Die Entfernung

 

 

So artists got a great Christmas present a little bit early from the British Library & Microsoft. 1 MILLION gifts of copyright free/public domain images. I found this great graph and fell in love with it. Keep in mind Math and I are still not very cordial with one another. If Math had junk I would punch it.... several times daily. I love logic just not the tedium associated with its actual moving parts.

 

This particular graph is for finding the middle point (mittelpunkt)of a particular thing (Karten). Die Entfernung is the measurement. Instantly put me in mind of one of my many favorite Matthias Reim songs, Wie Man Liebt.

 

He describes how we are free to our youth until school starts and then are heads are crammed full of many things we will probably not need (Physik, Chemie & Algebra, assorted historic points and how to measure the distance between stars) and are never taught the things that we need to know, the ONE thing we need to know... how to love.

 

We teach kids how to make war, how to build empires with technology and economics but not how to love each other. Or, as I am a champion, to make art and music and nourish the soul in addition to the coffers.

 

I loved to learn things because it kept my mind busy.

 

But oh how I would have a heart as full as my head.



Wolkenreiter

It is not a "winter" album. Not like Sting's winter album was a winter album. And not like his Hounds of Winter was a get through seasonal affective disorder was a love 'em and leave 'em panacea. I've been listening to Wolkenreiter on a constant loop today. I woke up late with even intention to do so. It was a long and painful weekend at work and I know my body needs the rest. So I've had it playing. It is the one that I leave home because it is reflective and not the adrenaline rush you need to fold laundry for 8 hours. And I have to say... I think it is my favorite winter album.

Wolkenreiter means "Cloud Rider". Now perhaps that is more a Summer thing since there are so many beautiful clouds that look like you could ride them somewhere wonderful on a fantastic voyage. Granted under these titian white skies with an uber faint wash of indanthrene blue (and I mean really faint!) there are no discernable cloud formations. The sky is flat and uninteresting where there are not scraggly tree tops piercing into the dome. A smattering of snowfall flocks everything that isn't road. The road is nothing more than a well spilled slushie of dubious flavor. It is one of those days evocative of a Dickens classic, all bleak and lonesome and junk. I half expect a raggedy wolf to wander aimlessly across the once grassy quad outside my window. Or a ghost of Christmas Whenever.... I've been painting in autumnal colors, pomegrantes in clusters and cascades. But today I want to paint in frosty blue, sage, violet and perhaps just a little quinacridone violet... nothing too red. And it is all due to the perfect pairing of this album as soundtrack to our first Winter day in Northern Michigan.

Wolkenreiter really is the best album for a day like today. Not soley a collection of ballads, and the ballads are not the depressing kind that you expect from our side of the pond. For whatever reason, artists here have an idea that a slow song means you have to be brooding and ponder the dark complexities of the sole of human existence and its relationships to other souls. But with this album, it is a positive relfection. In the song I just finished listening to, Matze offers the very thing that I needed and wanted to hear two years ago. He offers the thing that Sir Knight (psuedomymn, obviously) did and with no more expectation than to be a help to someone in need. Here it is in English: (my own translation. Not exactly word for word)

Come take me with you, I take a piece of you with me

until you're standing on your own feet

Come take me with you, I take a piece of you with me

Then you go on your own way

Come take me with you, I take a piece of you with me

off to the big fairground, the roller coaster of life

as it goes up and down constantly.

There is  not only cotton candy(joy), but also the ghost train(sorrow)

But whatever will happen, as life always happens

I'm here

come into my arms

This is comfort music. It is reflective but it doesn't wallow in self pity. In many of the songs you have the feeling that this is a man who can stop and smell the roses and doesn't care if anyone thinks less of him for it. These songs freeze a moment for observation and say "It's okay. In this moment I feel ____ and then in the next moment I will feel something else". It is the exact thing that I need to to help me keep from getting stuck in moments that serve no good purpose.

In another song Matze states that his heart is not a hotel that the one room in it is reserved for someone special, and only for that one person. And "on the door hangs a sign which applies to the others 'entry forbidden'."

And in Vermiss dich
where are you?
where are you?
I've often thought to tell you that we went a wrong way
i miss you
pleae miss me too
i believe very firmly that we can turn back time
come with me an we will start from the beginning.


American music tends to want to trash the other person in the relationship. Matze is always looking for a way to peace, either in the relationship itself or in his heart when reflecting on a relationship. We go all first wives club on someone. That is not the mature or helpful thing to do. Of course he is not perfect. And there is that song on Manner sind Krieger in which he says he'd like to flip off her new boyfriend when next they meet out on the street. But that is not the same as setting clothes on fire and blowing shit up. Rosenkrieg was for that.... I am digresing. Again....

No,Wolkenreiter is a very reflective, calming album and I am now in the mood to frost my sorrows with a little bit of sugar... and do some watercolors with sparkling H2Os. Laundry can wait another day.

Flow my Tears & Bleeding Heart

a quick watercolor sketch of a closed bleeding heart

Flow, my tears, fall from your springs!
Exiled for ever, let me mourn;
Where night's black bird her sad infamy sings,
There let me live forlorn.


Down vain lights, shine you no more!
No nights are dark enough for those
That in despair their lost fortunes deplore.
Light doth but shame disclose.


Never may my woes be relieved,
Since pity is fled;
And tears and sighs and groans my weary days
Of all joys have deprived.


From the highest spire of contentment
My fortune is thrown;
And fear and grief and pain for my deserts
Are my hopes, since hope is gone.


Hark! you shadows that in darkness dwell,
Learn to contemn light
Happy, happy they that in hell
Feel not the world's despite.

John Dowland, 1563- 1626

My friends have such heavy hearts these days. And I as well. I am tempted to wrestly Sting's Labrynth CD from the bottom of the CD pile. I strive not to do so. Even though sad songs are good for the soul because they promote the cleansing tears, I have cried so much on my own that I dare not.

So many things are working themselves right from the convoluted mess that they were. And yet there is still sorrow. For myself, I feel as though I have been abandoned yet again. And as usual it revolves around feeling completely inadequate for the priviledged task of being someone's girlfriend... and now not even that mere friendship is available to me because of the damage that I have wrought. One would think I were an F5 tornado ripping through a sleeping Kansas city. I am not. But I feel as though I am. I know I am at least in the realm of a High Wind advisory when I get into the self-preservation mode. But I am not an F5. I've met women like that. I run screaming for the nearest Klingon ship when I meet women like that. Still.... to be told a thing on one day and then something else the very next. It is disruptive to say the least.

And so I am better off now with art, music, the bursts of joyful color and the reinstitition of the things I became convinced I did not "deserve". A daily fru-fru mocha, which is now as inexpensive as 1.25 a day thanks to a lovely Christmas gift from the company. Internet interactions with a world I relish thanks to inclusive rent. Music I find uplifting and inspiring and can listen to because I am not with someone who doesn't appreciate the deep melodious tones of Sting & Matze's voices. Uninterrupted art time. Candle lit baths. Nay! Candles at all are a wonder since the one I hade been with had issues with scents. Non-processed foods thanks to two wonderful friends who lent me crock pots.... all in all things are looking very well. So why am I sad?

For all there is it is not enough.
I've lost the local & physical manifestation of my tribe. It took so long to find the tribe members... member. And now... I am left to my own devices.

But I am not alone in my sorrow. Nor am I alone in the healing. Separated by space, we have facebook, texting and email. Sure, I can not go to a movie with them. But there is nothing that really lets me wallow in the sadness. And we each know how it feels to be bereft of some special person(s). We can send each other kindness and love with thought and prayer. And it is a relief to know that others know the pain. And, with Sting & Matze, there is hope that there will be a time to heal.