Wait for it. Wait for it. It's about to hit . . . there it is. Ahhhh.
I promised myself it wouldn’t happen this year, but I’ve entered my Winter Funk.
Despite the title, this is not the time of the year where I whip out my P-Funk discs and groove to “Dr. Funkenstein”. Instead, it’s where I pull out my Neil Young CDs and listen to only the songs from Neil’s scruffy, Wolverine-esque, I’m-Fixin’-To-Pull-A-Brian-Wilson period. Usually, but not limited, to acoustic music. We’re not talking “Cinnamon Girl” Neil. But “The Old Laughing Lady” Neil. Or even “Helpless” Neil.
Not that it’s a bad thing, mind you.
So, the question is, why to I become a Nihilist (or is that a Neilist?) at this time of year? Why do I listen to “I Am a Child” or “Sugar Mountain” and wallow in an undirected misery?
Worse, why do I not feel funny? Or useful? Or productive?
Or, explain why I see a little girl running after her mother in the grocery store and get an intense longing for my own daughter, whom I had seen only moments before. Why is it that I want to scoop my daughter up in my arms, freeze the moment in amber, instead of yielding to the onslaught of time? Why did I sit there listening to Matilda read to me last night, as if it were the last time that this exact Matilda would read to me? Tomorrow she’ll be a different kid. With different thoughts, dreams, ideas, knowledge.
It seems that each year at this time, I get a certain longing to stop the march of time. Couple that with a complete inability to think for myself. Or a feeling of helplessness with regards to my ability to actually articulate my feelings.
Or worse, that what I am able to articulate isn’t sufficient.
Kind of like this.
It’s not that I’m depressed. Or sad, even. Just uneasy. Or restless.
I guess I have to decide what Neil Young I am today.
Am I this Neil Young?
I feel like I died
and went to Heaven
The cupboards are bare
but the streets
are paved with gold
And all the lights
were turned down low
And no one wondered or had to go
Out on the corner the angels say
There is a better life
for me someday
Or am I this Neil Young?
Now the night is gone,
a new day is dawning
And our homeless dreams
go back to the street
Another time or place,
another civilization
Would really make
this life feel so complete.
I'll always be a dreamin' man
I don't have to understand
I know it's alright.
Dreamin' man
He's got a problem
Or perhaps this one?
I am a child, I'll last a while.
You can't conceive
of the pleasure in my smile.
You hold my hand,
rough up my hair,
It's lots of fun
to have you there.
Maybe it’s this, except replace boy and son with girl and daughter:
Why are you growin' up so fast
My boy?
Oh, you'd better take your time.
Why are you growin' up so fast
My son?
Almost time to live your dream
My boy.
Oh, you'd better take your time.
Almost time to make some plans
My son.
Vacation gone, school is out,
Summer ends year in year out.
Oh, you'd better take your time
My boy.
I thought we had just begun.
Why are you growin' up so fast
My son?
Vacation gone, school is out,
Summer ends year in year out.
Why are you growin' up so fast
My boy?
Why are you growin' up so fast
My son?
But I think, more likely, I’m this today (but who is it to? My wife? One or both of my daughters?):
The flash of a distant camera
reconnecting
thoughts and actions,
Fragments of our missing dreams,
Pieces from here and there
fall in place along the line,
Disappearing between you and me.
Life is changing everywhere I go,
New things and old both disappear.
If life is a photograph,
Fading in the mirror....
All I want is a song of love,
Song of love to sing for you.
All I need is this song of love,
To sing for you.
On the floor where daylight dances
With the ones
that missed their chances,
When they couldn't let it show,
Lies the land of sweet surrender,
Like a dream
it might have ended there,
but we didn't even know.
Now forever we will live as one,
Floating in love's atmosphere.
If love is a piece of dust,
Shining in the sun...
All I want is a song of love,
Song of love to sing for you.
All I need is this song of love,
To sing for you.
Song of love...
Song of love...
More likely I just don’t know how I feel. So I have to replace my explanation of how I feel with a song about how someone else felt and that’s okay. Or something.
Hey, you know what? You can ignore this post. It’s more for me than for anyone else. I just had to write it out, I guess.
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