Thoughts by a Windowsill

The winter elements bring to my mind the word “desiccated.” With Mother Nature having stripped all green from the maples, oaks, and brush, I mostly see skeletal branches above and beside me. These spindly things are like brown and dried-up arteries running over the pale winter sky.

I look at my windowsill and the plants that rest on it. Exposed to the elements they would die quickly. In the artifice of my apartment, under my control, they are in a constant state of growth and comfort. We like to believe we control the fates of ourselves and the things around us. To helplessly watch the things we see in our day-to-days wither away, more victims of time, reminds us of our own mortality.

We don’t have as strong a concept of mortality as we used to. That’s what I suspect. A disease of yesteryear would wipe out a third of us, and it would scare many of us, but the modern compulsion to control and reign in was not so much a part of the process. Now we’re more prone to believe that immortality is just a matter of politics or “supporting the better science” or “having the best retirement plan.” I suspect that death for the delusional is an especially terrifying matter.

I’m listening to a song I first heard in 2017 and finding myself in a poignant and melancholy mood. I love the song, but I’m not sure if I love the song because of the melody or because of the place and time it takes me to. I wonder if this fusion of memory and melody is what aging does to music. With each passing year we feel a more turbulent maelstrom of emotions from our old songs, not because of the brilliance of the composition, but because of the memories that the songs stir.

I observe that as people get older they tend to stick to the songs from their youth. Maybe this is where their most vivid memories reside. Maybe this is where most change and most significant events occurred.

May the song I seek always be the one I hear tomorrow.