Sunday, August 16, 2009

A Saturday night alone with my dissertation (and three love songs, that really aren't love songs, but are kind of about love in some way)

I've been sitting here all night, trying to find the discipline to finish transcribing the last of  my dissertation interviews, but not able to turn off my music and give my full attention to a recording of someone talking about Mountain Pine Beetle policy failure.  The music has won tonight, like it usually does.

And it has won because I currently feel like Joni Mitchell in "Both Sides Now"

"I've looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
It's love's illusions I recall
I really don't know love at all"

..and sometimes like Karen Carpenter in "Goodbye To Love," the most brutal song ever.

"...and all I know of love is how to live without it"

But it's songs like this that keep me going; songs that meditate on the little slices of magic in the world; in the moments that, however brief, however fleeting, make us marvel at how beautiful the world is, and how sometimes, everything can change in a moment. 

"I met a girl on Halloween
When she was lost, and I was drunk
And it was dark and cold out 
When we left

And as we walked the rain started
The leaves softened with every step
And all around us people slept 
Alone with their dreams"

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