Both Sides Now

Always loved Joni. Her voice was ours, young and bright and knowing and her song made a lot of us who came of age in the turbulent 60s feel like we knew a lot because we'd seen it (even experienced it) first hand. We bought the concept.

"Ya, I've been there myself".

But that wasn't the truth at all. Maybe we weren’t listening to her closely enough and hearing the caveat: “I really don’t know life at all”.

There was a lot more to see of the sides of  a lot of things that "both" just didn't cover even with the peyote perspective factored in.  Joni wasn’t old enough to guess. I know I wasn’t. When you're 20-something you think you know a lot. Maybe you do. At least about a little. But "both sides"? I think not.

But eventually the sides are revealed and you find that “both” and “up and down” are only part of the perspective and even when your knowledge base grows it suffers shrikage with the growing awareness of the tip of the iceberg – no, the massive glacier of things you know little or nothing about. So your world grows smaller while the universe expands and you do the best you can to master that little world. Which would have satisfied most people from a different generation.

Less so the children of the 60s.

There's always the Other Side and the only way you can see and know it is to go where it is. Adjust your perspective. Or attitude. Or latitude. So said the Prophet Buffett.

Joni found the truth. A few years ago I heard her rerelease of Both Sides and heard in her voice what she'd learned and it was a whole different scene of clouds and love and life.

The changes of place and perspective and the awareness of life that living it a long time brings constant revelation. If you drive a certain set of roads for a long time and learn where the potholes and the shortcuts and the scenes of beauty are you can understand the ease of movement through life that some of the aged have mastered.

"I Get Around" The Beach Boys sang back then.They didn’t know the half of it.

They do now.