winterbadger | friends: music as therapy

Being right at the tail end of the baby boomers, I've always had a strange time figuring out what was "my" music. But whatever it is, Simon and Garfunkel are definitely a part of it. And one of their songs has been running in my head today.

I've been feeling low lately. I know it's nothing that won't pass in time, but it doesn't feel good to be living through it now.

Many's the time I've been mistaken, and many times confused
Yes and I've often felt forsaken, and certainly misused
Ah but I'm alright, I'm alright, I'm just weary to my bones
Still you don't expect to be bright and bon-vivant
So far away from home, so far away from home

And I know that many of my family and friends are worse off than I am. Struggling with aging, struggling with fear, struggling with jobs, struggling with this rotten economy. Feeling the weight of the world on their shoulders.

And I don't know a soul who's not been battered
I don't have a friend who feels at ease
I don't know a dream that's not been shattered or driven to its knees
But it's alright, it's alright, for we lived so well, so long
Still, when I think of the road we're traveling on
I wonder what's gone wrong, I can't help it I wonder what's gone wrong

But there's a lot to be hopeful for as well. Times are hard, but they will get better. Look at the last eight years--I wasn't sure I'd ever feel proud of my country again, it was so sunk in cruelty and villainy and evil.

And I dreamed I was dying, I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly
And looking back down at me, smiled reassuringly
And I dreamed I was flying, and high up above my eyes could clearly see
The statue of liberty, sailing away to sea, and I dreamed I was flying

But we've changed. We chose a different path. We still have huge problems to surmount, but we're a very capable people. We're rediscovering our old allies, we're looking for our reserves of strength, we're facing the fact that things are going to be difficult instead of pretending that all we need to do to win a war is to spend money, or that all we need to do to address economic problems is to cut taxes. The country that survived the Great Depression will survive this one. The country that created Apollo (and Mercury and Galileo and Voyager and Viking and Magellan and all the others) isn't going to run out of new ideas or smart people to make them work.

We come on a ship they called Mayflower
We come on a ship that sailed the moon
We come in the ages' most uncertain hours and sing an American tune

And I have to believe that if a hue, complex, difficult thing like a country can turn around, make a new start, find a better direction, that our individual troubles can't be entirely insurmountable. Not if we help each other. Not if we make sure that, however hard our circumstances may seem, we keep a weather eye on everyone else and lend a hand when it's needed.

And it's alright, oh it's alright, it's alright, you can be forever blessed
Still tomorrow's gonna be another working day and I'm trying to get some rest
That's all I'm trying, to get some rest.

OK, back to work...