the gap between expectation, desire and cold hard reality is rarely easily broached.

which might beg questions about whether those three should ever (could ever) meet. or whether the gaping divide between quixosis and the quotidian it might just be another previously insurmountable hurdle to look back on when you’re curled up in that still so distant home.

while with every day that passes i’m becoming surer of what i hope for and more certain of what i do not see, real life is a hard slap in the face for my daydreamy nature and inherent laziness. i let myself feel like i’m stuck in a holding pattern, watching a patchwork landscape revolve below me, feeling as detached from the ground as i am from the sky above and no nearer to the drop zone now i know its coordinates.

i guess the way to resolution is about planning to make contact with the safe and solid ground. the descent is likely to be gut-churning; my ears’ll pop and i might close my eyes and whisper silent prayers for the some of the journey but when all the wheels have touched the ground and i step, blinking, onto the tarmac and the clouds i’ve been suspended in for what has been years are finally above me that’ll all feel like a million miles away.

so having poached a neil young album title for this post i figured i’d better follow through with some of his music. young’s an artist i can still go back to in a way i’ve not managed with other former obsessions - i listened too heavily to the rolling stones, bowie and the who way back when i was building a record collection to feel like seeking out listening to them much any more but neil young’s different.

even harvest has survived those student-stoner cliches (in ways which the doors and hendrix hasn’t for me) and neil young’s successfully and comfortably passed into my adult life thanks to tillman covers and nights in paris, he’s the soundtrack to a quiet night in with a bottle of wine or a wild night out with a quart of bourbon. but this, this is more where i’m at today…

neil young - music arcade