A Music Prompt - Five Years by David Bowie - (originally written January 12, 2019)

As the music fades - i am not familiar with the song - and it brings up so many questions, should I know it?  When was it written?  did it have a heyday? but as I was listening, my first thought was - I can hear the violin - I can hear the piano - I can hear the drumbeat, the beat, the time of the drum - those bits were so mesmerizing that I failed to hear the song lyrics - until I heard the words repeated 5 years - 5 years - 5 years...ah, to focus on the memories of the instruments or to focus on the lyrics of 5 years...so difficult to say which thing evokes more in terms of writing. So interesting - many times in a job interview someone will ask - where do you see yourself in 5 years? How to respond? Do you say, I hope to have your job? Do you say, I am living in the now, and in five years I will still be living in the now?  Is there an answer that is best and will get you a job? For my move to Olympia  - I said with a smile - I hope to be the state archivist or the deputy state archivist - and they both kind of laughed along with me.  But now I have been there 6 years and I am shocked.  This is the longest I have ever kept a professional position - usually I move on to new challenges and new spaces.  The person I was 2 years ago was counting down to the 5 year mark - that is when I will leave I said...and now, I will be hitting 7 years...and I have no real intention to leave.  Is it because I have finally realized that I have something to learn about myself, and this setting is the only place where I can learn it?  Is it because I have been seduced by the Pacific Northwest and I cannot imagine trying to find a job anyplace else?

Sigh

That 5 year marker - that road that stretches out before us - all we need to do is put on the proverbial blinker and merge onto it. See where it takes us - see what adventure or mishap or sadness or bliss lies ahead.  Maybe the 5 year journey takes 7 because we decided to get off at an eariler exit and we got lost - we thought too much about something that seemed really remarkable at the time - and then we look up and realize that we were stuck in some sort of Pinocchio’s playland - turning into donkeys because we were seduced by the candy and sugar and slothfulness that we forgot what we were doing there - and now we have spent 1 year on this exit from our initial 5 year road journey - and it is going to take us longer to arrive.  Maybe the destination has changed, maybe we are stuck or maybe we just pick ourselves up, wipe the sugar and marshmallow creme from the corners of our mouth, get back into the car and merge back onto the main road - sit back in the seat and turn the radio on, find a station that isn’t twangy country western or a bible beating preacher and stare at the road ahead, maybe with the window down, in case we catch a whiff of something.  Will we be okay?  Absolutely, what is that saying - it isn’t the destination that is important but the journey. The journey, right, it is the getting there rather than arrival. 

Sigh

The music - the piano, the violin, and the drumbeat - minus the lyrics and in an of themselves evoke so much - my brother, sitting at a piano or keyboard - making up some sort of tune that lulls me into a state between sleep and awake - restful, peaceful, even if sometimes the notes do not quite go. I have so many of his recordings I listen to - to feel close to him.  Sometimes it will bring tears, and others it will create a smile, especially if the recording includes some of his own groans or moans trying to decide if he likes the sound and what would make the sound feel better. So different from hearing my other brother play pieces - The Entertainer, or Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, the Music Box Dancer, or pieces from Phantom of the Opera - their music is both beautiful and yet so telling of their personality - one married to structure and precision, the other the true and exact opposite - wanting structure and yet with every fiber of his being he is violently opposed to it.  Nothing will work if there is a plan - much to the frustration of parents who both were staunch rule followers...how do you raise someone who laughs at rules and structure? Definitely was the source of confusion for everyone in the house..it is so much easier to follow the rules, right?