Lights In The Dark

I have to try out if I can share this music track from Facebook, it’s a new song by Paul Simon. "Getting Ready For Christmas Day" from the forthcoming album "So Beautiful Or So What" out Spring 2011.

 

 

In town on Tuesday, I took some photos of these shop windows filled with Christmas window decorations. In Sweden, in December, you will find almost every window decorated with Advent stars and/or electric candles in various kinds of holders. It gets dark very early in the afternoons now. (And up North, where they have the Midnight Sun in the summer, there is Polar Night in the winter.) So we take delight in all kinds of extra light that we can find…

 

 

Photos by DawnTreader © 2010.

When You’re Weary…

See more photos of the bridge in my Picture Book

Bridge Over Troubled Water. One of my all-time favourite songs, since 40 years. I wonder how many times I’ve listened to it, and been comforted by it? Still sailing on…

 

 

“Hang On To Your Hopes, My Friend”

“Autumn is a season immediately followed by looking forward to spring.”
(Anonymous)

2½ weeks ago, this maple tree was in its full glory of autumn colour. (Click on the link to see the first picture in the collage bigger.) Now, after yesterday’s rain, the tree is bare. Taking off my gloves to get the camera out of its bag for today’s photo, and fumbling with ice cold fingers to get hold of the zipper… I realized it’s probably time to dig out the Photography Friendly Mittens I bought last winter… Brrrr!

Listen to A Hazy Shade of Winter (at YouTube)

♫ … Carry your cup in your hand.
And look around.
Leaves are brown now.
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter.
Hang on to your hopes, my friend.
That's an easy thing to say,
But if your hopes should pass away
Simply pretend that you can build them again.
Look around,
The grass is high,
The fields are ripe,
It's the springtime of my life.
Seasons change with the scenery;
Weaving time in a tapestry.
Won't you stop and remember me
At any convenient time?… ♫

Paul Simon, A Hazy Shade Of Winter

The Long Road (Wonderland II)

♫ Gee but it's great to be back home,
Home is where I want to be.
I've been on the road so long my friend,
And if you came along
I know you couldn't disagree. ♫
---
♫ And I'm sooo tired,
I'm oh oh oh so tired… ♫
---
Paul Simon, Keep the Customer Satisfied

There really is a Paul Simon quote for every occasion.
Well, at least if you twist it just a little bit out of context ;) …

---

No, this is not where I live. And I’m grateful.

I decided to take a walk through this residential area after having been to visit my dad in the short-stay nursing home where he has now spent a month. (A month?!) (The nursing home is not quite in this area either, but close to it.)

It was probably almost 20 years since I last walked this way. Back then, I had friends living there. I realized as I walked there now that I had forgotten quite how large that whole suburb part of town really is. And how much everything looks alike. (From the main road passing by one really does not see half of it.)

 
Suburb watercolour painting by Lars Lerin

The long walk, however, is not really why I felt “oh oh oh so tired” when I got back. (I did not walk the whole way home, I took the bus part of the way.)

The reason I was at the nursing home was a meeting with a lot of people to discuss the future living arrangements for my dad. The lot of people included at least three from the nursing home + the municipality assistance evaluator + district nurse + me + dad.

All very nice people, I’m sure, but considering that dad sort of lives in his own Wonderland these days (i.e. a place where normal rules do not quite apply) I was not sure how he might react to the idea of not returning home to live but being sent somewhere else.

I’m still not sure. He did not protest but I’m also not really sure how much of it he took in.

The result of the meeting was that he will remain at the short-stay place for another month. In September there will hopefully be a place at a nursing home unit for elderly people with dementia in the village where he grew up and then also lived the past 18 years.

There is one Crux though. For mysterious reasons there still seems to be a lack of formal “evidence” that he in fact suffers from dementia. (Without which he cannot be offered a place at that unit.) Even though everyone in that room knew it to be so, they said there was no official record of where the diagnosis came from. (Although I do know where it comes from, and I’ve told a lot of people that along the way.)

It also seems no one during all this time has thought of doing a certain test that is commonly used to prove it (MMSE = mini mental state examination – I know the gist of it since the years I worked as a medical secretary). Apparently this test has to be done by a specialist nurse to be valid. And the specialist nurse is (of course) on vacation just now. So they’ll try to find another specialist nurse to do it as soon as possible.

 

In the meantime, while the evaluator asked dad questions like if he himself thought that he would be able to go back home to live – and dad answered that he’d like to think that he could… (actually with sort of a glimpse of his old self shining through in a bit of irony) … I decided to instead ask him (in the presence of the whole lot of people) if he could tell them where exactly it was that he had been living before he had to go into the hospital five weeks ago? He could not. He named a completely different village where he has never lived. (And he does not remember the going into hospital part either.)

It really is “oh oh oh” so difficult to try and understand which paths he’s walking in his mind.

Earlier, before the whole lot of people arrived, he asked me if I had any contact with --- these days. A name I did not recognize at all. When I did not understand, he added: “You know. Your mum.” (The name he mentioned started with the same initial as mum’s, but that’s all.) And then, with sudden hesitation: “Or is she still alive…”

And I had to tell him again, that no… So sorry, but mum died last year. Also tried to remind him of the fact that it was he himself who used his security alarm to call for help when she had a stroke one evening at home, but that she died shortly after arriving in hospital. I guess to him… having a very fuzzy memory indeed now of the past few years… it must seem that she just sort of disappeared… Perhaps gradually. Like the Chesire cat.

That, and more, is why I felt ”sooo tired - oh oh oh so tired” - when I got back home to my own home (which luckily does not feel as gloomy to me as that residential area in pictures above).

Before I allowed myself to lie down and rest, though, I decided to dig through a pile of papers in search of one I knew must be there, somewhere... I found it. The Evidence. A copy of dad’s release form from two weeks evaluation at the Neurology ward two years ago. It clearly states one of his diagnoses back then to be beginning vascular dementia. (What was beginning then, has grown since.) I phoned the district nurse, and I’m sending her a copy of it.

♦ ♣ ♥ ♠

"What do you know about this business?" the King said to Alice.

"Nothing," said Alice.

"Nothing whatever?" persisted the King.

"Nothing whatever," said Alice.

"That's very important," the King said, turning to the jury. They were just beginning to write this down on their slates, when the White Rabbit interrupted: "Unimportant, your Majesty means, of course," he said in a very respectful tone, but frowning and making faces at him as he spoke.

"Unimportant, of course, I meant," the King hastily said, and went on to himself in an undertone, "important -- unimportant -- important -- -" as if he were trying which word sounded best.

Some of the jury wrote it down "important," and some "unimportant." Alice could see this, as she was near enough to look over their slates; "but doesn't matter a bit," she thought to herself.

At this moment the King, who had been for some time busily writing in his note-book, called out "Silence!" and read out from his book, "Rule Forty-two. All persons more than a mile high to leave the court."

Everybody looked at Alice.

Alice in Wonderland Ch 12 – Alice's Evidence

Behind The Iron(y)

 

It all depends on how you look at it, really…

If you’re wondering, dear reader, what on earth inspired this post, the answer lies in a challenge.

---

A Hazy Shade of Winter – listen to it at YouTube

Time, time, time, see what's become of me
While I looked around
For my possibilities
I was so hard to please
But look around, leaves are brown
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

Hear the salvation army band
Down by the riverside, it's bound to be a better ride
Than what you've got planned
Carry your cup in your hand
And look around, leaves are brown now
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

Hang on to your hopes, my friend
That's an easy thing to say, but if your hope should pass away
It's simply pretend
That you can build them again
Look around, the grass is high
The fields are ripe, it's the springtime of my life

Ahhh, seasons change with the scenery
Weaving time in a tapestry
Won't you stop and remember me
At any convenient time
Funny how my memory slips while looking over manuscripts
Of unpublished rhyme
Drinking my vodka and lime

Look around, leaves are brown now
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter
Look around, leaves are brown
There's a patch of snow on the ground...

Choose An Identity

I wonder how many times in my “career” as a blogger so far (1½ years) that I’ve faced that choice? Usually I am already logged in when I read blogs and comment, so just skip right to the publish button – and so I was today… but because the content of what I had just been writing was about identity, suddenly the choices stood out for me.

Heather had a post about the struggle of being oneself (well, that’s the short version of my interpretation – you might form your own by visiting her blog). And it set me thinking back on various conversations with people over the years… 40 or so… about how we look upon ourselves and how we think that others see us; and sometimes those images are surprisingly wide apart.

Moreover: sometimes what we think that others are thinking about us is not even what they are thinking at all, but turns out to be only what we are thinking that they are thinking. And on top of that, what they are thinking about themselves might also be very far from what we are thinking that they are thinking!

Was anyone able to follow that? ;) 

The bottom line is that we all have our identity struggles. Most of us have a lot of roles to juggle about during our lifetime: in the family, in school, at work, in church, in different groups of friends, whatever.

We “log in” and accept certain rules of behaviour in one context, keep more of an “open identity” in another, and choose to be “anonymous” in a third.

Often we tend to fall into the same pattern automatically, in the same kind of circumstances. And we may think no more about it than we usually do when Blogger tells us to “Choose an identity”.

Perhaps sometimes we should stop and think a bit more about it?

Writing this, I also keep getting bits and pieces from Paul Simon’s album Surprise weaving in and out of my thoughts. Link goes to his website where the titles of the songs on this album can be seen, and if you click on the titles you get the full lyrics. (Only wish I could provide the music, too.) My problem is that it’s hard to choose just one or two quotes; the whole album really deals with related stuff. From the first song How can you live in the Northeast to the last one Father and daughter. Okay, so I’ll choose one quote from the first and one from the last…

---

Weak as the winter sun, we enter life on earth. Names and religion come just after date of birth. Then everybody gets a tongue to speak, and everyone hears an inner voice. A day at the end of the week to wonder and rejoice.
~P. Simon: How can you…~

---

There could never be a father who loved his daughter more than I love you. Trust your intuition. It’s just like goin’ fishin’. You cast your line and hope you get a bite. But you don’t need to waste your time worrying about the marketplace, try to help the human race, struggling to survive its harshest night. I’m gonna watch you shine, gonna watch you grow. Gonna paint a sign so you’ll always know. As long as one and one is two.
~P. Simon: Father and daughter~

Quotation of the Week (19/2010)

Maladies–Melodies–Allergies to dust and grain
Maladies–Remedies–Still these allergies remain
   ---
From what I can see of people like me
We get better but we never get well
So I ask myself this question
It’s a question I often repeat:
Where do allergies go
when it’s after a show
and they want to get something to eat?

Paul Simon: Allergies
(Album: Heart and Bones)

Photo: Birch catkins © DawnTreader 2010

Welcoming the Rain

I hear the drizzle of the rain
Like a memory it falls
Soft and warm continuing
Tapping on my roof and walls…

Paul Simon: Kathy’s Song

Quotation of the Week 43/09 - Acts of kindness

Acts of kindness, like breadcrumbs in a fairytale forest
Lead us past dangers as light melts the darkness
...
Acts of kindness, like rain in a draught,
release the spirit with a whoop and a shout.
...

From the song I don't believe by Paul Simon (Surprise, 2006)
Read the full text at http://www.paulsimon.com/node/229
(And don't be deceived by the title!)
...

During the last week I have been in mood for this CD, Paul Simon's Surprise, and played it several times. By now faithful readers of this blog know that I'm a Paul Simon fan ever since my teens. I have quoted other lyrics of his previously, I think even from this album. Today, listening again, it was the words above that "popped out" to me. However, the lyrics in full are also worth pondering over. The song is entitled I don't believe. Much too often when someone utters those words, we kind of take for granted that we understand what that means. Instead of taking the trouble to ask: What exactly is it that you don't believe?

Dangling Conversations

Thinking about the parallell worlds - off vs. on line - this song by Paul Simon (Simon and Garfunkel) kept popping up in my head.

Blog communication is an art in itself. So many conversations are left dangling, one keeps leaving comments about and forgets to go back and check for answers... (I've been writing about that before, but I don't remember where!) Mind you, I'm not saying one always should - taken to the extreme it would become impossible. It's just how it is...

Actually, it's not so very different from the off line world. There, too, a lot of conversations are left dangling. In the supermarket, on the bus, in the coffee room at work, whereever. Sometimes forgotten, and sometimes picked up again later, somewhere else.

I was kind of reminded of these thoughts again today by this blog post of Scriptor's ! (Thanks for the smile!)

Here is Paul Simon's Dangling Conversations.
He's been my No 1 favourite songwriter for about 40 years...

This is the first time I ever tried to insert something from YouTube, hope it works. Lyrics follow below.



It's a still life water color,
Of a now late afternoon,
As the sun shines through the curtained lace
And shadows wash the room.
And we sit and drink our coffee
Couched in our indifference,
Like shells upon the shore
You can hear the ocean roar
In the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs,
The borders of our lives.

And you read your Emily Dickinson,
And I my Robert Frost,
And we note our place with bookmarkers
That measure what we've lost.
Like a poem poorly written
We are verses out of rhythm,
Couplets out of rhyme,
In syncopated time
And the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs,
Are the borders of our lives.

Yes, we speak of things that matter,
With words that must be said,
"Can analysis be worthwhile?"
"Is the theater really dead?"
And how the room is softly faded
And I only kiss your shadow,
I cannot feel your hand,
You're a stranger now unto me
Lost in the dangling conversation.
And the superficial sighs,
In the borders of our lives.

Quotation of the Week 25/09

Times are hard. It's a hard time,
but everybody knows all about hard times.
The thing is, what are you gonna do?
Well, you cry and try to muscle through.
Try to rearrange your stuff.
But when the wounds are deep enough,
and it's all that we can bear,
we wrap ourselves in prayer.

Paul Simon, Wartime Prayers
(Album: Surprise, 2006)

Old Friends & Lyrics

Simon & Garfunkel - Old Friends concert, 2003

My favourite songwriter since nearly 40 years is Paul Simon. I "discovered" him (Simon & Garfunkel) when I was 15, and I still listen to his/their records. The old LP:s I had, I now have on CD. (I still have the LP:s as well, but no record player to play them on...)


My previous post - "The Age Thing" - made me think of the lyrics to

Old Friends, from the album Bookends (1968)

(Paul, born in October 1941, was then 26)

Old friends,
Old friends,
Sat on their parkbench
Like bookends.

A newspaper blown through the grass
Falls on the round toes
Of the high shoes
Of the old friends.

Old friends,
Winter companions,
The old men
Lost in their overcoats,
Waiting for the sun.

The sounds of the city,
Sifting through trees
Settle like dust
On the shoulders
Of the old friends.

Can you imagine us
Years from today,
Sharing a parkbench quietly?
How terribly strange
To be seventy.

Old friends,
Memory brushes the same years,
Silently sharing the same fears.

Time it was
and what a time it was.

A time of innocence,
A time of confidences.

Long ago... it must be...
I have a photograph,
Preserve your memories,
They're all that's left you...

I loved Paul's music when I was 15 and I still do - so that part of myself remains pretty well "preserved"! Some of the early songs also bring back lots of memories; for example of old friends with whom I used to listen to the records and interpret the lyrics back in the 70's.

But I also love that he has kept moving on as a musician. Come to think of it, isn't this really a great illustration of what I was discussing in the previous post: a musician still playing the old music, but also continuing to write new songs and trying out different kinds of music and rhythms...

On his 2006 album, Surprise, 65-year-old Paul also discusses the problems of growing old:

It's a blessing to wash your face in the summer solstice rain.

It's outrageous a man like me stand here and complain.

But I'm tired. Nine hundred sit-ups a day.

I'm painting my hair the colour of mud, mud okay?

I'm tired, tired. Anybody care what I say?

No! I'm painting my hair the colour of mud.

---

Who's gonna love you when your looks are gone? God will.

Like he waters the flowers on your windowsill.

(from the song "Outrageous")