Heroes Not Zombies

It’s been very cloudy recently so this old photo seems very relevant. This is one of those images which evokes music in my head. Simon and Garfunkel….

Cloudy
The sky is gray and white and cloudy
Sometimes I think it’s hanging down on me

Cloudy
My thoughts are scattered and they’re cloudy
They have no borders, no boundaries
They echo and they swell
From Tolstoy to Tinker Bell
Down from Berkeley to Carmel
Got some pictures in my pocket and a lot of time to kill

Do you find that happens to you? A particular image or scene or a moment sets off a song or a tune in your head?

Sometimes I think my life has a soundtrack, the same way a movie does. The music which plays in different situations, which accompanies different experiences, does what it does in the movies. It creates an atmosphere, stirs emotions. In other words, it enriches each particular experience.

Usually this is something which just happens inside my head but sometimes if I start to whistle, hum or sing the song that’s come to mind, the person I’m with says they too had just recalled that same music in their head. For instance, maybe you looked at this photo just now and you, too, heard the “Cloudy” song. Some of you will have. Others will hear it the moment I mention it, which is why I shared some of the lyrics. Yet other readers will be saying to themselves “What’s he on about? I’d better Google Cloudy by Simon and Garfunkel and find out”.

There will be different degrees of sharing depending on our own memories and whether or not we are familiar with the same music. When it does evoke the same music then we deepen our relationship with each other. Music can do that.

I love this photo because it looks like mountain ranges, one after another, reaching back towards the horizon. Then when I look more closely I see only the foot of one mountain, the rest are all clouds.

In that moment everything becomes transitory. The solid nature of mountains melts into something more ephemeral and I’m reminded of the fact that absolutely everything changes. Even mountains. And absolutely everything is connected, interacting, slipping from one phenomenon into another, because Life flows.

“…no borders, no boundaries. They echo and they swell” – like my thoughts.