Variations on a theme by Forster/McLennan.
"Caroline and I
Born in the very same year
Alive at a similar time
It gave me something small
That I could feel"
I actually thought I lost you for a second there. Of course, looking at you again after all these years, you really aren't all that different, and so it's easy to chide me for being melodramatic again. But that isn't the you I'm talking about: I mean the person hopelessly entwined with the days that time and circumstance took away from me. The memories go strong still, but I can't live with them alone; I need something tangible, I need something to confirm to me that the time did in fact exist.
Only now did it strike me that perhaps the last scrap in our romance is the very room I sit in now. I don't think you ever visited, nor for that matter is there any physical suggestion of you anywhere here. Open my desks and you will see no love letter or trinket to remind me of you; there are but mounds of papers and the assorted paraphernalia that make up my daily life. But the marvel is that, given all these changes, the past is invoked easily enough. It just takes certain days, where the view from my window shows more than the beautiful blue sky: and what it suggests is that time has not passed at all - a day, a year, a century, none of it has any meaning. The room is either safely excluded from all time, or the very intersection of all of it; whatever it is, having seen all that is and will be, you will always remain somewhere within it.
And yes, before you ask, it also resurrects the day I'd rather not remember. I remember thinking it was as if all time around me had stopped; aside from the words I heard you speaking, perfect in their clarity yet simultaneously nonsensical in what they were implying, I cannot remember how the rest of the world revolved. Yet even now I can be reminded of the instant with perfect strength, and my strongest feeling is simply gratitude that it is allowed to live on. We never will regress to our former selves - for good reason, might I add - but the moments that shaped us will live forever.
I suppose that one tries to write about past loves in order to try to forget them. Forgetting would be welcome, as it would free my mind and heart. But as I get towards the end of this little piece, I cannot help but feel that the real goal of all this writing is to make the past immortal. I know my powers well enough to sense this is beyond me, but I am glad I need no longer to wonder about the permanence of those times. Should the questions come back to me, I need only look out my window, to the sky that forged us and broke us apart, to know the answer.
Showing posts with label time. Show all posts
Showing posts with label time. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Recently, on seeing a valiant fellow traveller's rewards on the journey thus far, I have thought about the place that time has to play in listening to music. I might be the only one who likes to place a substantial gap between listens to albums, for the simple reason that I feel like it gives the material some chance to percolate. This is done on the back-burner, and I know that it's done when a line or melody comes to me at some odd time, usually with me being completely unable to place the source. I take this to mean that I have somehow subconsciously assimilated the material, and that I am ready for another listen.
Putting this into writing, I realize how strange this must be - even weirder than my principle of listening to entire albums. One unfortunate consequence is that the amount of albums I can say I have listened to is rather small, by all accounts. However, that is a rather banal metric of listening - what is more important, and more interesting, is whether this addition of time is artificial, or whether it does help create some space for the music to grow. I suspect that as always, the answer is wholly dependent on the individual; given my particular wirings, and my past foibles, I am fairly confident that for me the experience is more enriching.
But even so, I cannot fully shake off the ghouls that ask why it is I listen to so little, yet profess to love so much. Part of my struggle with this question is the admittedly juvenile, but somehow resilient equation of volume with "knowledge", or some such vapid notion. The internet* has helped provide some grounding for my suspicion about how anomalous my listening habits must be in this regard. last.fm, for instance, coolly tells me of countless people who in a month listen to as much as I have the past year. Now, who exactly it is I need to prove knoweldge to, I am not sure - is it similar to the obsession that drives collectors in the first place? Why, for instance, do I feel compelled to complete certain parts of my catalogue (aside from borderline OCD, that is - and I do not mean that in an entirely flippant manner)? A natural explanation is the imaginary creation of an uber-critic or collector who watches over the collection as it forms, passing judgement on weak spots that are evident to all. Why this fictional creation should be given any time at all is another matter...
It seems only natural that I should respond to these volume-heavy listeners with a broad dismissal of them not "understanding" or "appreciating" as much as I do, but frankly that's a bit of nonsense. I cannot deny that more than a few of them really do seem to have a deeper knowledge and love than the caricature of this type of listener I'd like to imagine. For them, however, time seems to play little to no place - back to back listens of albums are no problem, whereas for me they are nigh impossible, as the second listen would simply wash over me - I'd hear the same thing I heard the first time. I find I need time to collect my thoughts and feelings before that next listen, in order for it to hit home harder.
So what then is the insecurity that makes me feel as though I ought to be listening as much as these other people? It is, I think, a consequence of me getting a little too caught up in the game. With this sort of attitude, music loses its personal charm and "true meaning", but instead becomes the end of some inane competition. Who listens to the most, who knows the most, who has the most eclectic tastes...all rubbish, really. I am glad that in my calmer moments (I'd count this as one), I'm able to stay true to the motivation for time-separated listens (giving more meaning to something that deserves it), but I do wish that it were able to put a stop to these nagging doubts about inadequacy. It's easy enough to blame the internet for this too, but that doesn't even fool me!
I suppose that like most things when it comes this subject, I am not entirely sure whether my theories are fabrications of my mind, or if I genuinely believe them. Of course, it doesn't matter whether they are or not, but some sort of confidence in my technique would nonetheless be reassuring. It would save you the trouble of wading through such half-baked posts too.
* Ironically enough, I sometimes feel that the internet has provided a mechanism that can sometimes rob the fun out of certain endeavours. I owe virtually everything in my catalogue to the advice of the internet, but I suppose I am also referring to both the ease of information and, of course, the ease of downloading - something I have deliberately avoided out of some potentially archaic (yet, conveniently, legally supported!) set of principles. Like many an old coot before me, there is a pleasure associated with going through some effort in waiting for a CD, finding it and then purchasing it. It is also a very useful way of curbing excessive listening, you know!
Putting this into writing, I realize how strange this must be - even weirder than my principle of listening to entire albums. One unfortunate consequence is that the amount of albums I can say I have listened to is rather small, by all accounts. However, that is a rather banal metric of listening - what is more important, and more interesting, is whether this addition of time is artificial, or whether it does help create some space for the music to grow. I suspect that as always, the answer is wholly dependent on the individual; given my particular wirings, and my past foibles, I am fairly confident that for me the experience is more enriching.
But even so, I cannot fully shake off the ghouls that ask why it is I listen to so little, yet profess to love so much. Part of my struggle with this question is the admittedly juvenile, but somehow resilient equation of volume with "knowledge", or some such vapid notion. The internet* has helped provide some grounding for my suspicion about how anomalous my listening habits must be in this regard. last.fm, for instance, coolly tells me of countless people who in a month listen to as much as I have the past year. Now, who exactly it is I need to prove knoweldge to, I am not sure - is it similar to the obsession that drives collectors in the first place? Why, for instance, do I feel compelled to complete certain parts of my catalogue (aside from borderline OCD, that is - and I do not mean that in an entirely flippant manner)? A natural explanation is the imaginary creation of an uber-critic or collector who watches over the collection as it forms, passing judgement on weak spots that are evident to all. Why this fictional creation should be given any time at all is another matter...
It seems only natural that I should respond to these volume-heavy listeners with a broad dismissal of them not "understanding" or "appreciating" as much as I do, but frankly that's a bit of nonsense. I cannot deny that more than a few of them really do seem to have a deeper knowledge and love than the caricature of this type of listener I'd like to imagine. For them, however, time seems to play little to no place - back to back listens of albums are no problem, whereas for me they are nigh impossible, as the second listen would simply wash over me - I'd hear the same thing I heard the first time. I find I need time to collect my thoughts and feelings before that next listen, in order for it to hit home harder.
So what then is the insecurity that makes me feel as though I ought to be listening as much as these other people? It is, I think, a consequence of me getting a little too caught up in the game. With this sort of attitude, music loses its personal charm and "true meaning", but instead becomes the end of some inane competition. Who listens to the most, who knows the most, who has the most eclectic tastes...all rubbish, really. I am glad that in my calmer moments (I'd count this as one), I'm able to stay true to the motivation for time-separated listens (giving more meaning to something that deserves it), but I do wish that it were able to put a stop to these nagging doubts about inadequacy. It's easy enough to blame the internet for this too, but that doesn't even fool me!
I suppose that like most things when it comes this subject, I am not entirely sure whether my theories are fabrications of my mind, or if I genuinely believe them. Of course, it doesn't matter whether they are or not, but some sort of confidence in my technique would nonetheless be reassuring. It would save you the trouble of wading through such half-baked posts too.
* Ironically enough, I sometimes feel that the internet has provided a mechanism that can sometimes rob the fun out of certain endeavours. I owe virtually everything in my catalogue to the advice of the internet, but I suppose I am also referring to both the ease of information and, of course, the ease of downloading - something I have deliberately avoided out of some potentially archaic (yet, conveniently, legally supported!) set of principles. Like many an old coot before me, there is a pleasure associated with going through some effort in waiting for a CD, finding it and then purchasing it. It is also a very useful way of curbing excessive listening, you know!
Friday, April 13, 2007
Streets of your town
Let me walk these streets,
For it is a town I hardly know
Let me forget the thoughts that ask
Whether it always turns out just so.
Open them unto me,
Your silent streets and cafes,
Let me stare and ask myself
Why I claim I can never stay.
Be it under the Sun,
Or as the day retreats once again,
Let me see the world as I wish it
Let goodbye never be a matter of when.
For it is a town I hardly know
Let me forget the thoughts that ask
Whether it always turns out just so.
Open them unto me,
Your silent streets and cafes,
Let me stare and ask myself
Why I claim I can never stay.
Be it under the Sun,
Or as the day retreats once again,
Let me see the world as I wish it
Let goodbye never be a matter of when.
Monday, March 26, 2007
I don't think I was in a particularly jolly frame of mind when I felt like writing this. It is hard to try and make anything of it, so I shall leave it as it stands.
It is a pitiful power I wield;
It creates a half-visible smirk
Every time I see him attempt to gain
The attention of those unworthy of it.
Don't believe them, I say, because not one
Will sit, like I do,
Separated by sea and time,
Clinging onto moments washed from all our lives,
Writing verses blank as their hearts.
It is a pitiful power I wield;
It creates a half-visible smirk
Every time I see him attempt to gain
The attention of those unworthy of it.
Don't believe them, I say, because not one
Will sit, like I do,
Separated by sea and time,
Clinging onto moments washed from all our lives,
Writing verses blank as their hearts.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
I like parts of this. But I guess it is still too personal to be the sort of "universal writing" that I would like to move towards.
Yes, it is just the late night
Still, it calls out just to you
Says without a laugh,
"Forget without fear,
All these thoughts formed anew!"
See that you are still alive in me
Though I hope it needn't be said;
I could never forget,
Dear moments in time,
For my heart always rules my head.
I don't care what contradictions
My thoughts and rhymes entail
Wretched though they may be,
All I need, my friend,
Is to see you back again.
Yes, it is just the late night
Still, it calls out just to you
Says without a laugh,
"Forget without fear,
All these thoughts formed anew!"
See that you are still alive in me
Though I hope it needn't be said;
I could never forget,
Dear moments in time,
For my heart always rules my head.
I don't care what contradictions
My thoughts and rhymes entail
Wretched though they may be,
All I need, my friend,
Is to see you back again.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Time it was and what a time it was
It's quite hard to believe it, but the stay is almost done. I can remember my first night here, and yet, time seems to have gone by rather quickly. What once was strange and unknown is now very familiar and almost comforting. I will miss these quiet nights where I caught up on the daily news, saw highlights of the cricket, and on occasion marvelled at the wonder that is wrestling. The animated faces of wrestlers with no sound - here is where life is, my friends.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
