Sunrise danced into our valley on tiny wings of light this morning at 5:33, heralding the start of Tuesday, June 15, 2021, with milky sunshine. Clouds and rain will cool the sun’s ardor today until backing out at 8:46 in the evening, letting us mark another day done.
I’m grooving to old ZZ Top this morning. Going through the head list of things that must be done, the activities my wife wants me to do, and what I’d really like to be doing called “Got Me Under Pressure” from 1983 out from the memory cloud, where it’s always hazy with a chance of fog. Stay positive, test negative, and get the vax. As for the mask, it’s really become murky in our zone. Stores say, “Masks required” on front-door signs, and will often mention that they must cover the mouth and nose. But there’s not enforcement. CDC and gov’t guidelines say, hey, if you’ve been fully vaxxed, the Gods are with you that you’ll probably be okay. But, beware of breakthroughs and variants. I still wear a mask shopping in stores and in public places like the library. That’s about the range of where I roam.
Clouds smothered the sunrise. Though we knew it was there and indeed, daylight emerged, clouds blemished the sun’s initial entrance at 5:34 AM. Indications are, we should get used to it. Charcoal etched clouds promised rain all Sunday. It didn’t come until night dropped. Saturday temperatures reached 80 F, Sunday, 76. Today the guess is mid sixties before sunset at 8:48 PM.
Today is Monday, June 14, 2021. With this unseasonable rain and cool temperatures, doubt that summer is almost on us is acceptable. We know summer is coming but this weather surprises us. We’ll take it, though. After winter’s mild snows, we’re starved for moisture to help allay the spreading drought’s impact.
Today’s song is pandemic and relationship driven. After being isolated together since March 2020 and married since August 1975, my wife and I sometimes have issues with one another. We often have issues. We get tired of our own routines; we tire of the other’s preferences and stances. In the midst of one of those, while discussing something inane – might have been a television show, might have been shopping – what shall we get, when shall we get it – lines from the 1983 Genesis song, “That’s All”, came into my head.
But why does it always seem to be Me looking at you, you looking at me It’s always the same, it’s just a shame, that’s all.
Sunday, June 13, 2021. The sun shouldered in at 5:34 AM with small shafts of light and a few shards of warmth. Bird talk sputtered and fizzled. Cats stalked their kibble and complained.
Showers are expected today. I took one early. Shaved. Washed hair. Temperature is currently 75 F. We expect 81 today. Sunset will come as the world turns at 8:48 PM. Shopping, eating, reading, writing, cutting grass, and very important, drinking coffee will take place between now and then.
My mind is playing Dire Straits and “Sultans of Swing” from 1978 for me this morning. No clear reason is recognized why that song is playing. I was out of the service when this song was released. After moving back to where I’d graduated high school, I bought a restaurant and was going to college. A few months later, crippled by the local economy and dwindling personal finances, I was back in the service and heading west to San Antonio, Texas, on a new assignment. The break in service was a year to the day. I learned a lot in that time. Once back in the military, I ended up staying for sixteen years, completing a twenty-year career. Traveled a lot, mostly the United States, Asia, and Europe, a little northern Africa and the Middle East. Meet some terrific people.
Stay positive, test negative. Come on, get the vax. Let’s get on with it. Here’s the music. Cheers
Sunshine kicked out the clouds at 5:34 AM on this blue spring day in Ashland, Saturday, June 12, 2021. Temps immediately jumped up ten degrees and cheered. The back door was thrown open to warm air. Tails up, the cats jaunted out and sniffed, whiskers moving with appreciation for what the day had brought. The temps tell me they’ll be testing the upper edges of sixty (maybe seventy, a few whisper), before the sun gives a final glance over the valley and walks away at 8:47 PM.
Dreams of gold kept awakening me. It rained gold in one dream segment. Surprised by the golden shower, I put my hand out and looked up into the forbidding dark sky. I didn’t feel threatened, just non-plus by this change. Why was it raining gold. Then I laughed. It’s raining gold. And awoke.
Out of that and another gold-themed dream came echoes of “Gold Dust Woman” by Fleetwood Mac, 1977. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax. Cheers
The Earth rolled over. The sun’s first feeble rays hove into view.
5:34 AM.
“Morning has broken. Like the first morning.”
Too early for nonsense.
Thought processes were engaged. Thursday? No, Friday. June something. Eleventh. Still 2021.
Rain fell outside. The sunshine drooped. Clouds barged in. The heater kicked on. Cats slumbered. He would slumber on, too. What time was sunset today? Eight something. 8:47 PM, he remembered, eyes closed, breathing deepening. He returned to his dream. Better there anyway.
Dream songs enter. “All I want to do is dream.” “All the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray.” “These dreams go on when I close my eyes.” “Sweet dreams are made of these. Who am I to disagree?” “Runnin’ down a dream. That never would come to me.” “Dream weaver, I believe you can get me through the night.” “Dream on.”
He sleeps and dreams. Awakens. Half-hearted sunshine lights the bedroom. Coffee, he thinks. The list. Things must be done. He heads into the bathroom. Songs walk with him. “Stray cat strut, I’m a ladies’ cat.” “In the year of the cat.”
The coffee pot beckons in the kitchen. Sunshine withers to a softer shade of pale. Let it rain, rain, rain. Raindrops keep fallin’ on my head. The sky is crying.
He sips his coffee. Enter Ringo Starr. “It don’t come easy. You know it don’t come easy.” Uriah Heep responds. “This is a thing I’ve never known before, it’s called easy living.” Charlie Daniels strikes back with “Uneasy Rider”. He needs to write. “Paperback writer,” the Beatles sing. A truck rolls back outside. “Truckin'” by the Grateful Dead begins. 1970. He heads for the other room. “It’s raining again.” Supertramp. There’s a song for every thought. “I think we’re alone now.” “Do ya think I’m sexy?” “You better think. Think!” “Did you think it’s alright if we leave the boy with Uncle Ernie?”
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get that vax.
Thursday, June 10, 2021. 5:33 AM struck. The sun cleared her throat and pushed a little light into Ashland, Oregon. Not too much. Knowing how much light to deliver was a large challenge inherent to her task. Everywhere was different. Every day was different, despite its sameness.
Today, she struck a soft balance. Gray and blue, playing some rays off clouds, sprinkling wayward flashes on rainy blades and leaves. With great caution, she brought up the luminescence, throwing shadows over the land. Not too hot today. Agreements were in place with wind and clouds. She abided…today. Some days, she didn’t, but this was today. Fully flowing over land, she headed west, continuing the opening of the days. Her long coat of light and heat trailed behind her. It would stay, slowly dwindling, until it disappeared at 8:46 PM.
Today’s song is weather related. Hit last night. Soft, steady rain was slinging sharp slaps across the dark land. I stepped out to smell its perfume and appreciate the sounds. Three cats accompanied me. Chilly air kissed my flesh. I turned to return inside. The cats were seated. “Are you staying out in the cold?” I asked. Two said yes.
My query was a summons to the 1991 song by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, “Out in the Cold”. Technology lets me share it with you. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax. Cheers
The hump day cometh and the hump day goeth. Daybreak began at 5:34 AM in Ashland, Oregon. Most of the flowers have lived their life of color in my neighborhood, fading to leafy remains. Thanks to cooler temps — highs have dropped from the standard 90 – 100 degrees F days to low 60s — and a splatter of rain, lush greens dominate. Nightbreak (hey, we have daybreak) will come at 8:46 PM. We’re fast approaching that longest day, meaning the longest period of sunshine, in the north. In the southern hemisphere, they’re hurrying toward their shortest day of the year. Then, the northern hemisphere minutes of daylight will start declining while they start adding up to longer days south of the equator. It’s the great circle of seasons, the revolution around the sun.
Out walking yesterday, I encountered a handsome silver tabby. Meowing with urgency, they ran to me. A collared adult, a heart-shaped metal tag informed me the friendly feline was named Rajah. Rajah was very healthy and enjoyed my fingerwork. But a truck backing up sent Rajah racing back up the lawn he came down. I wrote Rajah’s phone number on my hand (always carry a pen — it’s my talisman), then wondered, what’s the name of this street, with an eye toward looking up lost cat reports on our local neighborhood posts. As I went through that process, U2 fired up “Where the Streets Have No Name”, a U2 fave of mine from 1987.
I wasn’t planning on using it for today’s theme music, but the theme of being in a nameless place in a dream where I was searching for a street sign came up in a dream. As I thought about that dream, “Where the Streets Have No Name” was revived in the mental stream.
So here we are. This is the official video of the song, with U2 playing on top of a building. Think the Beatles did that once. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax. Cheers
The door to the sky opens at 5:35 AM. The sun’s first impact shades the night gray. Rosy yellows spread as the door grows further ajar. Tuesday, June 8, 2021, has begun its day in Ashland, Oregon. As always, jays acknowledge the event first. Crows add to the dawn conversation after a few minutes.
Air that seems related to fall is outside. Rain fell last night, dropping temperatures into the lower forty F. Thick, broken clouds mottle the blue sky. Temperatures are a far descent from normal, with highs just barely edging over sixty. So it’ll be, a spring fall day, until the door closes on the valley sun at 8:45 PM.
Today’s music of the walking kind. Hopefully dressed for summer, shorts and a tee, with a light fleece, an edgy wind knifes my bare legs, sending chills over my body as I do my thing yesterday. After just three quarters of a mile, smelling rain in the air, I call it and make the turn to home. Thinking of home brings a Delaney & Bonnie song out of mental retirement and into active thinking. Called “Coming Home” The song, made ‘with friends’, was released in the late sixties. It was one of my recurring songs as I traveled during twenty years in the military and then later in marketing for several years. Hope you enjoy it.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get that vax. Cheers
The sun popped up into the valley’s protective gaps at about 5:34 AM on this Monday morning. It’s June 7, 2021. When I typed Monday, Monday songs popped into my head as regularly as the sun rises. No songs came up when I thought of June or seven. Some came to mind after a little thought. Unlike 2021, which immediately brought a song to mind.*
The sun is due to set at 8:45 PM. Thinking about sunset unleashed an avalanche of songs. Likewise, painting another wall yesterday prompted painting songs to hit the mindstream. An exception was the song the wall sang to me, “Cover Me” (Springsteen), which hasn’t to do with painting at all.
Anyway, here is My Chemical Romance with “Famous Last Words”. Memory of that 2007 song hit the brainwaves while I finished painting. Cause I was thinking about how well things are going (only seven new cases of COVID-19 in our county! We’re tending down!). Which certainly seems like they could be famous last words.
Stay positive, test negative, wear the mask as needed, and get the vax. Cheers
*”In the Year 2525″. Nothing to do with this year, just the word, year.
The FIC (Floof-in-charge) gave that a whiskery frown. They’d been on the job for over six centuries. The sunrising thingy had a rhythm they’d notice after a few years on the job. Maybe they’d missed something on the schedule. Consulting it, they confirmed Sunday, June 6, 2021…
Nothing scheduled. Sunrise, 5:35 AM.
Pulling out the cosmo communicator, they called up to the regional system overseer. “This is the Ashland FIC. We were supposed to have a sunrise at 5:35.” They were looking around as they were talking. No sunlight. Not even false dawn. The birds were muttering about it. Bears, cats, and nocturnal animals milled around, wondering what was going on.
“What’s the problem?” the overseer said in their nasally voice.
“There’s no sunrise.” The FIC then wondered. “Did the sun rise everywhere else on schedule?” It seemed implausible that it was an Ashland-only issue, but equally amazing that it’d happened elsewhere and went unreported.
“Shit,” the overseer said. “The sun didn’t rise anywhere. Shit!”
The line went dead. The FIC looked at the cosmic communicator. A fox came up. “What’s going on? Where’s the sun?” A couple crows joined him, nodding their heads in agreement. “We have things to do,” the crows said.
“It’s coming,” the FIC mumbled, calling the overseer back.
“What?” the overseer asked. “Kind of busy now. If this isn’t an emergency — “
“I know, I’m the one — what’s going on with the sun?”
“Oh, yeah, you. We’re going to roll the day back. The sun was, um, indisposed this morning, so, um, ah, anyway, let everyone know, we’re rolling back time so that sunrise commences on schedule. They won’t notice a thing. Tell them to just be patient.”
A few seconds later, the FIC looked up as the sun swept past the eastern horizon at 5:35 AM. Right on schedule.
They snorted. Sure. Hopefully, all would go well when the sun was due to set at 8:44 PM, but they weren’t going to hold their breath.
“Through Glass” by Stone Sour (2006) is playing through my head. Something about how some days feel like forever. Ever notice that? Happened a lot when I was a child. Look at the clock, waiting for it to advance, wondering if it was possible that time stopped, or was it just the clock?
Anyway, here’s the music. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 