Who Knows Where The Time Goes?

The opening track on side two of Judy Collins' Colors of the Day* is "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?" Her delivery is heartfelt, poignant and moving. I've listened to it countless times over the years and it always soothes. The lyrics begin like this.

Across the morning sky, all the birds are leaving
How can they know it's time for them to go?
Before the winter fire, I will still be dreaming
I do not count time
Who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?

Time is experienced in many ways. There are the seasons, and there are the days -- sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset. Sometimes, when you are longing for something, time drags. Other times it seems to fly. 

The birds, in tune with the seasons, depart for warmer climates each autumn. But the narrator accepts the winter, lost in a different kind of time... that is timeless.

Sad deserted shore, your fickle friends are leaving
Ah, but then you know it's time for them to go
But I will still be here, I have no thought of leaving
I do not count the time
Who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?

The second verse addresses departure in a different manner. But our narrator is unconcerned, floating in that timeless sphere beyond it all. The reason is explained in verse three. She is not alone while her lover is near. And though disruptions occur, and he flies away, she knows that he will return, like the dawn, like the birds, like the ebb and flow of the sea. She's in that state of being where she's untouched, nourished by the painful sweetness of things we don't fully understand but accept. 

And I am not alone while my love is near me
I know it will be so until it's time to go
So come the storms of winter and then the birds in spring again
I have no fear of time
Who knows how my love grows?
Who knows where the time goes?

The song speaks of mystery, of something ethereal, indefinable. Resignation? Acceptance? Perhaps it's simply that sense of being immersed in timelessness. 

Where is this timeless place? It's an interior spatial plane, a place we miss because of the blistering pace of most of our lives. We rush about from here to there, escaping from our selves. 

In Psalm 23 the psalmist writes, "He leads me beside still waters." Those "still waters" are within. If we would just be still we could be comforted and nourished by them. 

* * * 

Myintroduction to Javier Bardem came via the Coen Brothers’ No Country For Old Men. His portrayal of Anton Chiguhr, the villain he brought to life on the silver screen, was more than memorable. It also won him a well-deserved Oscar as Best Supporting Actor. And it stirred a desire in me to see more of his films. (I have since seen many.)

One of these was The Dancer Upstairs, directed by John Malkovich. It's a powerful film on so many levels. The casting is perfect, especially the lead characters played by Bardem and Laura Morante. (You can read my review here.) 

In the final scene, post-climax, there's a subtle resolution that takes place. The scene is accompanied by a soundtrack featuring another version of "Who Knows Where The Time Goes?" except it's not by Judy Collins or Sandy Denny, the song's author. Rather, it is Nina Simone, and it's an absolutely wonderful rendition, beginning with a lengthy spoken introduction, both in this recording and also in the film. The purpose of this blog post was, in part, to share this song:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXeh742_jak

* Colors of the Day is actually a Best of Judy Collins album, so the song originally appeared earlier, on the flip side of her version of "Both Sides Now."

A Good Day for Randomness

"He saw what he did not see."

My dreams seemed exceptionally vivid upon waking this morning. There were a whole series of images and scenes which varied in their degree of bizarreness, many involving people I know. In some scenes I was part of the action, in others just a spectator. One scene was somewhat shocking, and some exceedingly involved. The very last featured John Malkovich. I was watching him as he boarded a train. He was dressed in somewhat loose fitting Oriental attire and there was a side door onto the traincar which was low to the ground (much like a subway platform) and in a childlike, goofy way he would step into the compartment and sit himself onto the floor. As he did so, some brightly colored object of enormous size like a multi-colored cash register would fall out from under his shirt or even come out of the sleeve. It would make a clatter on the platform and he would giggle and the authorities would take it away. He would be standing outside the train again, and would then go through this act again. Four or five times in a row, as Malkovich sat down inside the compartment, a large object would tumble out onto the platform. Each time, he would smirk or laugh, trying to conceal his merriment. I got the impression he was a holy prankster of sorts.

Like many dreams, it all seemed so real as I was watching. But when I woke, it no longer mattered that I didn't understand what was going on.

So, for a few minutes, I will make a list of random observations from my desk, from about my walls, the floor. Today is a good day for randomness. And like my dreams, it doesn't have to make sense, yet it will be -- to some extent -- revealing.

501 Great Writers, a book I received for Christmas. Published by Barron's, Julian Patrick general editor.

A Medica card, UnitedHealthare.

A Sony MagicGate Memory Stick for my camera, purchased on EBay. It doesn't work for some reason. Let the buyer beware.

An Olympus Digital Voice Recorder, model WS-110. Made in China, I recently recorded and interview of George Barris, of Batmobile and Mokeemobile fame, using this device which has a USB plug-in so you can download recorded files onto your computer and play them with Windows Media Player or iTunes.

A couple packages of Post-it brand page markers for marking pages in a book or magazine. I have a pink one marking the page of Geoffrey Chaucer in the book 501 Great Writers, and an orange one marking the page of Arthur Rimbaud.

Two flash drives, one with the letters HIN on it. HIN stands for Hot Import Nights.

A Post-it note with my cousin Gary's phone number on it. Gary was my favorite cousin growing up and we used to talk about living on the same block when we grew up. He became a fireman, and later fire chief I believe, in Oklahoma. I became an advertising and PR guy in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Sometimes things don't go the way you expect.

A Verizon cell phone, slim black, always on vibrate.

A 2.5 gig Mobile Hard Drive. My Sony Vaio laptop crashed about six weeks ago and a computer wizard extracted all its contents onto this little silver box about the size of a 3 x 5 card. 2.5 gigs seems fairly incomprehensible to me. My first Mac, a 512Ke, had no memory for storage at all, just a disk drive slot where your pushed in the 512K disk. It had about 1000 K of "working memory" I believe. My next Mac, the SE, had a 20MB hard drive. I enlarged its capacity with a program called Disk Doubler.

An envelope with Wilmer A. Wagner's Advance Directive, or living will. I pulled it from my file cabinet because it's about time I make one for myself, just in case. Two friends of mine who are my age have had heart attacks recently.

A Seagate backup drive. It holds 100 or 200 gigabytes, I think.

An AMSOIL G-1406. This is a piece of literature which I wrote and designed back in 1997 when our company introduced the Quick Lube program and XL-7500 synthetic motor oils. AMSOIL was the first synthetic motor oil to satisfy API certification standards in 1972. The founder had been a jet fighter pilot in the Air National Guard, and was determined to use jet engine oil technology in cars. And he did it. Because of the extended drain intervals and cleaner operation, these oils have genuine environmental benefits. This literature item was designed for use as a point-of-sale piece for a counter top display which I also had a hand in designing.

An off-white plastic wall outlet with two slots.

An empty beer bottle, Full Moon.

A couple nickels, one here and one there.

A list of things I have to do today. But first, I'd better walk out and get the paper and feed the animals. We're down to a cat, three ducks and two dogs.

Four harmonicas, one of them a Hohner Marine Band in the key of C. One is a Hohner Golden Melody, D, and two are Blues Harps, in C and G. I also have a complete set of Johnson Blues King harps which I purchased on eBay and keep in a satchel. The four cited are my favorites. The two Blues Harps were purchased when I was a freshman at Ohio University.

What kind of random things do you see from where you're sitting as you read this blog entry today?