Pup Floyd
I was home alone, me and the pup, and it was time to work on putting dinner together-- a great time for Fred's Music Unplugged. Crank that sucker up and let'er rip!
The music du jour: Pink Floyd's ~ Time-- all 13 some-odd minutes of it. A clock ticks, a heart beats, a desperate is man running, panting. There is fear. Bells jingle, gong, clang. Percussion! Doppler reverberation! At the end, a voice wails the pain of all humanity.
I've never seen a dog turn its head in quite so many anguished ways as Tsuga did while he listened mesmerized at every acoustic nuance by Pink Floyd this afternoon. It especially twisted his head around (like it used to do mine heard through headphones back in college) when the sound zoomed back and forth between speakers the way it does so effectively in this particular lamentation. I feel your pain, pup. Ain't it great!
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Eeking away the moments that make up a dull day
Fritter away the hours in an offhand way
Sneaking around on a piece of ground in your hometown
Waiting for someoone or something to show you the way
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain And you run and run to catch up with the sun but its sinking |
Comments
What strikes me about the lyrics is that it's a young person's fantasy of what it's like to be old. Ten years passes, but us older folks know you can cram a lot of living into ten years "got behind you," even when you spend quite a bit of it hanging out, being paralyzed, feeling sorry for yourself, and not getting anything done.
I got a t-shirt the May after I turned 50 in April. I'm not to the end of that decade yet (I like to say I'm pushing 60) but I've moved houses, gone across the Atlantic Ocean in a sailboat, developed a home organization service, learned web development and database theory and design, learned programming, been across the USA in my van, biked Holland, traveled across northern Europe to Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, visited Prague, spent weeks in France and England and Amsterdam, changed offices, gone back to teaching, started a blog and a host page at http://www.bellaonline.com/site/IndependentTravel, belonged to two writer's groups, bought, learned to ride, and tootled in a motorcycle, published travel pieces, went through my father's death, read numerous self-help books and novels (all recorded in the back of my journals), did The Artist's Way three times, finished a novel, written lots of unpublished travel stories, taken my teenagers to a war zone in Turkey, sheparded two kids (one artistic and autistic and one artistic and intellectually talented) through high school and college, been muse and moral support to an artistic husband. All the while, spent months on end in limbo, depression and killing time.
Posted by: trish | December 31, 2003 11:37 AM
Trish, you do know how tired some of us are feeling just reading about all of that? Wow! Good for you (good on you?)!!!
Posted by: Cop Car | December 31, 2003 6:27 PM
ahhhh ... Pink Floyd. Vibrates through me like an internal rythm that provides life force. I taste it, and it is good. Thanks for the appetizer.
I'd have to agree about Trish's post, by the way. I already knew my life was pretty damn empty -- after reading her comment, I'm glaringly aware of just exactly how invisible I really am in this world. Ouch.
It ain't over til it's over, right? I sure have used up a lot of hours practicing the absence of living. Perhaps I still have time to engage before my clock runs out.
Cranking up the Floyd even as we speak. What better way to ignite some life into this otherwise devoid space?
Posted by: ntexas99 | January 1, 2004 3:47 PM
hate to double-comment (a true blogging faux pas, no?) but feel compelled to add two words:
sonia dada
pink floyd rocks me to my very core
sonia dada strokes what's rocking
floyd still rules -- but I do love to share sonia dada, just in case you are missing out
Posted by: ntexas99 | January 1, 2004 4:27 PM
In one of those weird little syncronicities that happen from time to time, Fred, I just happened to hear this song on the radio this evening while making a quick run to the grocery store. Can't say that it helped my mood, though. I, too, am a long-time Pink Floyd fan but I haven't been able to listen to them much lately...it's not the best music for a guy who struggles with depression.
Still and all, I have been most forcefully reminded lately that, even at 41 years of age, I should not count myself out. "Shorter of breath, and one day closer to death..." Yes, quite true, but I'm not dead yet, there is plenty of living still to do, and things have a way of changing -- sometimes rather rapidly. I have SO MUCH to be thankful for...and gratitude covers over a multitude of regrets, it really does.
Happy New Year, my friend.
Posted by: Curt | January 1, 2004 9:02 PM