For Homo Sapiens to live is to be aware of loss.  I doubt that is the case for any other mammal.  Language, the ability to think and to communicate with symbols allows us to contemplate time in the abstract, with memory of a past, and an imagined future.  We are unable to live solely in a continuous present, until the time of our death.

The song composed by The Left Banke, and here covered by The Four Tops reminded me acutely of the paradox of awareness of breathtaking beauty and of awareness that time erodes, takes everything from us that we treasure, and ultimately life itself.

The lyric ostensibly is about the aftermath of a intimate relationship between two individuals.  Perhaps Renee prudently walked away from a relationship which could not be sustained?  For the male, the story teller, there’s loss, emotional pain that is described without bitterness, assignment of blame,  just “deep inside the tears that I’m forced to cry.”  Nature itself, the falling rain seems to cry in sympathy with the story teller.  This is a magnificent tune, holding in tension exquisite harmony, and a tragic end of what was not to be.

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The photos are of a child’s rocking chair.  The chair is antique. I used it when I was a child.  The chair is constructed of oak and is an artifact of another time.  The chair anchors memory when I was quite young, of places, and of parents who took care of me.  I preserved the chair, and now it is used occasionally by a granddaughter who is 28 months old.

She delights herself in mastery of language, — one word at a time.