Suspended in Gaffa - Ra Ra Riot

If, like me, you were coming of age in the mid-eighties, Kate Bush was at the cutting edge of the alternative music scene when the term 'alternative' really meant something. As a young artist, I listened to her albums The Dreaming and Hounds of Love incessantly, filled with fantastic images of faraway places and curious people. Listening to Ra Ra Riot's cover of Suspended in Gaffa took me back to that other world. What a great homage!

Sorry for the poor sound quality; we can't have it all ...

Play

One of my favorite things about spring is those early signs of children at play. I remember when I was in elementary school, I couldn't get enough of playing outside. I graduated from hop-scotch fairly early. I had callouses on my hands from racing on the monkey bars. I was pretty fierce at jump rope, playing 'down in the valley' and peppers. I never mastered double-dutch, though. And when I got home, I would ride my bike for hours until it was dark. Even then, sometimes, we would play a neighborhood hide-n-seek. (Note: in the dark, skunks look a lot like cats.) I haven't been to a playground with children in it for years. Do they still race on the monkey bars and jump rope?

Nuances

I think when it becomes evident that Spring will indeed arrive, we begin to get greedy. Once we get a taste of those first little signs of Spring, we start looking for the lush fecundity of more flowers, more plants and more birds. I'm trying, instead, to focus on those early signs, and appreciate each little phase as Spring slowly reveals all her layers and colors. She follows her own schedule.