Jam Today
Tomorrow, the roads?
That was a pleasant outing. Maybe I should write a story to remember it.
Got to lunchtime today, and still couldn’t decide between wandering down into Falmouth as usual, and driving into Truro to get some business done. The whole thinking-about-it process, ticking away in the back of my mind through the morning, eventually got me to remembering Andrea Scher.
More than a decade ago — hey, time does pass — I followed Andrea Scher’s blog (same link, but straight to the blog). It was simpler back then, about living a life and starting a family. One piece of her advice stuck with me: if you can’t choose, ask yourself: which is the more alive choice?
I decided to drive into Truro. But first — another memory — I looked up Maya Stein. Same time of my life, similar story — with the added detail that Maya wrote the poem Tulips, which I’ve shared before (with permission). Favourite poem. Maya does the 10-line Tuesday poems, which I had lost along the way. Until now.
Blocking the river
I drove as far as the roadworks in Penryn, first of the day. Sat there in the stopped traffic thinking: what are we mending the roads for? Aren’t we about to stop fossil-fuel engines and thus big, heavy, powerful cars and trucks? Do we need better roads? The diversions take us via the back-roads anyway, so…
Moving slowly along Commercial Road, looking out at the shop-fronts blocking my view of the river, I settled into the mood. The experience was almost meditative. But then the road cleared, and all the way to Truro, the Diversion signs weren’t for me.
Two shelves of nothing
Went to the bank and got that out of the way. Dropped into the HMV store because I was passing and found a box set of — wow! — The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin. Online had told me that was unavailable, so I bought it. Hope it holds up.
Also, reduced, The Shape of Water and Deliverance. I’ve been thinking about going back to DVDs and CDs, and so far this year, I’ve managed it.
Deliverance. Lawks. I haven’t seen The Shape of Water. I have shelves of books and two shelves of DVDs. Streaming has given me — two shelves of nothing. I’m sure there’s something meaningful to say about that.
Before long I was sitting in another stationary line of traffic pointing towards Falmouth.
Surprised by lost time
What made the day was the next daydream. I’d found a handful of CDs, no cases, in a folder of ancient papers — key words here: clear-out; dog-eared folders, not touched for years — and after reading a few old letters and the results of an aptitude test I did at age 17, I put the CDs in the car for possible listening in the next — well, this traffic jam.
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And would you believe it — The Jam. Haven’t listened to The Jam since my friend Nick was into them at university. I put the CD in the slot and — you know that moment in the Beatles’ A Day In the Life? “…somebody spoke, and I went into a dream…” It’s at 2.48 if you click that link. Aah…
Except that I went into a dream on hearing The Jam’s The Butterfly Collector for the first time in, oh, fifty years or so. Not the lyrics so much, but there was a person, and a time, and a place, and all of a sudden — forgive the cliche, but I was there. For several miles.
Tales From The Riverbank
I came out of it in that atmospheric stretch of road just before the Norway Inn. High banks, tall trees arching over the road, a fleeting impression of a dark, cathedral-like high space, and then the road opening out on the left to the mud flats (low tide), the river (high tide), the flooded road (very high tide).
This was low tide. We stopped. I would the window down, turned the engine off, and looked out at the mud flats. Enough water running in the narrow channel for a kayak, maybe. Otherwide, mud almost up to high-tide level. I’ll look up dredging when I get home, I decided.
[And I’ll find this link too, and this one.] Dredging used to happen and could happen again. These rivers could be a lot more navigable (again) than they are now.
I could be sitting in a small sailing boat in a queue of small sailing boats, waiting to use wind energy rather than — I turned the engine back on — belching exhaust fumes onto this trapped road.
I could trail my fingers in the water.
That’s Entertainment, said The Jam.
Instead, we build roads, or try to. We mend roads as though we’re planning for even more future traffic. It’s as if we haven’t joined up the thinking — or rather, it’s as if we’re planning to fail with the climate.
Just imagine those pristine future roads, all of them running with melted tarmac in the super-hot climate.
We crawled through Perranarworthal, belching fumes.
I turned the music up.
This Is The Modern World, said The Jam.
Yes!
Pretty sure I have a poem in an anthology put together by Maya Stein. I’ve just ordered a paperback copy of Maya’s Lost Highways and Living Rooms.
If you’re me — which is unlikely unless I wasted all that money on therapy — you’ll also find memories in The Jam’s Tales From The Riverbank.
