Monday’s Theme Music

Monday in Ashland arrived with thin but all-encompassing fog and a thermostat hovering around 37 F. Sunrise was at 7:39 AM, evidenced by growing light but no visible sun. We’ll see if it shows before sunset, expected at 5:04 PM.

Looking out at the fog, I thought about what a gray day it was. No immediate gray songs leaped into the mental stream, but the 1978 Foreigner song, “Blue Morning, Blue Day”, filled the space. This song about lovers growing apart doesn’t fit anything about today, unless I stretch it as a metaphor for the United States and its political positions growing apart. Or, taking it further, I can apply it to a growing gap between the U.S. and the rest of the world. Or — stay with me here — the song can be about people losing touch with reality, getting swept out of their heads by conspiracy theories.

Naw, doesn’t really work. It’s just about lovers.

Still, the song is in me head, so I’m putting it out to you. Be positive, even when the weather is gray and cold, test negative, and wear a mask, now more than ever as these COVID-19 variants rise and spread. Hey, that’s an intriguing book title: Rise of the Variants. Someone should go write it.

Here’s the music.

Thursday’s Theme Music

Today’s is an odd song choice, driven by weather and reverie.

Opening the blinds this morning revealed a pearl gray cold world, fog and drizzle that hid the streets and played peek-a-boo with the mountains and forests.

Although dismaying, the weather captured my inner weariness. Not much to do in our little town, and gets boring. Although I then thought of “Ramble On” by Zeppelin, “Life In A Northern Town” by the Dream Adademy (1985) soon asserted its presence in my stream.

It’s an odd song to me, not my preferred listening genre, a song I know mostly from being in a car or store and hearing it. After seeing their video and its cold fog, I thought it was right for the day.

The Dogs Dream

Last night’s dream shook me. I’m not certain why.

I was with my spouse. We were at her mother’s property, with her mother. Her mother passed away in Feb., 2018, after several years of illness. Her illness and care were instrumental in a family schism with one sister. The property is over twenty acres in the countryside.

The estranged sister wasn’t present. I had an impression that it was she who’d passed away. My wife, mother-in-law, and I were talking in general. As the conversation progressed, I was inspecting the house and thinking about what needed to be fixed and how that would be done. We were mostly talking about the dead sister’s husband. He was planning to stay on the property (he and his wife had a home on it) and would continue taking care of it.

I went outside to walk around. It was a gray, quiet, chilly day. While there was a lawn around the houses and outbuildings, fog swathed the woods. Tree trunks obscured with a gauzy swirl.

Weirdly, I still heard my wife and her mother talking, even though they remained in the house. While walking around, I saw a large, gray or dirty white curly-haired dog cross the property. To me, it appeared that the dog had dragged itself out from a hole under one of the outbuildings. When I went to check that out, I saw another dog come out of a hole from under another building. That was soon happening in every direction. There were quickly seven or eight dogs of different sizes, colors, and breeds running around.

I spotted a small ginger tabby cat. Seeing all of these, I ran back to tell my wife and her mother about the animals. They either didn’t understand or didn’t believe me. I kept repeating what I was telling them, and then insisted that they come out to look. They finally agreed, and when they looked, the number of dogs seemed to double, and then two ginger cats were there standing up and looking back at something. As if a signal was given, the cats dropped to their feet and darted away. Seconds later, the dogs did the same. For several moments, it was a helter-skelter scene of dogs racing to their holes.

And then they were gone.

End.

Philip Said

I used a foggy background for this quote because I think the quote illuminates the fog of writing. It’s applying your experiences, and things others describe to you, to imagine another’s experience to tell a story.

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