the new way

Hello darling, up in the aerie, dishwasher's running, baked two sheets of chocolate chip cookies and roasted farmstand beets at the same time. Overcast all day, drizzling now. After my walk I drove to the supermarket, arriving just as Creslyn said, "John Lennon - next" which meant after a good two-minute break. I groaned and had a mind to drive around just to hear the song. Instead more prudently I took my time finding just the right parking spot and sat in the car until the Lennon came on. Ah, Watching the Wheels. Good one. Worth waiting for.

People say I'm crazy doing what I'm doing
Well they give me all kinds of warnings
to save me from ruin
When I say that I'm o.k.
well they look at me kind of strange
Surely you're not happy now you no longer play the game

People say I'm lazy dreaming my life away
Well they give me all kinds of advice
designed to enlighten me
When I tell them that I'm doing fine
watching shadows on the wall
Don't you miss the big time boy you're no longer on the ball

I'm just sitting here watching the wheels
go round and round
I really love to watch them roll
No longer riding on the merry-go-round
I just had to let it go

Ah, people asking questions lost in confusion
Well I tell them there's no problem, only solutions
Well they shake their heads and
they look at me as if I've lost my mind
I tell them there's no hurry
I'm just sitting here doing time

I'm just sitting here watching
the wheels go round and round
I really love to watch them roll
No longer riding on the merry-go-round
I just had to let it go
I just had to let it go
I just had to let it go

John Lennon, among others, feels like a guiding spirit to me. Whatever doubletalk I got as a kid I was subtly dissauded from going there. In other words bohemian style was okay - good lamb's clothing - but in actuality I was expected to be an ultra-competitive high-achiever, which in the end - as many hoops as I jumped through (and mind you, I didn't always mind jumping) - I didn't turn out to be.

It reminds me of the binding of Chinese girls' feet. In the name of one set of values I was subtly dissuaded away from what came naturally to me and had value. F*** that. Now I'm there. Whatever I learned was wrong, a hell of a lot of it. I'm not really complaining. It's more like, phew, glad I got it at some point and am okay with myself now.

John Lennon got it.

As I sat in the parking lot appreciating his unique singing voice and taking in his words (that's poetry isn't it? beyond "mere" lyrics that is - add him to the list with Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell) I thought about his assassination and how all these years later (that is, speaking for myself, older, wiser, more aware) there is almost an air of retrospective inevitability as much as I hate to give credence to such a thing. I was in college when it happened, my senior year I think, it was after dark and I was in my dorm room when the news broke on the hallway. I have to tell you, I was so out of touch culturally (I wrote papers to Brahms LPs played on my portable stereo, that's how I was) that while I knew it was a significant event (gawd, it sounds so cold to write that, seemingly so Lilith-like, unfeeling) I didn't know his music or his role within the Beatles dynamic well enough to really get it.

I'm still no Beatles expert but KZE plays a number of John Lennon's songs often and I recognize a kindred spirit. I stop now and I listen. He got it a long time ago, and now I do too, all these years later, at age 50, useless false forms behind me forever.

I read a great line the other day, by the novelist Muriel Spark:
"I think Hell is empty and all the devils are here." When I first saw the quote I thought about doing a separate post just on it, with images of the likes of -- oh well, I don't want spammy page hits so I'll let you fill in the blanks.

But I do feel - and have felt so since I was a young child - that here on earth, as we go through our days, go through the seasons, perhaps especially as we anticipate signs of Spring - this is all due to God, He created this Heaven, our Earth.

So as I struggle to write this post - Perhaps Heaven is empty too, the angels here. No, I don't believe that. I don't think it's an equation that needs to be balanced in that way. I believe there is a Heaven in some way, a pantheon, the idea, the Oversoul, the projector that gets played again and again in multi-dimensional scalar fashion, in spider webs, cat's cradle games, Shakespearean plays, people's lives, recurring archetypes....

I don't believe that Heaven is empty. But I do know, in my deepening appreciation of John Lennon, that earth is missing an angel. Thank you, KZE, for playing his immortal songs.

***
Saw that D's car was in the driveway so I brought out a plate of cookies for him to bring over to the neighbor. He was already over there. I handed him the plate, and he handed me two that she had just baked. Nice cookie exchange.

Dinner will be grilled cornish hens with roast beets and neighbor's CSA share of romaine - because toddlers don't eat lettuce.

Peace, Love and BBQ!