Day 905: Michael from Boston

Many blog posts ago, I expressed a wish to perform  a new rendition of Joni Mitchell’s “Michael from Mountains,” dedicated to my boyfriend, Michael.

Michael is not from mountains. He’s from the Hyde Park section of Boston.

Here are the lyrics to “Michael from Boston” (as adapted by Ann from WordPress):

Michael wakes up from a sleep
He takes me up streets for a coffee run
Sidewalk potholes are so steep
With birdies that cheep, bunnies having fun
There’s kitties and puppies and possum-y pet toys
That lie on the lawn
in colored arrangements I snap with my camera
At dusk and at dawn

Michael from Boston
Go where you will go to
Know that I will know you
Someday I may know you very well

Michael brings me to a park
It’s light and it’s dark with the clouds up high
Kids on zip lines and on swings
Like puppets on strings hanging in the sky

He cooks us great suppers in second floor kitchens
They’re yummy and bold.
And Michael will hold me
To keep away cold when the winters come by
Michael from Boston
Go where you will go to
Know that I will know you
Someday I may know you very well

Michael leads me up the stairs
He wants me to care and he knows I do
Cats come crying at the door
And he feeds them more with a dish or two
There’s rain in the window
There’s sun in the paintings that smile on the wall
I want to hear all
But his accent’s so thick that I never do

Michael from Boston
Go where you will go to
Know that I will know you
Someday I will know you very well.

.

While I’ve snapped pictures, over my blogging years,  to illustrate almost every point in that song, Ann from WordPress  likes to show  photos she’s taken since her last post. I hope the following photos will reflect aspects of Michael, Boston, and/or those song lyrics.
                                                     

What do you  — from mountains, Boston, WordPress, or wherever — think of all this?

Now, I need to record that song with the new lyrics. Not sure how good my voice is going to sound this early in the morning. Also, who knows if I’ll get all those new words right?

Well, Ann from WordPress is having trouble recording a video of “Michael from Boston” because I’m getting no sound on my iPhone from Apple.

Because of the help and support of Michael and other kind people from Boston, I am not panicking about technical difficulties these days. However, I’ll need to restart my iPhone to try to fix this. So, I shall post this now and add a performance video later.

Okay! Still no sounds from my iPhone, but the YouTube video has sound, so here it is:

Many thanks to Michael and others from Boston, to Joni from Canada, and to you — of course! — no matter where you’re from.

Day 573: Why? Because I thought it was _____.

Yesterday, I wrote a post about the death of a woman I work with. Why?  Because I thought it was appropriate, the right thing to do, and healing.

Actually, I could probably use the same answers to the Why? about any post I’ve written here.

I didn’t get a lot of sleep Friday night, so my mind was working strangely, yesterday, when I went for my Saturday morning walk.

I took lots of photos on yesterday’s walk.  Why?  Because I thought it was appropriate, the right thing to do, healing, and fun.

Now, I have a quiz for you, this morning.

Why do I have a quiz for you? What do you think?

Here’s the first part of the quiz:

Immediately after I took one of the following thirty-two pictures, somebody asked me, “Why did you take that photo?”

Which photo do you think that was?

(1)    (2) 

(3)(4)   (5) 

(6)

(7)

(8)   (9)  

(10)

(11)   (12) 

(13)

(14)   (15) 

(16)

(17)

(18)    (19) 

(20)   (21) 

(22)

(23)   (24) 

(25)

(26)    (27) 

(28)

(29)

(30)    (31)  

(32)

Wow!  I sure took a lot of photos, yesterday. And yet, only once did somebody ask, “Why did you take that photo?”

So …. do you have any guesses about which photo that was?

Okay!  Here’s the second part of the quiz. In response to that question yesterday, I said, “Because I think it’s  _____.”

Granted, that was a very short reply, from me. I hope that didn’t seem rude, to the person who asked. What she didn’t know was this: I was in a rush, to meet my son at the end of his piano lesson.

I’m leaving the last word in my reply blank, so you can guess that, too.

Any questions? Any answers?

Before I end this post, I want to tell you these things:

• I am curious about any responses you want to share.
• I’m wondering if anybody is going to guess, correctly, what happened to me, yesterday.
• That would be difficult to do.
• Your answers are as good as mine, at this point (I believe).
• This song came on, while I was walking and taking photos, yesterday.

        (found on YouTube here)

• “Hearing “Michael from Mountains” reminded me I had committed (in this post) to rewrite the words to “Michael from Boston.”
• I rewrote the words when I got home, tried to find the guitar part online, and found this, instead.

(found on YouTube here)

Why did I rewrite the words to that song and look for the guitar part online?

Because I thought those were the next steps towards a personal goal: To record myself singing “Michael from Boston.”

Why?

Don’t you think you have enough questions to answer, at this point?

Thanks to all my readers, to the person who asked me that question yesterday, to Joni Mitchell, to my boyfriend Michael, to laotsu77 (for posting such a great instrumental back-up for the song and making my life much easier), and  — of course! — to you. Why? Because I thought it was wonderful for you to stop by, today.