reverse threading

the path back is the path forward


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the dazzle. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

“still, what i want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled – to cast aside the weight of facts and maybe even to float a little above this difficult world.” (mary oliver)

we check on the world right before sleep these days. we feel like it is a citizen’s duty to know what is happening in our own country, what is happening because of our own country, to be aware of the chaos, to be somewhat versed in the goings-on, to try – without success – to understand where it’s all headed and to – somehow – grok why. it’s all nearly impossible. and it is overwhelming.

we check on the world when we wake these days. we feel like it is a citizen’s duty to know what is happening in our own country, what is happening because of our own country, to be aware of the chaos, to be somewhat versed in the goings-on, to try – without success – to understand where it’s all headed and to – somehow – grok why. it’s all nearly impossible. and it is overwhelming.

and we know that there is less and less probability of it all making sense. for this must be intended-chaos and the world is ever more difficult because of it.

we sat at the bistro table in our sunroom with a glass of wine. dusk had fallen, the happy lights were on, dogga was on the rug at our feet.

we talked about the unsteadiness of these days.

and we talked about our own steadiness. we talked about the sweet phase.

we talked about sitting on the rocks in the middle of the stream way up in the mountains on a cool, quiet afternoon.

we talked about the change in our own chase of success – what that word even now means to us.

in spite of the world outside our sitting room – even with all that in mind – we could feel a sense of amazement.

we listed little things – the happy lights, the chiminea in the corner, the muddy hike, the score of finding an eight dollar glass candlestick lamp, the celebration of homemade pizza.

we listed bigger things – things more personal, more close-in, adulting things, things of quiet but profound accomplishment.

we acknowledged that – despite the broken road meander of our lives – even in the weight of all the cruel, mind-bogglingly destructive actions of this planet – we can see the dazzle around us.

and that’s the thing. the dazzle.

we need to recognize its presence. we need to keep seeking it. we need to keep reaching for it. we need to wrap our freaking arms around it – for dear life.

“i don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.” (mary oliver)

*****

MEANDER © 2004 kerri sherwood

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those lyrics! [saturday morning smack-dab.]

mondegreen. it’s a mondegreen. this is not an anomaly. mondegreens happen.

it is stunning how often we catch ourselves singing nonsensical lyrics to songs we have listened to through time: ever since the dark ages of record players in the living room to cassette players next to our beds to transistor radios on our beach towels to giant portable cd players with carrying handles equipped with batteries so you could lug them anywhere to ipods that plugged into the car to phones that had-it-all to, well, record players again.

at the top of our lungs we will sing these lyrics – they sound like what is being sung, but who really knows, anyway.

then, one day, you see them written down, you read the jacket (in caveman behavior), you glance at the with-lyrics youtube, you google them…and suddenly…you realize you had no idea what the song was about and you had made up words that made absolutely no sense whatsoever.

or, in the case of “don’t bring me down” by ELO, they were the ones making no sense. because for years and years and years when they sing the chorus “don’t bring me dowwwwwwwn”, i – and the rest of the singing-along-world – would finish it with “bruce!” so it would go like this: don’t bring me dowwwwwwn…..bruce!….don’t bring me dowwwwwwn…….bruce!….don’t bring me dowwwwwn……bruce!….don’t bring me down!

but, though it made complete sense to me, it was not “bruce”. it was “groose”…just an ad-lib by jeff lynne. sigh. “you’re lookin’ good, just like a snake in the grass” – yup. made sense to me.

or what about toto missing the rains down in africa? nope. they are singing, “i bless the rains down in africa!” i have sung about their missing the rain since they released that song the year of my first wedding, now forty years ago.

i don’t even want to write what i was singing to the bruce-springsteen-manfred-mann-earth-band song “blinded by the light“, though i think simply everyone was singing THAT wrong.

after i learned this behavior had a name “mondegreen” – this “mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase in a way that gives it new meaning. …created by a person listening to a poem or a song; the listener, being unable to hear a lyric clearly, substitutes words that sound similar and make some kind of sense.” (wikipedia) – i realized that there was some forgiveness in singing all the wrong words.

going back, though, after you come to grips with the real lyrics, tossing aside your memorized gibberish, you kind of have to wonder anew what the song is about.

and then you wonder…suddenly all at once and slowly dawning on you, both…what else didn’t i get?

revved up like a deuce??? a 1932 ford. oh. of course!

*****

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