I’m glad I spent it with you

I have veered way off track with my Bloganuary posts, but am making a valiant attempt this week to get up to date, while everyone else has gone galloping off ahead of me! Now, where was I?

What does your ideal day look like? Was the prompt.

I immediately thought of the late Lou Reed’s song “Perfect Day.” What a wonderful songwriter he was. It is on the 1972 album “Transformer” – produced by David Bowie and Mick Ronson and including another Reed classic, “Walk on the Wild Side.”

This song, to me, is an exercise in making beautiful memories, in nostalgia, in simple pleasures, like drinking sangria…and yet. It is not just wistful and sweet; there are some undertones. It is tinged with regret, with a dash of bitterness thrown in. Lou was a master at this kind of song. He is already regretting his Perfect Day.

YouTube comments are often pretty dreadful, but one commenter observed, very perceptively: “This is what being happy feels like for someone with depression.” As someone who has lived with depression for many years, I think she is quite right. People with depression enjoy perfect days a little differently. Lou conjured up a fantasy world that might, just might make sense and turn into something real and durable. I think he is talking to himself when he sings, as a kind of addendum at the end of the song – repeating several times…

You’re going to reap just what you sow
Lou Reed, “Perfect Day”

My perfect day? That would be something like Lou’s. Enjoying an outing somewhere – it would not have to be anything grand, although Nature would have to be involved (and even better, birds). Just being with someone I love very much. Having said that, I enjoy these things at home, already. So, a day at home would be just fine for me. We have our beautiful garden filled with birds – and each other. And the early New Year weather is about as perfect as it can get: light breezes, skittish showers, sunshine like syrup.

Just a perfect day…Problems all left alone…Weekenders on our own…It’s such fun
Just a perfect day…You made me forget myself…I thought I was…Someone else, someone good
Lou Reed, “Perfect Day”

We can all be someone good on a perfect day. That’s what makes it perfect. And, perhaps, fleeting.