Re-membering
Memory. How crucial, even sublime is the faculty of memory. In the pre-dawn I dreamed. I was back at my childhood home. Perhaps it was only a fragment, a sliver of sensation. I saw, or better expressed, felt that I was in the hallway of the old house where I grew up, living with Dad, Mom, and my sister. I left home at eighteen. The dreamed hallway was more narrow and darker than it seemed when living there.
Perhaps one does not note the darkness in springtime of life, when one is quite incapable of imagining any end to the succession of years. It is well at that time, there is no need to dwell upon the darkness — which is always there, Sadly there’s time enough for such thoughts in the autumn years.
The dream prompted me to recall this song made popular by Tom Jones. I like the version performed by Joan Baez too. The Green Green Grass of Home by Joan Baez.
I learned these facts about Joan Baez:
The Baez family converted to Quakerism during Joan’s early childhood, and she has continued to identify with the tradition, particularly in her commitment to pacifism and social issues. While growing up, Baez was subjected to racial slurs and discrimination because of her Mexican heritage. Consequently, she became involved with a variety of social causes early in her career. She declined to play in any white student venues that were segregated, which meant that when she toured the Southern states, she would play only at black colleges.
Presently, Baez is a resident of Woodside, California, where she lived with her mother until the latter’s death in 2013. She has said that her house has a backyard tree house in which she spends time meditating, writing, and “being close to nature”. She remained close to her younger sister Mimi up until Mimi’s death in 2001, and mentioned in the 2009 American Masters documentary that she had grown closer to her older sister Pauline in later years. –Wikipedia
