N O W

With apologies to Mother Me, who I told I would be writing about Scooter Libby today. Maybe tomorrow. This will be another brain dump post.

This morning, I was at the gym as usual, listening to the iPod as usual, and I put the playlist that I've made of music from my TV show on, and a song I had forgotten that I added popped up. It isn't part of the show's list of songs; they play a TON of classic rock on this show. Rush, Journey, Def Leppard, among others. Anyway, they've used "Working Man" by Rush, but I like a few other Rush tunes, and since it is still in keeping with the tone of the show, I added "Freewill" "Tom Sawyer" and "Time Stand Still". When "Time Stand Still" came on today, I stopped what I was doing to listen.

Once upon a time, this was my favorite song in the whole wide world. Rush released the double album Chronicles in 1990, and "Tom Sawyer" and "Subdivisions" were popular at my high school, but I wasn't all that into them. When I was in Sweden, though, an expatriot friend had the album and taped it for me when I said I liked "Tom Sawyer" but didn't know much else that they'd done. I had a Sony Walkman, a lot like this one that I listened to on trains and busses as I traveled around Sweden, and Chronicles was often among the tapes I carried. I listened to "Time Stand Still" over and over and over again, the chorus had meaning for me then. I'm not going to reprint the entirety of the lyrics here, see the link above if you're curious. But in part, they say

Time stand still
I'm not looking back
But I want to look around me now
Time stand still
See more of the people and places that surround me now
Time stand still

Freeze this moment a little bit longer
Make each sensation a little bit stronger
Experience slips away
Experience slips away
Time stand still

Almost every time I listened to it, it made me emotional. It described, exactly, how I felt about the year that I spent living in Sweden. I wanted to stop time, to never return to America, to spend some time looking around. Each time the calendar turned to a new month, it brought panic to me, the time I had (precious little) in Sweden was slipping away from me, faster and faster every day.

When I came back to the States in August of 1992, the Grunge movement was in full swing, and I was into "Alternative" music, the Pixies, the Pouges, punk, the Grateful Dead....and my classic rock collection fell by the wayside. I never stopped listening to Def Leppard, but the rest of it became something I felt was cringe-worthy, not worth listening to. I'm glad that I've rediscovered the classic rock. I feel obligated to point out that this stuff was all classic rock before I started listening to it, I'm not THAT old.

But Time Stand Still reminded me again today that I've always had trouble living in the NOW, living for the present moment, taking a look around and appreciating what I've got. There's a few other songs on the iPod that talk about this...Def Leppard has one called "Now"...Buffett has one called "Breathe in, breathe out, move on" and I'm hoping that by listening to them more often, I'll remember to take that moment, to look around and appreciate what I've got now.

Dreams and goals are important, don't get me wrong. I've got plans for the future. Kinda nebulous, sure, but they're plans. But living in the now is important too. So thanks, Rush, for reminding me of that.