Stuff I'm Listening to - Delerium featuring the Mediaeval Baebes

 

Artist: Delerium (featuring the Mediaeval Baebes)

 

Title: Aria
 

Lyrics:

I have wist, sin i couthe meen,
That children hath by candle light
Her shadewe on the wal iseen,
 
And ronne therafter all the night.
Bisy aboute they han ben
To catchen it with all here might.
 
And whom they catchen it best wolde wene,
Sannest it shet out of her sight,
The shadewe catchen they ne might,
 
For no lines that they couthe lay.
This shadewe i may likne aright
To this world and yesterday
 

Why?: I’ve discovered over the years that there are songs, parts of songs, or even tones, that can instantly change my mood from utter despair all the way up to total euphoria. Some songs will even put me in a meditative state where I can instantly visualize things and relax. Some of the songs and tones are what you would expect. Choral songs, chants, wind chimes, percussion heavy music. The droning of a didgeridoo is soothing to me, as is the droning of bag pipes (I swear I must be a reincarnated Highlander!... I actually do like haggis... ). The 10 hours of Enterprise engine noise that you can find on YouTube? It is a white noise that keeps my geeky-self remarkably calm.

Delirium was introduced to me on the dance floor of Sanctuary where I learned it was a side project of one of the members of Skinny Puppy and Frontline Assembly. Fitting really as they performed the songs that would instantly unseat me from the booth or table and my friends and I would race to the dance floor to secure a roomy spot to flail about in the guise of dancing. Delirium was no different. It was a danceable sound and always made me happy to move along with it, but the dancing for a Delirium song was a little more joyful versus the angry pogoing I was used to doing. 

The first time I heard this song, it was the musical equivalent of the sunlight streaming through the leaves in a forest.

Stuff I'm Listening To - Holiday Road

 

Artist: Lindsay Buckingham

Title: Holiday Road

Lyrics: 

I found out long ago
It's a long way down the holiday road

Why?: 

Every great travel holiday starts off with some ritual. For the last fifteen years (for me anyway), the ritual was and still is to play this classic song at the start. I'm not superstitious by any means. Perhaps it's best imagined as a little 'prayer' to the vacation gods that our vacation will go more or less as planned and that we're not stuck having to break into an amusement park and hold John Candy hostage by the end of it all. 

So far so good! 

We've never endured any unfortunate situation from 'National Lampoon's Vacation', though admittedly, my husband will fully admit he wouldn't have issue with Christie Brinkley racing beside him in her Ferrari. I fully admit that I am as frantic as the patriarch of the Griswolds. During our first trip to Cuba with my husband, he was dismayed that I'd written up an hour by hour itinerary for our trip.

After checking into the resort in Cuba, he promptly headed to the bar, seated himself with 'dos cervezas por favour' and cigar, and told me he had no intention of doing anything else that day, except, perhaps, to eat dinner. I was frantic and ended up walking the resort twice over to burn off my frantic energy from the usual hustling and bustling Toronto pace I'm used to. I wasn't mad. He and I just have different ideas of what is relaxing. It took me two days to unwind, with the help of 27 pina coladas and a bout of hangover/schedule adjustment and minor 24 hour stomach bug that flattened both of us, to finally slow me down. The itinerary was reduced to one thing, the local bat cave. The rest of our trip was figuring out what to do over breakfast each day and it was unforgettable and amazing.

For this week, we're off camping in one of our provinces beautiful Provincial Parks, a waterfront site booked months ago, the same day that the government opened up the campgrounds in anticipation of loosening quarantine restrictions. The campsite was booked promptly by my husband and I was instructed to sort it out with my work later. Fortunately for me, my work is a great place and my bosses are incredibly accommodating. I've still written up a rough itinerary for the trip (read: I made up a detailed spreadsheet in Excel), but it remains unshared with my husband for the sake of his sanity.