The Whole of the Moon
I heard this song, written by Scottish band the Waterboys, on The Point (independent radio station out of Montpelier-- another cool thing, by the way) a few days ago. As often happens when I am in the car and want to remember something, I promptly forgot about it. But it came back to me later-- the lyrics are just so good! All its other music-y components are good too (gotta love a good horn solo), but what stayed with me was the raw delivery of the song's central declaration: You saw the whole of the moon. The speaker laments his own relatively limited and distracted perspective while marveling at the subject, who is able to see the world's true beauty and complexity:
I pictured a rainbow
You held it in your hands
I had flashes
But you saw the plan
I wandered out in the world for years
While you just stayed in your room
I saw the crescent
You saw the whole of the moon
I spend a lot of time asking myself if I'm doing enough to savor and fully experience the life I'm living. Modern American life has a lot of convenient structures to help us tune out: social media, the 9-5 workweek, the pressures to get and have and update the latest thing. I have a bias towards focusing on the past and the future--a bias I think I share with many. We're addicted to documenting and preserving the past, and to setting goals and striving for some future happiness that's just out of reach. This all happens at the expense of the present, I think. I'm not as good as I once was at enjoying and, well, seeing each moment that I experience. Part of this has to be because of all the invitations I have to focus on other stuff--work, chores, bills, tv shows, things I want, things that annoy me, silly cat videos...
This song is a nice reminder that there's something to be admired in pushing aside all those things that demand our distraction, to really see what each moment holds for us. Thank you, Scottish band I've never heard of before, for showing me this one cool thing.