Rarely heard but liked

Snapped at the Pacific Ocean on 1 January, 2024.

Listening to a playlist tonight, the title of which is the same as this entry. It starts off with "Passing Through Air" by Kate Bush, which leads to "Edge of Seventeen" and "Stand Back" by Stevie Nicks. Basketball is on, the Knicks and Bulls, a fire popping near where I'm seated. It's a January evening, 2024, a new year having dawned. I read five chapters of my latest manuscript this morning, machine-quilted a lap blanket this afternoon, and now it's time to ponder what all this might mean, if anything, as music plays, a fire sparks, and minutes slip past in the very early stages of the next year of my life.

I was thinking about my life, 2024, and how chill this year has begun. Chill as in mellow, also cool, rain and gray skies the norm. Music has been blasting, well, playing at a chill level, for my ears aren't happy if the tunes rawk too loudly, lol. Past Me stares hard, cranking it to 11 while Future Me nods, noise-cancelling headphones secure on her head. I try to straddle those gals, listening to music on my phone but not turned up much past 3.

So 2024. Wow. That's nearly a quarter-century past 2000, and in another quarter I'll be in my eighties. DUDE! No joke, but yeah, a couple decades slip by and suddenly I'm, uh, edging toward the senior discount. Yet I don't feel that aged, well, not tonight. The shoulder is feeling good, a small cold edging back, although seventeen is so far away I can't really imagine what that was like. Okay, I can fake my way through it in the fiction, but there's no way in this world I'd ever want to be that young again.

Yet.... Songs I listened to twenty, thirty years ago hum from my mobile, and in writing this post, I'm bobbing my head and shoulders to the rocking rhythms, tapping my feet as the music fills my heart with incredible joy. Stevie Wonder's "I Was Made To Love Her" is next, these songs finding their way onto this playlist when I was making a different one, hence I dumped several fave tunes under a title that doesn't make a lot of sense for a blog entry, but that's just the mood I'm in tonight.

Kind of funky, like "Master Blaster", also by Mr. Wonder. Kind of contemplative, kind of thrilled that here I am again, dipping my toes into another calendar year. Several people I knew personally and through others died last year. That made me introspective as well as sorrowful, amazed at how precious and precarious our existences are. Rolling that through one's head and then slamming into January, I found myself grateful to be celebrating another new year, also cognizant that getting another twenty-four or twenty-five of them would be quite a blessing.

That's not often pondered in one's thirties, or even forties. But now pushing sixty, dude! It's pretty in my face no matter how many old songs I listen to or love stories I write or even quilts sewn together. The truth of the matter is if I get another twenty new year's I'll be older than either of my parents managed. What do I want to accomplish in the next couple decades? Finishing my current novel series would be great, ha ha. I want to make a Wandering Wife quilt, as well as complete the many EPP projects I have going, LOL.

Travel would be nice, but not essential; all our years in Britain fulfilled my yearning to see other parts of the world. I'd LOVE to visit Yorkshire with the kids and grandkids, but that's a pretty tall order. If any/all of them get back to that lovely island with or without me, I'd be pleased. I don't have an actual bucket list, rather I appreciate the surprises I might never had dreamed up on my own, like living in England, or dwelling in Humboldt County.

I'm very happy publishing my novels, sewing quilts, and hopefully I'll dabble more than last year in the garden. Maybe I'll listen to a wider range of albums, or to be honest, digital music, than I usually do. I have some good books to read that my eldest daughter has suggested. And of course there's time to be spent at the beach, admiring the waves that lately have been enormous! I could also stand to lose twenty pounds, but....

But honestly this post has rambled far enough. The Knicks are winning by six with three minutes left in the third quarter, the playlist ended several minutes ago, although I played "Passing Through Air" once more for good measure. Whatever your rarely heard's but liked are, enjoy them this year. You never know when you might listen to those gems again.