The Circle Game
I’m chronically nostalgic. It just happens. I crave re-living, re-creating, re-looking at photos. Sometimes even during intense good times I want to reminisce about the moment. When I’m in it. I’m diagnosing myself as having chronic nostalgitis.
I lived through my teens believing I was reincarnated. I still feel that way sometimes. I felt that I for sure lived through the late 60’s. So much about that time resonated with me, most of all the music. I failed and then passed my drivers test listening to Simon and Garfunkel’s Sounds of Silence cassette tape. I was born in 1983. This was a little odd for my day.
I remember crying the first time I heard The Circle Game by Joni Mitchell. It was written in 1967. I heard it when I was 14, in 1997, thirty years after she started to perform it. I didn’t care that the song was about a boy, because she was obviously singing the song about me, and directly to me. I was also very happy when I was the particular ages that she mentions in the song, because it kept meaning something to me through the years. She had no idea the impact that the song would have over me, nor me at the time. We can’t return we can only look behind.
I just heard it tonight and it brought tears to my eyes. And then down my face. And onto my shirt.
The Circle Game
by Joni Mitchel
Yesterday a child came out to wonder
Caught a dragonfly inside a jar
Fearful when the sky was full of thunder
And tearful at the falling of a star
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We’re captive on the carousel of time
We can’t return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game
Then the child moved ten times round the seasons
Skated over ten clear frozen streams
Words like, when you’re older, must appease him
And promises of someday make his dreams
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We’re captive on the carousel of time
We can’t return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
Sixteen springs and sixteen summers gone now
Cartwheels turn to car wheels through the town
And they tell him,
Take your time, it won’t be long now
Til you drag your feet to slow the circles down
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We’re captive on the carousel of time
We can’t return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game
So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty
Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true
There’ll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty
Before the last revolving year is through
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We’re captive on the carousel of time
We can’t return, we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game
Before kids I used to judge time passing by other peoples kids getting so big.. With my kids the nostagitis is a daily condition, as they literally grow right before my eyes.
It’s not that I want to relive the past so much, it’s just that the good times can be really, really good, and even when they are happening I just want to bottle it up. But that is not possible, and not even a normal adult thought or goal. I actually have to fight the urge to find a bottle or even yell “THIS MOMENT IS AMAZING” and mess up the moment entirely. But I want to. I honestly really love life. I have an amazing one, but it’s not without decent challenges. I’ve lost people close to me, real health issues plague my immediate family, there are legit life “issues” I’ve gone through. But I am still obsessed with life and living it to the best of my ability and seeking moments worth bottling up. This quest is not challenging, nor impossible. Keeping myself contained is the hard part.
What do I do to combat the seasons going round and round? I take photos. I write lists. I journal. I blog. I overshare. Because I want to remember. I want others to remember. I try not to save too many scraps nor clothing items to re-create photos with in 27 years. These are the days. And when we were living them those were the days. Today is the day. With new dreams, maybe better dreams.
http://barnimages.com/ for painted ponies photo
I am so happy about your blog. Most of these words could absolutely have come straight out of my own head and heart and mouth. It was John Lennon for me, as a younger teen, but Simon and Garfunkle, and yes, Joni Mitchell, along with so many others, also made me feel that I had to have been reincarnated. And the picture taking thing; it’s crazy! Now sometimes I worry that I am remembering the PHOTO I took of something, rather than the actual moment. That’s why I try to write in my journal too, even though I don’t find as much time for that these days. I find that once I write something down, tell the story through my own words and not just images, it’s real in a different way. Realer, even. Anyway, I hear ya sister! And I am so happy to have your life-loving, totally nostalgic, funny, creative voice here on the big old interwebbed world.
Heather~ Sounds like we are soul sisters on many levels~ I for sure know I’m remembering the photo sometimes, it’s insane! Gawrsh what are our family members going to think of our journals when they read them someday?? Thank you for your kind words and mama love!