‘Dreamland Coming On’
A photo of the early evening sky in Auckland a couple of hours ago.
Posted because of a certain dreamlike quality that resonated with me (the title is borrowed from lyrics in a favourite Joni Mitchell song that went running through my mind as I reviewed the picture – thanks Joni!).
Spring in Auckland – a stack of sun, reams of rain – and cumulus clouds like these reflecting both.
Clouds are for dreamers.
You can see what you want in their shapes.
Giant sheep and rabbits; Jesus; your late father’s face; portents of the future or maybe the outline of a Central Asian country…
Anything you like, everything you could imagine.
All illusory, but not necessarily in a bad way.
Queen Joni once sang :
” I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down and still somehow
It’s cloud’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds at all ”
– (Joni Mitchell, ‘Both Sides Now’)
“He was playing real good, for free”
– Joni Mitchell, ‘For Free’.
The busker in the Joni song played the clarinet, and the songwriter expressed her admiration of the player’s skills.
Not just that he played for free, or maybe a few coins thrown into a hat – but that he was truly free to express himself, and not trapped by the machinery of the music business that she was in.
The guy in the photo, playing a community piano in Atlanta a couple of years ago when I was there, was like that. Melodies played for himself, mainly.
I’d seen someone else doing the same thing earlier that day – see Butterfly Piano Man. Never come across the concept of the community piano before, and adored it!
Both gentlemen gave me random, life-affirming moments as they played – real good, for free.
Ebb Then Flood 