A day of storm, wind blustering wild around this old house, and rain spattering on the windows, clouds and fitful gleams of sudden light.
It recalled to my mind this song that I loved so much as a teenager – one of those I listened to over and over and over again, until it fused with the substance of my soul.
The sentiments it expresses are fundamentally at variance with my own these days, but it still tugs at my heartstrings, and I still find it beautiful. Paul Simon is a superlative musician.
I don't miss my youth. So much depression, so much sorrow, so many difficulties. Impossible world. In middle age, I have found peace, though about old age I feel apprehension. But listening to this connects me up again to my 14-year-old self as if the years between had melted away. "Like the rain" indeed.
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The second of the two cat toilets. Freecycle flourishes in our town, and is much appreciated because many people live in significant poverty here. I love giving things away. It has the same joy as when I was a small child, sitting on the sandy beach at Scarborough, taking handfuls of the sand and enjoying the feel of it trickling away, watching its falling grains, their stream arcing with the wind current.
Famous books that could have been written by minimalists:
Goodbye To All That
Bleak House (a tale of Bitter Experience from those who overdid it)
And Then There Were None
To Have And Have Not
All Quiet On The Western Front
Grime and Punishment
Gone With The Wind
The Way We Live Now
Scoop
Things Fall Apart
An Artist Of The Floating World
5 comments:
I have many songs like that from my teen years too. When I hear them today they are instantly transporting, and sometimes that's welcome and most times it's not - because I'm taken back to a season in my life that was sad or confused or hopeless. Not always though. :) The titles you listed? hahahaha!!! "And then there were none" would be living the simplicity way to the extreme: getting rid of extra stuff, and getting rid of extra people in your life as well. God bless your weekend, Ember... xx
Hello Ember
I thought that I had come to terms with middle age (I'm 52) but now I've hit the perimenopause I feel dreadful. I feel like I'm losing my feminity and although in my head I know this is a ridiculous thought, my heart feels so very sad. It doesn't help that the church I attend is full of very elderly (but lovely) people. I know I can learn a lot from them, but I miss the church where I was living three years ago which had a very, very wide range of ages and used mostly contemporary worship songs. (Although I love the old hymns as well).
Sorry for the moan, but I suppose you've hit a raw nerve this evening. It's not been a good day.
Kate
I have always enjoyed Simon & Garfunkel, but this was one song I had never heard.
Very folksy...
m.
Hey, friends :0)
Julie, I'm off to Yorkshire for a couple of days - will think of you specially in York Minster evensong, and email you about it all when I get back x
Maria - it's a lovely song, isn't it.
(((Kate))) - I think part of the turmoil and heart-sadness is to do with hormonal upset. Lostness. Back into the crucible. Sometimes low-dose HRT can help smooth the peaks and troughs - or troughs and even deeper troughs as it may be! May God rest and cheer you. Things improve. xxx
Now there's a lovely song to run around in my head all day. My very much younger self would have said "it's mine'zz". Never could manage it on the guitar though xx
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