falling from the branches

if there was ever a song that matched how i feel today, this is it. not just today either, but any day where i feel worn out, wishing my life was somehow different, mourning the kind of warmth i most enjoy outside. more than that, it's the soreness in my body, how i hurt and haven't gone swimming the last three days because of the aches in my body (no, i'm nost just getting old this time--i really did hit the ground hard, head and left shoulder first).

when i was a first year in college, i was trying to get back into playing guitar--when you're a musician, you're always trying to get back into doing something... at least i am, always wishing i were finding more time to play guitar, piano, anything really. so i was at college, living in an old dorm, trying to find the college experience i was hoping would come (but wouldn't really arrive for a while). and so i played guitar, played the songs my old bands had played. i played the songs i liked to listen to on my computer around then. and i even started writing songs on the guitar, something i hadn't done before (always before my writing was on a piano).

sometimes if it was nice outside, i would walk around the green in front of the dorm, just playing and singing to myself--fake plastic trees, wish you were here, to sheila, stay--almost always walking, almost always outside. once it turned cold, i would play in my room sometimes, and a few times down in the common area, but i always liked playing outside, never for anyone, just myself. i guess that's something that a college kid can do that's much harder while living in a residential neighborhood. but who knows. maybe i just have to give it a try.

i've listened to this song ten times today--almost scary. but i also graded 8 papers, prepared for and taught two classes, prepared for and guest lectured in a graduate seminar, did some research for my dissertation, met with one student, talked on the phone to a best friend, got an email from an old friend, prepared for thursday classes, wrote thirteen emails, talked to my parents on the phone, read thirty emails, and sat blankly in front of this computer for the last twenty minutes. and after all this, just thinking about all the things i haven't done today scares me (if it sounds like i'm complaining here, pay it no attention--i'm just trying to talk myself back into doing something).

is it worth it, finding myself always busy, barely sane (probably crazy), tired, sore, and unable to fall asleep? it has its moments i'll say. and i'm decently productive (i've done better, quite often actually). so i'll have to enjoy the moments, like last friday when i went swimming (and loved it), and then went and sat in como park and graded papers lazily, watching the kids and their parents arrive for the halloween party at the zoo.

don't be scared by andrew bird

whenever paul thinks of rain, swallows fall in a wave and tap on his window with their beaks. and when paul thinks of snow, soft winds blow round his head and the phone rings just once late at night--like a bird calling out, "wake up, paul. don't be scared. don't believe you're all alone." "wake up, paul," whisper clouds rolling by and the seeds falling from the branches of the trees.