2021-07-07
Peaceful Easy Feeling

PEACEFUL EASY FEELING

Yesterday, we were driving to ABQ to pick out some cabinets with the guidance of my father-in-law, when he commented, “I like this song. What radio station is it? I’ve been having trouble finding music I like on the radio.”

I explained that it was actually a satellite station, which does a great job of catering to specific tastes.

Currently, my choice of music is one abetted by both nostalgia and forward-looking empathy.

Thus, I’ve been leaning toward turning the dial toward one station - The Bridge on SXM (SiriusXM Satellite Radio), which plays “the mellow side of ‘70s classic rock,” which (for me) reminds me of those wonderful formative years when we begin to discover the essence of ourselves, we harbor secret crushes and begin to form relationships that can last a lifetime.

Likewise, 103.3 eD.FM out of Albuquerque has done a great job of playing the “stuff we like” for me. Albeit it has a long history, the latest stage of it’s evolution requires that its format “has no DJs and a wide playlist of Top 40 hits from the early 1970s to the present. Since 2015, eD FM also does "80s Throwback" playing all hits from the 1980s about every other weekend.”

In other words, at least for me, it gently strikes a nerve that pings like a tuning fork, if only because the music takes me back to my most formative years from Hoover Junior High in 1978 through graduating from UCLA in 1989.

Strangely, yet intimately-enough, whereas some of the songs can take me back to a specific moment or person, e.g., Elton John’s 1980 hit “Little Jeannie” reminds me of one of my eighth grade side-crushes of the same name; and pretty much any song on Michael Jackson’s 1979 “Off The Wall” album takes me back to dancing alone in my room on Friday nights, while listening to KFRC on my scratchy AM radio; lately, the songs that ring most true for me often are those that detail generalized experiences that reflect my life here and now.

For example, any old song that mentions a “desert” is almost immediately added to my Santa Fe playlist on Spotify, which is part of the reason I’ve taken to listening to The Eagles a lot more these past few weeks, while working hard to sculpt and preserve our land at Hacienda Dominguez & Chelenzo Farms.

Here’s a good example of those kind of lyrics which reflect the life we’re living and help carry me in an easy way through the day:

…

Peaceful Easy Feeling by The Eagles

I like the way your sparkling earrings lay,

Against your skin so brown;

And I want to sleep with you in the desert night,

With a billion stars all around

'Cause I got a peaceful easy feelin'

And I know you won't let me down.

'Cause I'm already standin'

On the ground

…

Akin to my penchant to looking back, there have been a lot of old-new songs that help me look forward toward the horizon of this new life of ours, which we’re making out of dirt roads, all-things-thorny, and lots of barbed wire.

In other words, ever since we began this awesome journey late last-September, I began listening to and falling in love with a lot of country music. Much of the lyrics, reflect “a simpler way of life” that I suppose we were seeking and now we’ve found here in Cerrillos, New Mexico.

I’ll leave you with a taste of what feels like home now for me, here at the homestead:

Homemade by Jake Owen

Home made me love a dirt road

Home made me crave some ice cold homemade

Sweet tea only mama knows how to make

Yeah, homemade.

Home made me love a small town

Home made me wanna settle down in a home made

For the two of us,

Everything I love is homemade.