music – etikser

reflecting

November 14, 2025 etikser

An old photo, captured in the rain through wet glass.

I am,” I said
To no one there
And no one heard at all
Not even the chair
[Neil Diamond, 1971]

Reminiscing tonight.

These years, Thanksgiving is a big production. I’m thinking back, though, to when I was 25, many years ago, to the year I did Thanksgiving all by myself. I can’t imagine doing this now, but I cooked a frozen turkey TV dinner for myself. Swanson’s or whatever. I was okay with it, but I remember talking to my mom on the phone, as was our ritual for years mid-day on Thanksgiving, and how bad she felt about my being alone.

I was embarrassed to tell her I didn’t mind, that I was planning to enjoy my four-day weekend. I had off from work Thursday and Friday, and of course the rest of the weekend, which was a real treat. It was my first grown-up job, and I hated it. And for four days, there would be no job. No stress. No pressure. No emotional drama about who was there, and how we were getting along. Relationships had ended, as they do sometimes, and all I had to worry about was me. Just to put my frozen dinner in the oven, and to take the aluminum tray out when the timer buzzed. I was okay with being alone. It was just me that November, and I don’t know why, but I was totally cool with being alone. It was me and my apartment. My couch and my TV, and my stereo and albums. And whatever has happened in my life, I have good feelings about that one-bedroom apartment.

I don’t have memories about the Christmas that followed. I probably flew home. But I remember that I got a little three or four-foot artificial tree for myself, for my living room window, and I went to Macy’s, which was Hecht’s back then, and bought some crystal icicle ornaments for the tree. I also bought a gold-colored angel topper that I still have today. The icicle ornaments all fell either that Christmas or the next, and broke, all of them, sadly too fragile for realistic use. My gold angel lost her wings. How or when, I don’t recall. But my angel has survived, minus her wings, and I would indeed feel a sense of great loss if something happened to her. One Christmas I couldn’t find her, and I missed her terribly. I’m sure she represents to me something I can’t explain about myself.

I am … I cried.
I am … said I.

It feels good to recall these formative times,
That are part of life,
When we’re alone with ourselves,
And we hold together.
We survive.

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rainy nights

summertime . . . 2

July 30, 2025 etikser

The distant crackle of thunder on a dark starless night and the noisy patter of raindrops hitting the roof and the dirt. You can smell it, that old familiar earthy scent. You can’t help but breathe in the thick, moisture-laden air. Lungs receive the rich brew, and senses recognize the familiarity of the scent. The force of falling droplets brings a welcome cooling breeze. But when all is said and done, the night remains a sauna, and even watching under cover, you find the skin remains clammy, and hair and clothing cling.

Inspiration: I Love a Rainy Night, Eddie Rabbitt

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connections, memories

summertime

July 25, 2025July 30, 2025 etikser

Tangled memories and twisted connections.

There’s this thing about summer. It lives in our soul. It’s a memory (a feeling?) lingering from years back, an emotional synapse connecting the warm days and nights of the past with the present.

Growing up, many summers ago, I slept with windows open on both sides of the room (before AC, we had cross-ventilation), and a nighttime breeze would blow in from the outside and over the sheets. A cooling, soothing breeze to lull me to sleep. Gentle as an unexpected afternoon nap.

On one of those nights I saw the outline of my leg in the dark under the sheets, and thought it was a snake. A big snake…as big as my leg. It scared me enough I can still remember it today, and I realized back then, even in that childish moment, how silly it was. How foolish I was.

I got scared outside tonight. Scared of what? I was scared an animal would come at me out of the dark. I was scared I’d lean back too far, looking for stars, I’d lose my balance and fall backward. Pretty foolish stuff.

Summer evenings aren’t all tenderness, nighttime prayers, gentle rains, and comforting breezes. The livin’ ain’t always easy. But it’s all there, isn’t it, not far from the surface of our psyche, the screen doors and street lights, fireflies, distant thunder, and silly childish fears. We muddle our way through life and find it all, unexpectedly at times, still tucked away where we left it, memories and juvenile emotions, and part of the grown up person we are today. It all lives in our soul.

Summertime by George Gershwin, DuBose Heyword, and Ira Gershwin.
My previous post on Summertime, the song: https://etikser.home.blog/2020/05/28/summertime/

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2025, nature

constant

May 2, 2025May 2, 2025 etikser

The first lustrous light of dawn,
Like the season’s first red rose to open,
Like the downbeat in your favorite song.
Worth the wait.
A pulse born to modulate.
A natural rhythm
we seize upon for the solace of what’s constant.

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love, music, nature

here and gone on a magnolia wind

April 22, 2025 etikser

“It’s here and it’s gone on a magnolia wind.” [ Guy Clark & Shawn Camp]

Magnolia Wind is a tender old ballad from Guy Clark, a country music songwriter and performer (November 6, 1941 – May 17, 2016). Magnolia Wind has been a favorite of mine for years, and I found the song and Guy Clark’s story by way of John Prine, one of a number who covered this classic. According to Guy Clark, Magnolia Wind is “a made-up song about some boy who’s in love with Sis [Draper]”, a fiddle-player who taught Shawn Camp, the song’s co-writer, to play fiddle. No wonder it’s become a cherished part of the legendary, story-telling culture of country music.

The magnolia is a large and ancient variety of aromatic flowering plants, a genus that’s been around for up to 20 million years. I don’t have any in my yard, but neighbors do, and I do my best to capture something of the magnolia’s brief but sumptuous blooming period in the spring. The blooms don’t last long. Much the same as the lyrics, “it’s here and it’s gone on a magnolia wind.”

Happy Earth Day!
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truisms

counsel from the 60s

January 13, 2025 etikser

2025. Things I want to do. Things I need to do. I need to go outside late at night and see stars on the dark sky behind the treetops, behind my favorite treetops. This is something I can do. I know this is something I can still do, regardless of my bad knees. I can sit, and look up. I want to look up and see the snowflakes falling at me from above.

I want to walk down the snowy street and see if Christmas wreaths are still hanging in the windows on that house on the corner. I didn’t see the tree in the window this year like it’s always been these last years. And I want to see the wreaths, at least.

I need to see if my place in the shade is still there. I need it to be there. I can’t even say how much I need it to be there. I need to walk down by the creek where the dragonflies hang over the water in July and glisten in the late day sun. I need to go to that place where I saw a little bit of heaven…once.

You can anticipate this one. Words we’ve all been carrying around in our heads since 1969/70, as if the Rolling Stones are where we want to go for words to live by. You can’t always get what you want, honey, you can’t always get what you want. You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need. [From the Rolling Stones album, Let It Bleed, 1969.]

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Kris Kristofferson, words

the freedom of an eagle when she flies

October 10, 2024 etikser

I have seen the morning
Burning golden on the mountain in the skies
Aching with the feeling
Of the freedom of an eagle when she flies
— Kris Kristofferson
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I haven’t been writing much lately. It’s like I forgot how to type words. I forgot the freedom. The freedom of just typing words. We don’t ever want to lose the freedom of just typing words, do we?

“I have seen the morning burning golden…” These have been some of my favorite words for years and years. Some of my favorite words of all time. Why? Because of the way they sound, for certain…morning burning golden, aching with the freedom. Don’t they sound the way words were created to sound? And the picture? The picture they put in my mind? A picture I look up to see in the morning, on every good morning. I wonder what those big birds think when they circle up there. Do they think, oh whoah, that’s a long way down? Or do they look down from above the tallest branches of my favorite oak trees, and do they see it as their domain? Their purview? Their reach? Do they see it like I see the plants and trees that surround me? The plants and trees I look out and see affectionately as my own.

All our souls matter. Souls like Kris Kristofferson’s for sure matter. He gave us the gift of beautiful words and music that reaches down to the very gut of our existence. There’s God, who’s above all. And there’s the stuff of birds and trees and good picking guitar strums and words and souls. They all matter. Beautiful words matter. Beautiful words have a special place in our universe.

Thanks to Kris Kristofferson for his beautiful words.

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Lovin’ Her Was Easier (1971) by Kris Kristofferson

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emotions

lie-la-lie

June 12, 2024June 12, 2024 etikser

Paul Simon wrote the ‘lie la lie’ line as a placeholder, because he didn’t have words at the time for that part of the song. Destiny?!? It’s the part we all remember, no?

Lie-la-lie
Lie-la-lie-lie-lie-lie-lie
Lie-la-lie

The Boxer. We all know the words. Thank you, Paul Simon, we all know that part. Lie la lie. Over and over. When we get to that part, we all know what it means. It’s like that part of Prince and Purple Rain, when there aren’t any real words and he’s just moaning, oou-oou-oou-oou, still we get what Prince is saying. Maybe it’s the way we remember Prince, the way we hold onto his soul, and that incredible, signature (wonderfully grimacing) guitarwork.

In The Boxer, we all get it. We know what it means. It’s for the boxer in all of us, in each and every one of us. It’s for the boxer who remains after we’re worn down to nothin’. When we’re beaten down to nothin’ and somehow holding on.

Sing: Lie-la-lie
Lie-la-lie-lie-lie-lie-lie
Lie-la-lie

What’s missing? What’s missing for me? A cold, aged, winter feeling. Even on a warm June evening, it’s the feeling of a cold, dark, bitter winter night. A cold, dark, bitter winter night, and repeating melodic syllables running roughshod over the wordy thoughts in my head. And on and on and on. And some beautiful fingerpickin’ guitar strums to lead me and soothe me, lie, la lie.

We’ve all been there when we’re trying and we’re trying, and we carry the reminders, don’t we?

Lie-la-lie
Lie-la-lie-lie-lie-lie-lie
Lie-la-lie
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The Boxer (1969), written by Paul Simon, recorded by Simon & Garfunkel.

© Etikser. All Rights Reserved.
All photos and images here are my own.
They may not be used elsewhere or reblogged.
Please visit my other blog, Clover & Ivy, https://cloverandivy.wordpress.com.
I post mostly nature photos there.

night sky

a pocketful of starlight

March 9, 2024March 9, 2024 etikser

Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket.
Never let it fade away.
Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket.
Save it for a rainy day.
— Perry Como (1957), written by Paul Vance/Lee Pockriss.

[My thoughts from a December evening, a few months ago, during the Geminid Meteor Shower.]

I debated whether I wanted to go outside in the cold again, but I felt moved. Unlike last night, I’d wear a scarf this time, and zip my jacket, and I’d sit, make myself comfortable, in my summer deck chair.

Just what I did.

Clearly, it was starry. The sky was beautiful and the night around me felt wonderful. I was glad I was there.

Less than a minute, and I saw the moving flash to my right…behind the tree branches in my next door neighbor’s yard. Enough to make me gasp. It wasn’t the kind of meteor where you’re not sure you saw it. This was bright and clear, and it arced, fading along the way, to the right. Shooting stars are what they are. A second’s worth of something magical about the universe. Not the kind of magic we see with our imaginations. But the real deal.

I sat and looked to see if there would be more. And the dark sky, with shimmering stars loosely scattered among the tall branches, was more exquisite, I believe, than the meteor itself. The very reason we go outside late, on a cold December night. A pocketful of starlight. I was glad I was there.

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