Dreaming

36 Today

A Hazy Shade of Winter

I turn 36 years old this Friday. I never thought I'd be pushing 40 this soon - well, I knew I would but it feels like it came along really quickly. Simon and Garfunkel wrote the song, "Hazy Shade of Winter" as a cautionary tale about getting older, living with regret and missing out on opportunities. According to www.lyricinterpretations.com the meaning behind it is:

(It) seems to be about how Paul Simon is (remembering) how he was looking for something or someone perfect, but never found it. And now time is running out. Spring, winter "leaves are brown" (fall), seasons are being used as a metaphor for the cycle of life

With that, allow me to reintroduce a short little piece I wrote a few years ago, bookended by the classic Simon and Garfunkel lyrics and a version of the song performed by the Bangles - great cover in my opinion. Take it away... younger me:

Days are getting shorter; nights longer and colder, and - not for the first time - autumn feels like a bit of a metaphor for me. For all the new things that Autumn brings, there are also grey skies and dead leaves. Change isn't always as good as a holiday despite the fact that it may be necessary. One has to move with change, but it's not always a weekend in the Bahamas. Autumn is temporary though, so let's see what winter brings.

Hazy Shade of Winter - Lyrics by Paul Simon

Time, time, time, see what's become of me... While I looked around for my possibilities. I was so hard to please. But look around, leaves are brown and the sky is a hazy shade of winter Hear the salvation army band. Down by the riverside, it's bound to be a better ride than what you've got planned. Carry your cup in your hand... and look around, leaves are brown... and the sky is a hazy shade of winter Hang on to your hopes, my friend. That's an easy thing to say, but if your hope should pass away it's simply pretend that you can build them again. Look around, the grass is high, the fields are ripe, it's the springtime of my life... Ahhh, seasons change with the scenery, weaving time in a tapestry. Won't you stop and remember me... At any convenient time, funny how my memory slips while looking over manuscripts of unpublished rhyme drinking my vodka and lime and look around, leaves are brown... and the sky is a hazy shade of winter look around, leaves are brown... There's a patch of snow on the ground... look around, leaves are brown... There's a patch of snow on the ground... look around, leaves are brown... There's a patch of snow on the ground.

 

Welcome to My Nightmare

So I’ve decided that rather than using this site to occasionally showcase art, I’ll actually start putting some thoughts into words and wowing (or irritating) you with my humble opinions on life, the universe and everything (yeah, that one belongs to Douglas Adams). What is a blog or journal – call it what you will – other than an individual’s thoughts or feelings that are topical to him or her, or sometimes others? So that’s what this will be. It will be mine but may occasionally be relevant to some of you. My last entry, oddly enough, seems to have had more hits than any of my posts featuring drawings and comic pages I’ve done. Doesn’t say much for my drawing prowess does it? Either that or there are more like-minded people out there than I thought. I’m hoping for the latter. That said, perhaps it makes sense to write more of these things. Human beings are relatively resilient creatures. We can withstand extreme weather conditions, be punched in the face, perform amazing feats at sports events, bring down evil dictators and survive holocausts. We are far less equipped, however, to deal with emotional difficulty. This is the human condition. Give us a 50-hour working week or calculus and we’re fine but break-ups, overbearing parents, hurtful remarks or sad movies about beloved pets – whatever your poison may be – are capable of turning us into puddles of tearful or emotionally scarred goo. We are a product of our memories, or rather how we file our memories in order of emotive value. Humans are the only species prone to bouts of indulgent melancholy. Whether it’s a song that you and your ex-girlfriend used to listen to driving home together or dance to, a certain smell, a nostalgia-inducing photograph or a simple household object that belonged to a different time; there are certain triggers that open that little filing cabinet in your mind and take you back to something fond, painful, sad or simply memorable. I often find myself pausing when going through a drawer or cupboard for fear of what might turn up. Scars have been left by various experiences – more specifically relationships – that I often do not want to unearth. It’s curious how one inanimate object, like the hairbrush briefly mentioned in my previous entry, can bring back a flood of emotion, how a song can reduce you to a state of hypnotic melancholy regardless of its content – rather it is the song’s context in your situation that has an effect – or how a photograph capturing a moment that may have been whimsical at the time can induce a state of emotional shock. Our lives are made up of a collection of postcards that capture all the places of interest we’ve visited. They depict the perfection that was there in that moment that the picture was taken and have a message scrawled on the back saying, “I was here”; yet like so many idyllic locations featured on picture postcards those moments can never be reproduced. Shopping malls or parking lots now exist where once there was an unspoiled landscape. Tom Waits sings in his classic song, “Time” that “memory's like a train. You can see it getting smaller as it pulls away”. Perhaps sometimes that train comes around again to remind you of where you came from. You can never board it again but you cannot forget the view from its small square windows; the landscape flying by in phases, from lush greenery to industrial squalor. Good memories and bad blur into motion as you make your way to the station, imprinted into your mind like withered postcards. One of my favourite little pieces of melancholia is Hendrix’s “Little Wing”. From what I gather, it’s an ode to a groupie who had more of an effect on him than he realised at the time. Link and lyrics below.

Well she's walking through the clouds... With a circus mind that's running round. Butterflies and zebras and moonbeams and fairy tales That's all she ever thinks about, riding with the wind. When I'm sad, she comes to me with a thousand smiles, she gives to me free. It's alright she says it's alright, take anything you want from me... Anything. Fly on little wing, Yeah yeah, yeah, little wing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLvND_uav

The Facebook Perplex

Since around 2006, social media – particularly Facebook – has been a big part of my daily routine. I learned a while back, though, to be cautious about what I posted to my 600+ friends, avoiding overly personal status updates and not sharing intimate details about my life; with one exception: my relationship status. I’ve had two serious girlfriends since my separation and divorce and both were, at different times, listed as my partners on Facebook. Back then, I didn’t see the harm in it, in fact, at the beginning, it was quite exhilarating to be “Facebook Official”. I recently found, though, that it is not necessarily your own updates you have to be cautious with; rather updates by others that could do harm. Both of the relationships I had ended – both face to face and on Facebook. As soon as my relationship status changed, however, I deleted the posts off my wall. I wasn’t up for acquaintances posting hollow, seemingly sympathetic comments on my newfound single status. I wanted to deal with the break-ups in my own time. Sadly the same could not be said for my recent ex, who had around 12 or so comments on her new status. I didn’t want to look, but I admit, I did. That was hard to see, but not nearly as hard as what came barely a month after our break-up had become official. While scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed I glimpsed her newest update; she was now “in a relationship”. Just 30 or so days after she had moved out of the home that we once shared, she had become “official” with someone else. To say the least, I was shocked. I was still trying to get over her; trying to learn how to cope with the mixed feelings I was having about being alone, missing her, coming home to an empty house filled with lousy old furniture (she always had more stuff than I did), trying not to break down in those moments that I realised just how isolated I was, finding things she’d left behind and becoming sentimental – even over an old hair brush - generally just feeling very sorry for myself. “So why not remove her on Facebook…” you may ask? There is no logical answer to that. I wanted to know how she was, though I know it probably wasn’t the healthiest thing, and honestly, we have enough mutual friends who would have passed it through the digital grapevine anyway. I fell apart after I saw her new relationship status and this is the first time I have spoken about it openly. Whether it was my pride primarily that was hurt, I don’t know. It raised so many questions; how long had she known this guy? Had they been in contact when we were together? Had all the times she told me she loved me been a lie? I’m sorry, but it’s hard to get over someone you’ve loved and lived with in the long-term, let alone in one month. How could I have been forgotten and swept out of her mind like so much dust on a dirty floor in so short a time? Had I meant nothing to her? Was this guy the antithesis of me? Was he better? Was he less of a failure in her eyes or was this simply a rebound for her? So while I continued to miss her, she was with someone new. Any way you look at that, it hurts. This is the damage that Facebook can do – and I’m sure it is capable of doing far worse. No, Facebook is not responsible for the things people post but it is a platform that allows people to get hurt. I have sworn off the social media network for the better part of two months now and I’m not sure if I’ll ever go back. I get updates from important people I’ve subscribed to via my phone but that’s as far as it goes. I am trying to put my life together without invasive distractions. The dilemma, however, is this: do I kill my Facebook account to avoid similarly painful experiences in the future and give up all the networking opportunities I’ve had there? It’s a double-edged sword. I have made contact with many professionals who could potentially help my career, and even found a very lucrative contract job through a Facebook friend. No matter what you do, though, it’s hard not to let personal things bleed into your Facebook persona. I never want to feel like I did after seeing that status update again. The sight of it put me at death’s door. It was difficult to claw my way back. I will say this, if I ever do decide to lick my wounds and return to the offending social network, my relationship status will remain private. Of all the people in my friends list on Facebook, there are probably only 20 or so that truly matter, and there are other ways of staying in touch with them about my personal life. For now, Twitter is my new-found social media obsession. People don’t post overly personal news on Twitter (though this post may be an exception, I confess), generally, and the content is far more interesting. It’s a direct link to people you admire and far more about instant gratification than Facebook. While you may come across updates about what people had for lunch that day, on the same page you come across a wealth of interesting articles, video, music and generally content that is of interest, rather than intimately personal. I wonder how many suicides, broken marriages, devastating consequences or shattered reputations have come out of Facebook updates. I wonder how many others are hurt daily by flippant remarks or unexpected bombshells that have been dropped on its trademark blue and white news feed. Before Facebook, people’s lives were far more private. I wonder how many others long for a return to that privacy. This piece is not designed to ignite debate, and I’m sure that many of you have already made judgments about me based on what I’ve said. Nonetheless, this is simply a little testimony to how Facebook made me feel. Perhaps there are some of you out there who have felt the same. I will say this in closing, though: Be mindful of what you put out there publicly. In this day and age we all have a face on the Worldwide Web. Be careful how much of that face you show to the world and who you injure in the process.