April 12, 2013

• It's coming on summer. The trees have buds. The daffodils are coming up around mailboxes. And they're playing those whiny rock-pop songs on the radio. Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on.
  It was eighty degrees outside and not even near Christmas at all, but I found myself listening to that song as I was driving home yesterday. It's such a sad song and really not about Christmas. I wonder she means. She, being Joni Mitchell. A lot of her songs are like that. "'It's cloud illusions I recall, I really don't know clouds at all.' What does that mean? Is she a pilot? Is she taking flying lessons? It must be a metaphor for something, but I don't know what it is." I feel that way about Joni Mitchell. Also about Walt Whitman, but that's another story.
  But, I listen to those songs and I read those poems and I feel like even though I'm not consciously aware, they affect me and I'm better off with it than without it. I like to think of it as furthering my emotional education even if I don't understand half of the words. I don't know if it's osmosis or something else - just reading it seems to help. And it gets me through rainy, cold days that much faster.
  Although this song really isn't about Christmas, it does very nicely as a Christmas song. I think it has something to do with love and loss and even though it's Christmas and the season of giving, some people find that it really isn't giving at all. And that can make the holidays seem so gray. Maybe that's what Joni Mitchell is trying to say.
  "I'm so hard to handle, I'm selfish and I'm sad. Now I've gone and lost the best baby that I ever had. Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on."
  Happy spring.

  • 12:06 pm
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