Across the street from where I live: SHIFT HAPPENS. CHECK YOUR PARADIGM.
Just popped into my head:
If you had to pick your all time most significant song, what would it be?
Now, I guess I'm supposed to answer my own question, but the truth is, the question just popped into my head, not the answer. I have favorite songs, and songs for occasions past and future, but I don't think there's one most significant song. So maybe it was a dumb question, but I've decided that today's blog is a - what's that word again - oh, yeah, an attempt - at spontaneous writing.
Having just read Lisa Carver's memoir, Drugs are Nice, I'm copying a technique that she used, but not a technique that she created, which is all about sitting down for some specified amount of time and just writing to write, right or wrong. Whatever comes out, comes out, no editing, no spelling and grammar checks (although to be fair I will and at this point have gone back to add some italics and to make sure I don't look like an idiot), but as a writer, I don't feel like I exercise myself when it comes to my craft, so this morning I'm exercising my writing gene. It might be wiser to get myself to the gym, having eaten way too much at the yummy all-you-can-eat-fixed-price Indian restaurant Vatan last night, but no, instead of having to actually get on a subway and head into the city on a weekend, although what's a weekend when you're un(der)employed?, doesn't sound all that appealing right now. Besides, I'll have to steel train it later tonight, so I'm not in the mood to make another trip in, even if it is just one stop on the L train...whatever.
Okay, going back to songs - well, I'll never (I can't believe I'm going to admit this), listen to Right Here Waiting by Richard Marx again without thinking back to my 15th summer, one spent in Boulder, Colorado and then in Los Angeles, California (a total of six weeks time)- across the country from my then boyfriend, who spent his summer in upstate New York as a camp counselor at a sleepaway camp. It was our song, and I played it over and over that summer as I dreamed about the time we'd be together again.
Or, if I were to ever have one of those wedding things (a thought I'm still on the fence about) I'd like the song that represents our union to be Ben Harper's Forever...I'm not talking about a year, no not three or four, I don't want that kind of forever in my life anymore...But, now, even writing that sounds silly - because can a song represent how we feel or think, when we can't even be sure how we feel or think from one moment to the next? Are we always looking for ways to describe our lives through words (as a writer I'm going to say for me, yes, that's often what happens), and do songs do that for us?
I'm not going to pretend to have the answers, although I have my own version of the answers.
Instead, I don't want to talk about it anymore (yes, that's a song reference, anyone? anyone?)
Posted by jamye at December 17, 2021 09:55 AM