Relevant quotes XLVII, and relevancy in general

A man walks down the street
It's a street in a strange world
Maybe it's the Third World
Maybe it's his first time around
He doesn't speak the language
He holds no currency
He is a foreign man
He is surrounded by the sound
The sound
Of cattle in the marketplace
Of scatterlings and orphanages
He looks around, around
He sees angels in the architecture
Spinning in infinity
He says Amen! and Hallelujah!

---

She says the joke is on me
I say the joke is on her
I said I have no opinion about that
Well, we'll just have to wait and confer

---

There is a girl in New York City
Who calls herself the human trampoline
And sometimes when I'm falling, flying
Or tumbling in turmoil I say,
Woah, so this is what she means
She means we're bouncing into Graceland

I'm going to Graceland
For reasons I cannot explain
There's some part of me wants to see Graceland
And I may be obliged to defend
Every love, every ending
Or maybe there's no obligations now

---

- Above are all from Paul Simon's album, Graceland.

---

We search for everything
Keeping what we would win

Orchids or tiny flowers
Wooden huts or ivory towers
Centuries or hours

Dark are the winter days
Holy in many ways

---

- From 'All Our Days' by Sandy Denny

---

Also, when I was 18 and working at the daycare in Saginaw, waiting to go to London, driving the old '72 Mercedes that I had to heat the glowplug to start - I was obsessed with 'Old Man' by Neil Young. I listened to it on the way there, and on the way home, and driving at night for no purpose over the Zilwaukee bridge, just to look down at the lights of the city, over the bridge and back again, so that I could feel some kind of valuable height.

-

Old man, look at my life, 24 and there's so much more
Live alone in a paradise that makes me think of true
love lost at such a cost
Give me things that won't get lost,
Like a coin that won't get tossed
Rolling home to you

Old man, take a look at my life, I'm a lot like you
I need someone to love me the whole day through
One look in my eyes and you can tell that's true

Lullabies, look in your eyes,
Run around the same old town
Doesn't mean that much to me
To mean that much to you

I been first and last
Look at how the time goes past
But I'm all alone at last
Rolling home to you

-

I think its relevance had to do with the banjo and the bass, the movement of the car, the way life repeats itself, the community shared between history and the present, and the act of resignation to the basic need (love) - also, especially, the admitting to it. Also, it didn't mean that much to me to mean that much to my hometown, or to my recent ex, or to the United States. I was on my way to be alone at last, going home to a place I'd never been.

Kind of like John Denver's song, Rocky Mountain High, which I was also obsessed with during this short 4-month period, but which I had only on vinyl. Standing over the grand piano, playing it over and over, internally and rapidly verifying my idea of my near future.

-

He was born in the summer of his 27th year
Coming home to a place he'd never been before
Left yesterday behind him, you might say he was born again
You might say he found the key for every door

When he first came to the mountains
His life was far away, on the road hanging by a song
But the string's already broken and he doesn't really care
He keeps changing fast, and it don't last too long

-

So now, 9 years later, I'm sitting on a cushion at my cousin's house, drinking tea and hand-writing a poem to go with an antique picture of two girls about to have their First Holy Communion.

No nostalgia - just relevance. Do I want to charge away again to a hilltop and a new way of life in rainy London? No, it's not so simple anymore, I've grown up enough and gathered enough experience that the task is now more internal than that - but I'm working on visualizing my near future in a very similar way to how I worked on visualizing it at age 18. It has, this time, less to do with geography and much more to do with maps - constructing useful ones, and then using them with skill to get to the points I need to get to. If only an airplane and a visa could do what it used to! These days it's about lists, and calendars, and actions.

I think an intrinsic thing about me is that I love relevance - identifying it as well as sharing it.
One can identify what is relevant and no one else can challenge it, because it's really all about the feelings attached to the thing identified. But finding a way to express that perhaps quirky personal relevance in a manner that will make sense to people - in a manner people won't want to challenge - is my exciting, challenging task these days. I think I can do it.