While I generally prefer company during longer travels, I long for the moments when I ditch it and wander in these new places completely alone. And so I was, on a wintery Sunday evening, strolling through Tøyen with my ears full of music and eyes full of… anxiety.
“Waking Season is very much like the overwhelming feeling of beauty and harmony, the growing excitement of discovering a new place that will stick to your thoughts. Porcellous - seeing your discovery more clearly, distinguishing real beauty from fake gold and growing confident in your love. It is of amazing strength like determined, dependable love. Gone in Bloom and Bough are the sunny mornings on the road. Legs are willing, mind is calm and road is long. Heart gets teary…” - I noted back then.
I have since returned to this album many times, somehow always ending up listening to it while out and high on feelings. Compared to other works of Caspian, Waking Season may seem more spacy and fleeting. The fact that I associate it with winter is sort of ridiculous, given that everything here is slowly rising, blooming and very spring like. Still, somehow it introduces new hope to gloomy, depressive Januaries.
Maybe I’m the only one thinking “this year can’t be as good as the last one” and drowning in almost-giving-up, but if you’re there too, see if Caspian wakes you up. By Hickory ‘54 I’m usually rising my head and asking the stars to beat the clouds.
