers in the last few years, one each way, and you feel the hurt uniquely for each. The one who was more present in my life feels like loss. The one that got away feels more like lost opportunity. Both have shaped me, both leave a void in their absence that has to be reconciled in unexpected moments like merging into traffic. Timing is everything in life.

      “Memory is our deepest actual language. It’s our storehouse of riches… and we need to keep it open, to keep in mind the importance of childhood events that will somehow condition our life and character… If we have no memory, we are nobody, and nothing is possible.” — José Saramago

      There are days when I wonder which way I’ll go myself. Will my body give out first, or my mind? We never want to be a burden on those we love in our final days, but we do want to linger with them as long as possible. It’s the saying goodbye part that we want the most in the end, even as we wish with all our heart that it wouldn’t end. Having seen people leave this world both ways, I think I’d rather have my body give out first. At least I might write and say a few things until the end. At the very least tell the people I love what the passwords are for all my accounts. Nobody likes loose ends. Dementia leaves a lot of loose ends.

      So we learn to hug the people we love in the moment instead of waiting. We eat our blueberries and leafy greens and stay hydrated hoping to stay healthy for as long as possible into our senior years. Vibrant physical and mental health become far more important when we see the alternative. We can’t always change the path we and our loved ones are on, but we can control how we react to it in this moment. I suppose that’s all we’ve ever had.

    • But for Now

      Some fine day when we go walking
      We’ll take time for idle talking
      Sharing every feeling as we watch each other smile
      I’ll hold your hand you’ll hold my hand
      We’ll say things we never had planned
      Then we’ll get to know each other in a little while
      But for now let me say I love you
      Later on there’ll be time for so much more
      But for now meaning now and forever
      Let me kiss you my darling then once more
      — Jamie Cullum/Bob Dorough, But for Now

      The bird feeders were irresponsibly empty yesterday, distracted by life as I’d been, what with elections and wars and billionaires behaving badly (another reason to not win the lottery). I’d simply let them run empty. When such things happen the birds move on to the neighbor’s feeders, or pick through the fallen leaves for leftovers. Birds deal in the reality of the moment—there’s either food or there isn’t, and act accordingly. “Since it is what it is, what will we do with it?“, they stoically chirped and got on with their collective now. When the feeders were full they returned in earnest, and the cycle repeated once again. I suppose we can learn a thing or two from birds.

      There’s something about November that demands intense focus on immediacy. Lyrical phrases like “these are the days”, “this magic moment”, and “but for now” drift into my head and prompt reflection. Reflection is lovely, but the feeders and fallen leaves remind me that there’s work to be done. This blog might be to blame for making me so very attentive to the business at hand, but then again, it’s just a way to share what was whispering in my ear all along. Is it itself a distraction, or a way to sort through the progress of becoming something more?

      Perhaps, the birds suggest, we think too much and do too little. We shouldn’t relinquish our magic moment but get straight to the point and say and do what must be done. Later, maybe when we actually become what we’re becoming, there’ll be time for so much more. Life isn’t about its little distractions but a sum of what we produce in our days. For we aren’t just feeding birds here, are we?

    • Memories Are Made of This

      Stir carefully through the days
      See how the flavor stays
      These are the dreams you will savor
      — Dean Martin, Memories Are Made Of This

      Life is never perfect, but we may build a lovely dream when we have the right recipe. It starts with good health, a sound mind, and the environment we find ourselves in. When you’re surrounded by people who lift you up with their buoyancy, it’s hard to sink too far beneath the surface. When you’re surrounded by sharks, well, life is a game of survival. When we have the agency to choose, we must swim away from the sharks.

      If this sounds overly optimistic, well, let’s be realistic for a moment. Life hands us both lemons and hand grenades now and then, and we can’t always control the outcome of any situation we find ourselves living in. But too often we use this as an excuse to throw our hands up and blame fate on our circumstances. We have more of a say in the quality of our lives than we admit.

      We vote for our identity in our daily actions. We may build our own dream, stirred carefully with bits of joy and love, honed with determination and agency, and maintained with fitness and love. These are the dreams we will savor in our lifetime.

    • Home, and Away

      “Now more than ever do I realize that I will never be content with a sedentary life, that I will always be haunted by thoughts of a sun-drenched elsewhere.” – Isabelle Eberhardt

      Well past dark, I completed the relocation process for thousands of fallen red oak leaves that had blanketed the front lawn with the muted satisfaction that comes with not seeing your finished project and knowing it will likely be covered again soon enough. This is fall, but it’s also folly to believe you’re ever done with yard work. The trees giveth in abundance, and on their own timetable.

      The thing is, I like the chores of home ownership even as I contemplate my next move on the bucket list. Restless spirits are always moving, whether at home or in travel. I’ve never sat still very well. Meditation for me requires movement, and there is already an abundance of travel booked or in the works. Schemes and dreams of places near and far haunt me, it isn’t something that can be flushed out of your system like too much drink. Travel perpetuates, as reading does. It’s a positive addiction, trading mundane routine for more worldly experience. Many of us have nomadic tendencies running through our blood.

      And yet we can’t imagine nomads raking the leaves and putting away patio furniture. Having a home base isn’t such a bad thing when it doesn’t dominate the conversation. One can happily manage home chores and segue immediately into the next adventure if one structures a life properly. We can have our cake and eat it too. As with all things, balance is the key.

      Go
      And beat your crazy head against the sky
      Try
      And see beyond the houses and your eyes
      It’s okay to shoot the moon
      — John Sebastian, Darling Be Home Soon

      Like sharks, I suppose, restless spirits must move to live. Being fully alive isn’t passive: energy doesn’t rest. So we too should rest less. But fear not, for we’ll be home soon.

    • What is Beautiful

      “The sea is not less beautiful in our eyes because we know that sometimes ships are wrecked by it.” ― Simone Weil, Waiting for God

      Two things I rarely write about are religion and love. The meaning of each is in the eye of the beholder, and the fastest way to divide a room is to carry on too much about either. Even writing that statement will turn off a true believer or two. So be it. We each wrestle with ourselves and our place in this world. Relationships, whether with God or science, your true love or platonic love, are complicated. We’re not on this earth long enough to know everything, but our journey isn’t about the finish, it’s about who we become each step along the way.

      Some people want certainty in their lives. So they only marry someone who believes in the same god, or goes to the same church, or no church. Or maybe it’s politics or nationality or favorite sports team that dictates who they choose to associate with. This is inherently limiting, of course, for it keeps us in a box of our own making. They might as well make it a casket.

      The thing is, we all have our core belief systems and tend to seek out that which reinforces that identity. Over the years I’ve wrestled with strong feelings about everything from musical genres to whether the house lights are left on at night. None of it matters in the long run, it’s just positioning of the self in an indifferent world. Writing every day is the miraculous clarifying tool which brings me closer to understanding it all. Perhaps it is for you too.

      When the year is over, barring some last-minute heroics, I will have read fewer books than last year. And yet the lift is heavier this year, with some significant philosophical works in the mix. This may be my What’s it all about Alfie stage of life, but I think not. I’ve always been this way; I just make better choices now. As you grow you tend to explore your openness to new influences a bit more.

      As sure as I believe there’s a heaven above
      Alfie, I know there’s something much more
      Something even non-believers can believe in
      I believe in love, Alfie
      Without true love we just exist, Alfie
      Until you find the love you’ve missed
      You’re nothing, Alfie
      — Burt Bacharach / Hod David, Alfie

      The world is wrestling with nihilism and division at the moment. It will eventually swing back towards unity, hopefully before too much damage is done. All we can do is be active ambassadors for openness and unity. What is beautiful in our lives may wreck us, but it might also be our salvation. What is life but a journey to discover that which resonates most for us? We reach awareness in our own time, and learn to cherish the experiences and influences that bring us there.

      Whatever the package it comes from, that which is derived from true love and honesty is beautiful. We may learn from it, or turn away from it, but the truth remains. Our obligation to ourselves and the world is to be open. What is beautiful will find its way to us.

    • Something’s Gained

      Tears and fears and feeling proud
      To say, “I love you” right out loud
      Dreams and schemes and circus crowds
      I’ve looked at life that way
      Oh, but now old friends they’re acting strange
      And they shake their heads and they tell me that I’ve changed
      Well something’s lost, but something’s gained
      In living every day
      I’ve looked at life from both sides now
      From win and lose and still somehow
      It’s life’s illusions I recall
      I really don’t know life at all
      — Joni Mitchell, Both Sides Now

      When Joni Mitchell sang this song at Newport Folk Festival at the age of 78 this summer, you might say the song resonated more than ever. You might even call that an understatement. Life throws all sorts of challenges at us, and there’s no doubt Joni Mitchell has faced a few herself over the years. That’s living, after all, and meaning is derived from challenging and blissful moments just the same.

      Mitchell wrote the song when she was 23, an old soul to be sure, but having navigated some challenging moments in her young life already. She’d given up a daughter for adoption when the father left them, as I understand it. How do you process that at 23, full of dreams and schemes dashed so early on? You either give up in despair or you get up, brush yourself off and get back to living every day. You might indulge yourself in the former for a beat, but life demands we carry on or drift away forever lost.

      We must live and change every day, leaving some bits of ourselves behind, welcoming our best bits to join us on the next stage of life, and sometimes welcoming the return of old parts of our identity we’d drifted away from. Living our lives one day at a time, we tackle our hopes and dreams and illusions of grandeur as best we can, sometimes losing track of what’s important, and sometimes finding our way back to the path that feels most natural for us. Life is funny that way. We do with it what we will, and looking back, we might see how far we’ve come.

      Looking around, I’ve noticed a growing collection of philosophy on my reading list. I’ve also noticed an increasing inclination for active living. To ponder deep thoughts or to step out into the world? To make the most of this living business you need to pursue both, don’t you? We don’t really know life at all, just what we perceive of it as viewed through the lens of our experiences and present circumstances. But the thing is, we can keep searching and growing, and discover what we might in the time we have.

    • Words Spoken Around Embers

      Burnt wood has bared witness to many songs sung
      Warmed up the hands
      And the hearts of the young
      And the old gather round
      Till the flames are all done
      Passing down their words of wisdom
      — Caamp, Of Love and Life

      For all the beauty of October days and the march of amber and crimson southward, it’s the crispness in the air that makes the month resonate. You aren’t just seeing October—you feel it. But crisp air takes on a little bite when the sun drops below the horizon and the last glow of orange and pink fade in the clouds above. This is when we turn our eyes downward, and make our own orange glow, fed with fallen twigs and split wood and tales of days gone by and times we hope will come. October is a time for campfires and conversation.

      There are no perfect days, but somehow we are able to string just enough moments together to make it feel like there is. We ought to find time outdoors with nature, to contemplate things more profoundly timeless and patient than we are. We ought to use our time for productive work that calls to us, be it writing or yard work or something that pays the bills in fair trade for our precious hours. And we ought to spend time with those who round us out and make us feel a part of something bigger than ourselves.

      Gathering around a fire is nothing new, it’s been a part of human existence long enough that we might as well call it the beginning. Conversations inevitably roar with the biggest flames. But when those flames have died down the orange embers speak to you, if you listen to them. This is when conversations become hushed, and the co-conspirators of living draw upon magic. The stars above remind us that time is a uniquely human construct, something we reconcile in such moments with embers. On this spinning globe, living is seasonal. The fire transforms just as the seasons do, just as we do, and we become one with the universe.

      This is October to me.

    • Autumn Whispers

      Well, the leaves have come to turning
      And the goose has gone to fly
      And bridges are for burning
      So don’t you let that yearning
      Pass you by
      — James Taylor, Walking Man

      If life is a collection of experiences, surely autumn is one of the grandest of them all. I favor off-season for the stillness it offers, and generally avoid the lines of tourists making their pilgrimages to places famous for both beauty and popularity. But some things must be done. If you want to see the cherry blossoms in bloom, you must go visit places like Japan or Washington DC in spring when they’re doing just that. And so it is with fall foliage in New England. When it arrives, you must step out and greet it before the leaves literally fall away.

      We aren’t here to let life pass us by. We’re here to embrace the seasons, and make the most of our time. It autumn tells us anything, it’s that life quickly flies past us when we patiently wait our turn. Remember that old expression that the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time to plant a tree is today? So it is with actively living. We must grow into a full life from the moment we resolve to do so.

      Don’t let that yearning pass you by.

    • Torn Between Two Places

      God it’s so painful when something that’s so close
      Is still so far out of reach
      — Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, American Girl

      September conjures up images of red and gold leaves in crisp air. I thought of their possibility while sneaking another swim in water that believes it’s still summer. But what we linger on isn’t always where we are, is it? I reminded myself to savor the water while I was still in it.

      We’re often torn between where we are and where we want to be. Between things we’re comfortable doing and things we’d like to try. It’s a fiendish place; nurtured dissatisfaction with one, with a lingering frustration that the other is just out of reach. We reason with the mind to accept one place, while the other place sings its siren song. No matter, were we to reverse our position, we’d likely yearn for the place we just came from. Such is human nature.

      The space between seems to be the real issue. We can’t have it all, but we dwell on images of places we’d love to be, or parts of our lives we’d love to return to, or maybe run away from. Surely, it’s there in that between where the devil resides. It’s our no man’s land where dreams go to die if we dare wander into it. And don’t we all stumble into discontent at times in our lives?

      All season I’ve been dealing with a garden neglected at the start of the growing season while I bounced around in Europe in June. It never really established itself, then came the drought, and here we are at the end of the season with a sad little garden that’s a shadow of its former self. The garden and I gave it a go, despite it all, and now it will go dormant for the winter before we try again next year. But I wonder, will I be inclined to try again, or leave it for the beauty of another place once again?

      Such are the considerations of an itinerate wanderer with a strong sense of place. Making a go of it here, while thinking about there. With American Girl playing in my head as a soundtrack of this life between two places.

    • Colors Out of Reach

      Well, I see the end of the rainbow
      But what more is a rainbow
      Than colors out of reach?
      — The Avett Brothers, Swept Away

      There’s a fine line between being satisfied with what you’ve got and yearning for what you haven’t got. I follow, and thus am constantly teased by, Aurora Borealis updates. I happen to live in a place with a very slight chance of seeing the Northern Lights, but sure, I’m saying there’s a chance. The hardy souls who stay up all night on mountain tops for the ten minutes with the Aurora post their photos immediately, making me grumble when I rise early the next morning and see what I’ve missed. But I know that that show wasn’t meant for me.

      We are in our moment, in our place, with or without the things we yearn for. There’s nothing to do about that which we’ve missed out on. For the things we seek, we must either go to them or let them fly away unencumbered by our attempt to grasp them.

      When you go to a place you’ve dreamed of going to, be it a tropical paradise or Paris or (just maybe) Iceland for volcanos and waterfalls and the dance of the Northern Lights, you close the book on dreaming and capture its memory, like a flower folded into a book. The thing is, memories are rainbows out of reach too. But with memories, bits of the color embed themselves in us that live on through us. You can see it in your eyes when you look at yourself in the mirror, and others see it in you too. Each encounter brings more color to our lives.

      Ultimately we can’t have it all, and we ought to focus on the things that are most important to us. Yet there’s something to be said for a recurring dream of light and color dancing in the sky. It will always remain just out of reach, yet so very close to our heart.

      So what do we chase, and what do we let fly away? Don’t we already know? For our answer appears when we stop chasing every rainbow and really think about what’s important now.

      Edinburgh Rainbow