Tag Archives: Richard Harris

IMPERMANENCE

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IMPERMANENCE according to wikipedia means:

Impermanence[1] is one of the essential doctrines or three marks of existence in Buddhism. The term expresses the Buddhist notion that all of conditioned existence, without exception, is transient, or in a constant state of flux.

I’ve been thinking about that transient state lately.  It is very true about: Here today, gone tomorrow.  Life is that vulnerable.  I am feeling that fragile.  Things are turning faster and faster – like coming close to the end of  the toilet paper roll.  All of a sudden the paper ends up a puddle on the floor.  The puddle is me.

IMG_1983That is how I am feeling on this warm balmy December day in Saskatoon.  I watch the snow melting in slow drips off the roof.  I hear Richard Harris singing MacArthur’s Park melting in the dark and someone left a cake in the rain.  I’m feeling languid, coming undone in its wake.

Quick!  Someone throw me a life line, a fuel injection, anything.  Wait.  I’m all right for I know that this, too, shall pass.  I will sing like Richard Harris and his MacArthur’s Park.  Nothing stays the same – ever.  There’s a reason and a season for everything.

IMG_1965There would be another song for me
For I will sing it
There would be another dream for me
Someone will bring it

I will take my life into my hands and I will use it
I will win the worship in their eyes and I will lose it
I will have the things that I desire
And my passion flow like rivers through the sky

(Richard Harris – Macarthur Park Lyrics | MetroLyrics)

 

THE PARK AND THE OTHER THING

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I have always love Richard Harris’ rendition of MacArthur’s Park even though he is really not a singer and the lyrics are sappy.  I guess it’s a love song.  Can it be a love song if it’s about a breakup of a love affair?  Just listen to the chorus.

MacArthur’s Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down
Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don’t think that I can take it
‘Cause it took so long to bake it
And I’ll never have that recipe again, oh no

Sometimes I feel like I’m the cake in the rain, my icing melting in the dark.  Sometimes I don’t think I can put myself back together again.  Recipes are hard to come by, you know.  You always think you are the only one, but experience has taught me that I don’t have exclusive claims to all the misery.  I have plenty of company.  A lot of us are in the park with our dogs, melting in the rain, or freezing our buns in the cold.  We provide good company for each other.

I’ve been done with misery for quite awhile now.  I still get my blues now and then and you all know I can get real cranky like a little Chihuahua.    But I have met people there with real misery.  They look very ordinary, just like you and me.  Most of them are full of energy and joy.  They have to keep up with their dogs, right?  Then you hear their stories.

One woman lost her husband to suicide.  He hung himself.  They were going through a divorce.  Another told me she just got diagnosed with cancer.  A fair number of us just got plain old depression, Winston’s Churchill’s black dog.

So it’s not bad company.  We walk and talk.  Sometimes we fall down, tripping over our dogs playing too close.  But we get up, dust ourselves off and continue on.  That’s how you live…fall down and get up.  Richard Harris sings it better.

There will be another song for me
For I will sing it
There will be another dream for me
Someone will bring it
I will drink the wine while it is warm
And never let you catch me looking at the sun
And after all the loves of my life
After all the loves of my life, you’ll still be the one

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