Valentina Tereshkova was about sixteen years my senior when she became the first female space traveler. I was roughly six months shy of my tenth birthday when she made history on June 16, 1963 with her 71-hour flight. She circled the Earth 48 times during her space flight on the Soviet Union’s Volstok 6 spacecraft. I wish this information had resided in my head as a memory; it did not. I learned about her and her feat from a snippet of Today in History, published online this morning by the Associated Press (AP). A Google search returned an impressive volume of background material about her. I wonder whether her accomplishment was widely publicized in the US at the time? I have no idea. Not that it matters a great deal to most of us, but she is alive today, having outlived two spouses. In Russian, her name is written (and presumably pronounced) as Валентина Терешкова; for the record. Why do these tidbits of information intrigue me? I have no idea. Perhaps it’s the fact that they are new…to me, anyway. Maybe it is because they spark my curiosity just enough to explore a little deeper. It could be that my brain yearns for something different—something other than staring out the window or rethinking old, worn dreams and fantasies. Or, maybe, it is simply coincidental; becoming aware of an empty space in my head at precisely the same moment I encounter a plug of questionable substance to fill that gap.
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Song lyrics stick with us for many different reasons. And they adhere to our psyches for different amounts of time. Part of the opening verse of a song written by Townes Van Zandt more than 50 years ago have stayed with me for what seems like an eternity. The song, Waitin’ Around to Die, muses about “the emptiness of external solutions to inner turmoil,” according to americansongwriter.com. That subject may explain my appreciation of the lyrics. Or it may be something else. Here is the first verse, the one that sticks with me:
Sometimes I don’t know whereThis dirty road is taking meSometimes I can’t eve know the reason whySo I guess I keep a-gamblin’Lots of booze and lots of ramblin’It’s easier than just waitin’ around to die
Yesterday, while tinkering with playing music from Pandora through our television, I listened to a few other sets of song lyrics that I find engrossing. Among them, several by Greg Brown, one of my favorite folksingers-songwriters:
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- Dream Café
- Spring Wind
- Rexroth’s Daughter
- Laughing River
Of course, I wandered through a bunch of other favorites, stopping finally after I listened to John Prine’s All the Best several times. Almost all of my favorite music is tinged with sadness and/or regret. My brain may be hard-wired to respond to words and music combined in precisely the right way to evoke powerful emotions.
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The morning is, again, grey and listless. The thin fog dulls the trees’ images as it drifts in and out of the branches. I can almost see the air outside, heavy with humidity. I expect visits by a home health nurse, probably today, and a physical therapist, probably Wednesday. I would like to tell them not to come see me. But it’s hard to convince the nurse to stay away because the patient is “not feeling up to it;” that only puts her motives in overdrive. And lying to a physical therapist by claiming to have “twisted a muscle” has the same impact on him. I’m just not in the mood to be “evaluated” and pressured to do more, move more, breathe deeper, and hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. I know what I should do…and I will…but I get resentful when strangers enter my home and demand that I meet their expectations. This week, I may bare my teeth and growl gutturally as I greet them at the door. Ach! It’s raining again. I don’t mind, though, because I am inside, looking out. It would be a different kettle of fish if the situation were reversed.
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Time to reflect on the variations in weather. No reason, really. It’s just time.
