So, if ye've never heard it, "Loch Lomond" is a beautiful Scottish folk song about wee birdies and bonnie banks and lost love and all that. Instead of thinking coherent thoughts for the last 48 hours, the song just plays over and over in my head. It must be some sort of defense mechanism against thinking--it seems that thinking, lately, has lead many close acquaintances, roommates, teammates, and the like into ethical, academic, emotional, romantic, and otherwise personal turmoil. Freshmen, seniors, and grad students alike seem caught on so many little snags, and it's easy to get caught up in them myself, become catty or callous or crushed myself, I suppose singing a Scottish ditty is as good a defense as any.
I was thinking, after the cheeky little comment received on my post that was literally just talk about the weather, that in California sun is unremarkable, but here in Boston, when winter wind chill makes the outdoors something to defend against, when there can be glorious snow or miserable rain or a day of respite like today (45 degrees and sunny!), the weather is a frighteningly powerful mood manipulator. It's hard to hold up while feeling attacked all the time, whether by the weather or by one's woes--or both.
Ran along the river today and saw geese and dogs and ice floes; ran around listening to dirt crunch and chasing plastic; just ran around the Charles river hearing Loch Lomond in my head. The outdoors is glorious, and I'm in here doing monkey work in a library until the sun sets. It's time to reprioritize.
2 comments:
the california sun unremarkable? California sunrises or sets are enough to make even the hardest heart pity any who hasn't seen them. The California sun inspires songs and poems and verses. It helps to concieve children and inspire art. It gives any vagabond in its embrace a gentle home. And in that mix of light particles and smog and the hum of dews and foliage floating through that give it colors otherwise unnatural, the California sun is one of two consistently remarkable things in my life. I trust you know what the other is.
Immune neither to turmoil nor Scottish folk songs, I've now been singing the Skye Boat Song (http://www.contemplator.com/scotland/skyboat.html, if you don't know it) since Loch Lomond transmogrified into it yesterday afternoon.
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