Alexandersmap

    Tag: James Taylor

    • Knowing the Score

      Well the sun is surely sinking down
      But the moon is slowly rising
      And this old world must still be spinning ’round
      And I still love you
      So close your eyes
      You can close your eyes, it’s all right
      I don’t know no love songs
      And I can’t sing the blues anymore
      But I can sing this song
      And you can sing this song
      When I’m gone
      — James Taylor, You Can Close Your Eyes

      I’ve been busier and more focused lately. This offers the potential for productive days at the very moment when I’m less inclined to be productive. But I power through because to do otherwise would be to do dishonor to the work. Work is transactional, with both parties doing their part to honor the agreement. Employee at will, as the lawyers say. Today I will work, because life goes on and there’s just so much to do before I’m done.

      Life can end abruptly for any of us, but those who enter hospice do so knowing the score. Or sometimes it’s their loved ones who know the score while they quietly slip away. Perhaps we’ll know what they experience when we get there ourselves one day. One day they’re fully with us, the next they’re not fully there, and one day they’re gone. Yes, we know the score.

      I’ve been saving this song, anticipating my father’s passing one day soon. What a thing to do, holding a song for someone’s passing! But what I mean is it’s been on my mind while he’s been slipping away, and to share the lyrics before he passed seems to rush his passing along. I decided to use it today, because it feels like holding on isn’t fair to him. And maybe not fair to me either.

      So what does being an employee at will have to do with watching my father slip away from us? Maybe nothing more than perspective. Life offers many opportunities to honor agreements that we’ve entered into. We are born into a family, but we stay with them by choice. Dad and I have both been busy with other things the last few years of his awareness. We’ve come back together late in the game, but we’re still in the game. At least for a moment before it’s gone.

    • The Side of Good

      When we fight with our failings, we ignore
      the entrance to the shrine itself and wrestle
      with the guardian, fierce figure on the side of good.
      — David Whyte, The Faces of Braga

      I have work to do. I’ve promised myself I’d row every day this month to counter the accumulating calories of the holidays. It’s the 23rd day of December and that promise mocks me like all the broken promises I’ve made before. When you break a promise to yourself the dark mind piles on, bringing up other promises unkept. We are our own worst critic, as the saying goes. We tell others that nobody is perfect while beating ourselves up every time we fall short.

      Still, we are good despite our failings, and better at some things than we were yesterday. We are each on our climb to personal excellence. Nobody said this would be easy, friend. Like the trail to a mountain summit, we must remind ourselves that the path is never straight, often descends and turns away from the goal, but will always carry us to our destination if we just put one foot in front of the other and stick with the path that brings us there.

      Our aim isn’t that evasive perfection but a good life, full of meaning and contribution and direction. Washboard abs might bring some of us happiness, but chances are if our habits aren’t supporting those abs it isn’t a summit we really want to climb. The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time, as James Taylor put it. Being fit is certainly going to make our passage easier to navigate, but we mustn’t forget that the secret is the enjoying part. Sure, the rowing hasn’t been there, but the walking has, and presence with people who matter a great deal. We all have our collection of daily wins and shortcomings. Which way the scale tips is often a matter of perspective.

    • Living Joyfully

      “To be joyous is to be a madman in a world of sad ghosts.” — Henry Miller

      The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time
      Any fool can do it
      There ain’t nothing to it
      Nobody knows how we got to the top of the hill
      But since we’re on our way down
      We might as well enjoy the ride
      — James Taylor, Secret o’ Life

      There are people in my life who have seen me frustrated, angry and depressed. We can’t go through life without these feelings, particularly with things we can’t control, like the death of a loved one or frustration at the ineptitude of the U.S. Congress (by no means am I equating the two of those). But it’s those things that we can’t control that are the very things we can’t have drag us into darkness. Amor fati: love of fate. We don’t have to love the outcome (often we feel quite the opposite) but we ought to learn to accept that which we are living through.

      Every year I’m on this planet I feel myself move further away darkness and closer to joy. I know life won’t get easier, my peak fitness level is a distant memory, and the longer I’m on this planet the more things can go horribly wrong for all of us. We can know these things and still enjoy the ride. Who’s more likely to keep things together when it all goes to hell, the sad ghosts among us or the optimistic people who get things done?

      I know joyfulness is considered quaint and naive in some circles. I’ll take joy over melancholy any day. Self-pity is an indulgent act we have no time for in a lifetime measured in trips around the sun. We must move beyond ourselves and embrace the world. Indeed, embrace our place in this world, and make the very best of it. There is truly madness and misery in this world, but there’s also joy. Which do we want to dance with?

    • 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.

    • Carolina On My Mind

      Dark and silent, late last night
      I think I might have heard the highway call my name
      Geese in flight and dogs that bite
      Other signs that might be omens say, “I’m goin’, I’m goin’”
      I’m gone to Carolina in my mind
      – James Taylor, Carolina in My Mind

      There’s a sense of place that feels right when you’re in the Carolinas. Something about the land that feels like home. Something about the people that makes you feel welcome. I can feel it when I’m in the region, it’s a place I could live in. Judging from the list of best places to live in the USA put out by a couple of publications, I’m not the only one to feel this way.

      North and South Carolina are increasingly thought of as home for transplants from the north. Those looking to retire somewhere that feels like home without the extreme weather, those who are young and aspire to build a great life for themselves in an up and coming place. Those who just want to be where the air is clean and the people are friendly.

      There’s no doubt that Raleigh, North Carolina is a trendy city. It often hits the top five on those best places to live lists, and why not? Great job market, great college scene, easy access to the outdoors and city life alike. Raleigh is one of those places you step into and feel like you could live in forever, should you ever want to move away from all that you’ve built around yourself in the place you call home already.

      The Warehouse District is a distinctly cool place with great restaurants, art galleries, breweries and coffee shops in old brick buildings. If you love sushi try O-Ku for delicious nigiri and sashimi, if you love tapas get yourself to the restaurant Barcelona (of course, the city in Spain is great too!) for a great selection of small plates. These are just two restaurants jammed full of people celebrating life for awhile in a place built for it. Raleigh is just one great city in the Carolinas with great vibes reverberating with people in the know. Charlotte, Greenville, Charleston, Winston-Salem, Asheville also get a lot of attention.

      On the opposite end of the food spectrum, go to Biscuitville for a uniquely tasty biscuit with a Carolina twist. Don’t worry, there’s plenty of opportunities to burn off those epic biscuits with great hiking and mountain biking in the area. The Carolinas deserve the attention they’re getting as a wonderful place to move to. But let’s keep that to ourselves, we don’t want to ruin a good thing.

    • Oh, That Magic Feeling: Abbey Road

      Abbey Road turned 50 years old last week. It’s always been my favorite Beatles album, particularly side two with its magical medley. It grabbed me the year that Lennon was shot and hasn’t let me go since. To be coming into my own as a young Beatles fan and then lose one of them was a gut punch at a time when I hadn’t taken a lot of gut punches yet.

      Abbey Road ages well. From the first notes of Come Together to the surprise bonus track Her Majesty, the album is still an astonishing journey after countless listening. It’s The Beatles throwing it all out there to see what happens, as they’d done for each of their milestone albums since Rubber Soul. It would all end with Abbey Road, their last studio album, and the last song they’d ever collaborate on was Come Together. Surely they had a sense of irony?

      George Harrison, the quiet Beatle, was at his creative peak with two of the best Beatles songs ever, his masterpieces Here Comes The Sun and Something. As a kid I latched onto Harrison as my favorite Beatle. Lennon and McCartney were just too big for me then. Harrison wasn’t flashy, he just got things done. And he surely was doing, er, Something. “Something in the way she moves” would be a line James Taylor would borrow from George for his own song of the same name, a tribute to the giants around him when he was recording at Abbey Road Studios around the same time.

      If the album had great individual songs on side one, side two would become famous for that medley. How many radio DJ’s put the needle down on that medley and ran to the bathroom because they had time? All of them. Because, You Never Give Me Your Money, Sun King, Mean Mr. Mustard, Polythene Pam, She Came In Through The Bathroom Window, Golden Slumbers, The End…. Her Majesty. Boom. Rapid fire, half finished songs blended together into one unified medley. Brilliant percussion from Ringo and Paul’s underrated bass guitar, John and George on guitar… and all of them harmonizing like they’d sing together forever. But this truly was the end.

      One verse in that medley stands out for me the same back as a teenager as it does today, if the meaning has changed over the span of time;

      “Any jobber got the sack

      Monday morning, turning back

      Yellow lorry slow, nowhere to go

      But oh, that magic feeling, nowhere to go

      Oh, that magic feeling

      Nowhere to go, nowhere to go”

      – The Beatles, “You Never Give Me Your Money”

      Surely the idea of nowhere to go meant something to The Beatles, having ground themselves to dust touring and then prolifically cranking out brilliant album after brilliant album. They were exhausted, sick of each other, burdened by business transactions gone wrong, wrestling with creative tensions, and incredibly, still in their twenties. Solo careers were just ahead for all of them, but they came together for this incredible album to give us one last gift. Let It Be would come later, but was recorded prior to Abbey Road. This would be it, but what a way to end.

    • Deep Greens and Blues

      “And as the moon rises he sits by his fire, thinking about women and glasses of beer.” – James Taylor, Sweet Baby James

      The weekend begins soon, but I know its abbreviated.  I’ll be driving west Sunday to Rochester, New York for an early start Monday morning.  And so it goes.  The trip on I-90 is a familiar one, and each season brings its own delights and challenges.  June brings tourists, exploding bugs on the windshield and orange cones.  But also a lovely green carpet on the Berkshires.

      The Berkshires make me think of Sweet Baby James.  If Boston has Dirty Water and Shipping Up to Boston, the Mass Turnpike has Sweet Baby James.  Its a song that I’ve listened to countless times, but it brings back memories of being a college kid driving I-90 to Ontario, Syracuse and Indianapolis for regattas.  Driving back is when the song resonates, as the song is about longing for what you’ve left behind to do what you need to do.  Both a song for the restless spirits in the world and a lovely lullaby I used to sing to my kids to get them to fall asleep many moons ago.

      “Deep greens and blues are the colors I choose, won’t you let me go down in my dreams?  And rock-a-bye sweet baby James.”

      In winter I’ve put this song right after I cross the border from New York into Massachusetts and see the mountains rise up ahead of me.  The lyrics offer an appropriate soundtrack and after many days away from home I’m usually very ready to get back.  And so the song carries me there…

      “Now the first of December was covered with snow
      and so was the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston
      Though the Berkshires seemed dreamlike on account of that frosting
      with ten miles behind me and ten thousand more to go”

      My daughter posted something online stating her favorite colors are blue and forest green.  The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and somewhere along the way those lullaby’s resonated for her as well.  James, with an assist from me, has left his mark on another generation.  And so it continues.

      “There’s a song that they sing when they take to the highway
      a song that they sing when they take to the sea
      a song that they sing of their home in the sky, maybe you can believe it if it helps you to sleep
      but singing works just fine for me”