Tag: thoughts

life, music, Pete Seeger

Where have all the flowers gone?

etikser

music and first three verses by Pete Seger [1955]
last three verses added by Joe Hickerson [1960]

Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing?
Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago?
Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls picked them every one.
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the young girls gone, long time passing?
Where have all the young girls gone, long time ago?
Where have all the young girls gone?
Gone for young men everyone.
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the young men gone, long time passing?
Where have all the young men gone, long time ago?
Where have all the young men gone?
Gone for soldiers every one.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?

Where have all the soldiers gone, long time passing?
Where have all the soldiers gone, long time a go?
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards every one.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?

Where have all the graveyards gone, long time passing?
Where have all the graveyards gone, long time ago?
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Gone to flowers, everyone.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?

Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing?
Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago
Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls picked them every one.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?

coping, coronavirus, life, time

time

etikser

March…May…July?

Yesterday morning, I had to take my car in, and I expected to see some traffic, surely, people with essential jobs driving to work. But no, I cruised through green light after green light. Traffic was even lighter than what I see for my weekly grocery trips.

I finally hit a red light, and looked out over the steering wheel to take in the trees along side the road. This was the first day that looked to me like summer. In a split second, it seemed, there was the aura of all we connect to green trees and warm breezes, and summertime. And without even the need to reconfigure my thoughts, an awareness of my evolving expectations of what this summer will be like.

Further down the road, a few people were out and about, individuals, walking or waiting by themselves, in the open air, and almost all of them wore masks. The trend towards wearing a mask even when you’re by yourself in the outdoors seems to be growing.

This is the way life’s been since the beginning of March. With cool weather dragging on into May, a Monday in May can feel like a Wednesday or a Friday in March, as if this spring will go on forever. Facing off with summer, it was like waking up from an afternoon nap feeling unsettled, and realizing you need to pull together enough focus, and enough energy, to make it through the rest of the day.

Photo from 2018

bad dream, coping, coronavirus

coronavirus

etikser

It feels like one of those dreams. Where some bad guy is chasing you, and you need to run. Your brain tells your feet to move.

C’mon. Run….

Move….

Faster….

But there’s a disconnect somewhere between your brain and your feet. And your feet, your feet can hardly move.

Maybe you need to get somewhere. To work, to an appointment, something important. And you keep walking, deliberately. But you can’t make it. You just can’t make it to where it is you have to be. The more you focus, intently, on getting where you need to be, the more you feel lost. And there, there in the middle of your dream, you feel the desperation, or is it disappointment, or a concession to the disappointment, no, not disappointment, it’s the disturbing reality / surreality that you’ll never, you’ll never make it to where it is you need to be.

photograph from march 2019

coping, life, writer's block, writing

you gotta fight for the write

etikser

March 24, 2020, 1 am

Tonight I felt like I just had to write.

I don’t write everyday, just when I have something to say. Maybe that’s not best, but it’s me. For a while now, a week, maybe two, since all the virus quarantine social distancing non-stop 24/7, I didn’t want to write. I get like that when life’s too much. I feel a little shaky, my stomach jittery, my brain lazy. Maybe I should fight the malaise and the brain freeze, but I almost never ever do.

Eventually and inevitably, it happens. In a snap. In the time it takes for the brain to wake up. The writing bug kicks in, and I know I have to write.

For me it usually happens with a song, a great song, great words, one of the great song writers. And I always, always, think the same thing — I wish I could write one great song. Well, I can tell you that will never ever happen. The next thought is pretty much always the same — I need to write. Just like that. Not I want to write. I need to write.

So….

About what?
About what?

Hmmm….
Hmmm….

Tomorrow.
Tomorrow I’ll find something to write.

nature, pileated woodpecker, writing

tat-tat-tat-tat

etikser

I lifted my eyes toward the treetops, and took in the jagged black and white underwings of a large bird. It flew below the canopy, but high among the branches, then landed halfway up a tree trunk and started drumming. It was about 50 feet from me, and I was happy to stand there for awhile to admire. Look up, listen, watch, marvel. Pileated woodpeckers are so impressive.

The sound of the woods is always wonderful. Quiet and still and noisy at the same time. There are crows cawing, some little bird sounds…the tweets and the chee-eeps. And often woodpecker sounds. The familiar drumming gives your eyes a direction to search, but the pileated woodpecker is still hard to spot. Some say it’s shy. This time, though, I could see it. I could watch that incredible crested head nodding to pick at the bark.

After a minute or so, the surrounding noise of the woods tugged my attention, and I recognized there was a second woodpecker. Louder, closer, somewhere behind me. I wondered, almost subconsciously, if the two were communicating with each other. My curiosity got the best of me, and I turned.

Ah-hah!

Another one. It was standing upright as woodpeckers do, easily balanced on the side of a tree, not far at all from me. [the one in the photo]

What magnificent creatures.

Photographed March 5, 2020