October Music, October Poem

Monday came in this morning acting his stereotypical role in shades of melodrama: dark, wet, and cold. The home furnace, which isn't yet configured to keep the house particularly warm (me still not having fully accepted the change in seasons), has kicked in the last few mornings of it's own accord. This morning I was glad for it's company as I stumbled from bed to bathroom for my morning ablutions. I guess that means I should do all those getting-ready-for-winter things. Pull in hoses, check seals, last prunings, check the furnace, and reconfigure the thermostat for the new season.

Easing out of the driveway and into my morning commute I had the roads to myself for the first two or three miles. No doubt the Monday effect had kicked in and many folks were taking a bit longer than usual to shift from the warmth of bed into the cold of the morning routine.

The first song the iPod eased into was a perfect match to the morning. Light, folky, authentic music, like it was being played in the room on a single guitar. Fionn Regan's lyric on Noah (Ghost In a Sheet) was just as beautiful and appropriate:

There's nobody out there, the rain is just starting to fall
You get some reset now you'll worry yourself thin
I hope that happiness finds it's way to your little house

While you were sleeping I, I played a ghost in a sheet
When our frames collide there's nothing left to be
The skeletal wings of birds I'll take the stairs
The ghosts of tiny animals with the tiniest of feet
The forecast is going down a storm

The third track from this morning's playlist is also an October memory piece for me, fitting for this October morning. It is an album of instrumental covers of songs written by women. I rarely buy covers albums of this sort, but this one had a chance to get to me, work on me, convince me. It was late October just after the 9/11 attacks, and a colleague (at that time, he held the position I now have) and I had just flown into Minneapolis for a conference. If you remember back to that time, travel was way down and the conference was pretty much a bust.

We gave our presentation to the handful of other participants who had made it, and then couldn't get an earlier flight back so ended up with two full days to kill in Minneapolis in late October. We'd ask folks what there was to do and everyone said, with a certain amount of pride, "Have you been to the Mall of America?" No, we aren't the shopping sort, thanks. After that, it was head scratching and off-beat second suggestions like ice fishing (though the couple that suggested that also noted it wasn't really the right time of year).

Finally, we gave in and took a bus over to the Mall of America where we shuffled from one Caribou Coffee shop to another (they had several around the mall), eventually able to give other visitors directions to most stores. We spent the better part of those two days there, for want of anything better to do.

In one shop of curiosities this album was playing. After several tracks I found myself wondering who the musician was and liking the renditions of the songs I knew. Of course, they sold the CD, so I bought a copy. Turns out my colleague had done the same, for much the same reason.

The whole playlist, really, is October music. In fact, the four song titles, arranged just as they came up and with very little punctuation editing, could be an October poem:

Noah (ghost in a sheet),
Quiet now.
Why?
Only heart.

The full (and now redundant) playlist:
- Fionn Regan: Noah (Ghost In a Sheet)
- Bob James Trio: Quiet Now
- Brian Withycombe: Why
- John Mayer: Only Heart


- Posted via Hermes.