No need to rush out of bed this morning.
No ice to be smashed.
The seed trays were awash after all-night rain.
Clearly the front has not yet passed.
I do like an angry sky.
Today it seemed in a temper.
This mood brings to mind the sound of Beethoven.
Mahler, perhaps. Bruckner…
There is so much passion in such music.
Classical was my father’s choice, so I grew up with it.
When I came to America aged 16, I began hearing other sorts of music that my relatives preferred.
There is nothing wrong with variety of course, and in the ensuing years I developed a taste for a vast array of musical genres.
My car radio became my greatest source of enjoyment, though for many years I had to rely on good radio stations.
There were plenty of those in New York.
My station of choice depended on my mood.
Though my moods seem to last for long periods, so for weeks or months, it could be exclusively classical.
Then something would bring me back to the current popular variety when a particular song got to me.
For months I listened to The Moody Blues.
Days of Future Passed.
It’s a wonder I didn’t drive off the road, I spent so much time day dreaming.
Music always evoked pictures in my head.
And still does.
Maybe this is true for most people, though my imagination seemed to be quite creative.
At ten years of age I can remember choreographing whole ballet sequences in my mind.
At least, that was what I thought I was doing. Occasionally, I danced around to the music, though there was never a lot of room for such activities in our living room.
From the age of eleven, I was in boarding schools and deprived of music and all my day dreams, except during holidays.
My second boarding school, which was in Cambodia, was situated right off a beach, adjacent to the Gulf of Thailand,
There I listened to the sea and the wind and it was there that I first thought of the Moon as my friend.
The sounds and sight of Nature.
Having severe asthma as a child, I was not able to run around and play much with other children and when we went to Cambodia, though the asthma miraculously left me, for the most part, so did the chance of childhood friendship.
As I recall, I was not greatly bothered by this. My mother’s helper took me in hand quite often, and eventually I met and became close friends with an Australian girl.
A one-on-one friendship worked fine for me. Except that I never developed social skills.
A year of American high school failed to cultivate any!
There was no social situation in which I was ever comfortable, for all sorts of reasons.
But now I had music again. It seemed as though life was maybe not headed where I hoped, so losing myself in music, I created a dreamworld wherein everything was perfect.
In your dream, you can create the reality you choose.
Fortunately, social skills were not a requirement of my employment by a major international airline.
They didn’t seem to care much if I had any skills at all, come to think of it.
It was with delight that I was able to quit the job I had been given by Pan American. At 140 lbs (5ft 8) I was deemed too heavy to be seen in uniform. So I had been relegated to work in a hangar, filing IBM cards.
It turned out that I was to work for a number of airlines as my employer handled a large variety of carriers. Which was more fun because you met so many different people.
In this way I came to meet my friend Tim with who I travelled for quite a few years.
And Tim is a great lover of classical music, so he took me often to concerts and to the opera and ballet.
For quite a while, I lived in the real world!
Life changes, it’s a fact. You can adjust or you can resist.
Most people don’t get everything they want.
At the age of 70, I removed myself from what my life had become.
It was as if I threw everything up in the air and made sense of what fell back to earth.
No, I didn’t consider for a moment leaving the cats.
But I also did not allow their transportation across country to become an issue. It was just going to happen, whatever.
With access at the press of a button, to any sort of music, I began to dream again, unashamedly.
My dream, my scenario.
My happy ending.
The intention, when I began writing today, was to offer up some images of a moody day.
Blue has been the prevailing colour, but not the prevailing mood.
Somehow, except of the direst of days, the Sun always manages to shine through.
It was a lovely meander from the ground, through the skies, back to earth, and a skip across country. I hope everybody got fed!
Thank you, Carolyn, for the lovely musing, and the angry sky. Music is the best cure for feeling blue;
Mozart does it for me, with his empathy to my heartbeat.
Joanna
A wandering post but I enjoyed the trip. Have you tried “opera”? I spent this afternoon watching/listening to Hamlet. And knitting!!
Your past never fails to interest me, and I also discovered that you are one-inch taller than me. Gloomy here today, still almost dark at 11am. The English winter is upon us.
Best wishes, Pete.
I shrank 2 inches and completely changed shape after a multi-level spinal fusion! Our days are short too, but not quite so as yours.
I hope you can see my comment. It failed to appear on your post when I left it.
It’s amazing how your photos’ colours differs from yesterday … yesterday it was all rosy and pink and today I love the different shades of blue! I love music too (wish I could play an instrument, but now I’m only singing along with whatever song I hear) 🙂. Looking at your height and weight, I would describe you as tall(ish) and thin … ‘too heavy’ … I disagree!