Cold Mornings and Colder Air

Eef Barzelay - Thanksgiving Waves

Something happened to me for the last few months, I guess. I got all wrapped up in work, and I went to Australia, and then to Illinois, and along the way I forgot to update. Or didn't have time to update, I'm not really sure. That's not to say I have tons of free time now either, but at least it's a start.

Work is what this recollection comes down to, anyway. It's a recent memory, only within the last year. But it's vivid and every time I listen to this track I can feel the bitter cold air of 5am as I walked down darkened streets, ones that I got to know too well. I would walk to work to open the store several days a week, since I didn't have a car yet and it was really close. And even though it was late spring and early summer, it was still rather brisk that early - probably the coldest time of day, as the earth had cooled down after hiding from the sun for enough hours.

The sparsity of the song really fit my walk well, and it usually came up on shuffle on the walk there. It's sparse, just guitar and voice, two more sounds than the nearly none I'd be hearing without them. Eef's haunting voice cracking in my ears and that crisp, clear acoustic guitar getting played to death as it builds to a crescendo........ then breaks and fades.

Waves.

Life really moves like the ocean, I think sometimes. A lot - a whole lot - has happened to me in the six months I've neglected this, the project I was once so rabid about. But then, how different is the me of now from the me of then? I'm busier. I have more responsibility at work. My keychain is bigger. I have a car to get me to my new store across town.

But every now and then, Eef Barzelay comes on during my drive in on 5am mornings, as the air outside is well below freezing and far colder than any I'd walked in that summer. And I have to wonder to myself if anything's really changed, if anything ever really changes. Or maybe in advancing, I just end up making the same steps again, just somewhere different.

One would only assume the tide is rising. But I can never really know for sure.

Plug in, and turn it up...