This entry is barely just started and already scattered. I don’t know what to write about. I am sitting here not having written in 12 days, one of the longer spells for me in this journal. It is ironic to me that it feels both as if nothing has happened and that I have missed documenting so much. BLANK…that’s what’s on my mind.
I guess I can resort to my old standby and write about music and how it affects me. I have come across a new band that has me completely enthralled by their music and lyrics. Their name is “The Decemberists” and they hail from Portland, OR. I became aware of them through a website called www.pandora.com that is a part of a project called the “music genome project.” This site analyzes songs and gives them their own DNA, so to speak. You can logon to this site, input a song that you enjoy and it will stream music that has similar musical DNA. I put in a song by another band that I enjoy called "The Shins" and they played “The Decemberists.” I thoroughly enjoy folksy music, not so much old quasi-John Denver-ish folk but story-telling acoustic sounding music. Here is the lyrics to my most favorite song of theirs, entitled “Eli, the Barrow Boy.”
Eli, the barrow boy
Of the old town
Sells coal and marigolds
And he cries out
All down the day
Below the tamaracks
He is crying:
“Corn cobs and candle wax for the buying”
All down the day
“Would I could afford to buy my love a fine robe
Made of gold and silk Arabian thread
She is dead and gone and lying in a pine grove
And I must push my barrow all the day
And I must push my barrow all the day”
Eli, the barrow boy
When they found him
Dressed all in corduroy
He had drowned in
The river down the way
They laid his body down in a church yard
But still when the moon is out
With his push cart
He calls down the day
“Would I could afford to buy my love a fine gown
Made of gold and silk Arabian thread
But, I am dead and gone and lying in a church ground
And still I push my barrow all the day
Still I push my barrow all the day”
Sometimes I don’t fully understand why I enjoy this type of music, but I do. After reading interpretations of the meaning of this song by others on the internet and putting my own spin on it, I more appreciate the depth and layers of a song that I had not seen before. A meager peddler in a time past is going about his life in order to distract himself from the haunting of a tormented love to which he is currently estranged. He takes his own life to be with the love for which he aches only to find that the same haunting exists after his death and he is not with the love to which he laments. What incredible imagery! I love the theme of the song about the necessity that all of us have to treasure what we have and hold on to our precious “loves” to avoid needless torment of our own souls. It is funny to me how easy is can be to recognize a theme as such and appreciate it yet in the same breathe make decisions that go against allowing us to keep with the message of the theme. Humanity is so bi-polar.
Today is Friday, in the morning. I have had a good week at work and have felt very productive. Here at home I have been working together with my wife and stepson to try to have a more cohesive environment. We will be putting the finishing touches on our painting project this weekend making it so that we will be ready to begin moving our belongings. Even though at this time I do not fully recognize what a profound change this move will have on me and my life, I exercise my faith that it will bring a renewed desire to be a part of a loving ward. This move will symbolize the closing of one chapter and the opening of another in my eventful life.
Good Day…
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