Neighbourhood Folk - House Concert - Fall Equinox 2025 - Ferris Wheel - 2025 09 25 3/13


Ferris Wheel written by Jenny Arntzen, 2025

My brother Tom, he is playing the accordion in the video, took me and my dog for a walk to the PNE grounds in East Vancouver. I did not know that a section of the grounds had been turned into a 4 hectare wetland bird sanctuary. This sanctuary is right beside Playland, the amusement park where generations of us have stood in line every summer for a chance to ride the Ferris Wheel.

It was about 6 months since Mom had passed at home and my caregiving service had ended after 33 months. I had been to a Vancouver Folk Song Society evening and an ancient version of Scarborough Fair got me thinking about fairs, amusement parks, and life journeys.

The calliope intro speaks to the utter madness that lies near the surface of all our human experiences: being able to face life milestones with humour, sharing our losses, celebrating our wins, and having a good laugh at our ambitions when they threaten to overwhelm us.

My children are grown now, they are raising families of their own in distant lands. My mother is gone now, she rests in peace on an imagined far shore. My true love, let's face it, some days are easier and more joyful than others. We persevere, we push our bikes up one more hill to see the far horizon. It always helps to step back and take a look at the big picture.

https://sites.google.com/view/jennyarntzenmusic/house-concerts/fall-equinox-2025-sep-22

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

No Hard Feelings - 2025 06 02

Image
  No Hard Feelings - Avett Brothers, performed by Jenny Arntzen at home in the livingroom. My musical challenge at this stage of my life is to simply hit 'Record' and see what happens. There is no question that I will not sound like a highly produced, professionally engineered performance backed by professional musicians with decades of experience, skill and knowledge. I am not going to create anything that sounds like that. Also, more importantly, that is not my aesthetic. It is not my interest. It is not what drives me to play music, learn new songs, and share music with anyone who wants to play with me.
Read more

Neighbourhood Folk - House Concert - Fall Equinox 2025 - Entry - Taking the Plunge - 2025 09 25 2/13

Image
Lynn Canyon - 2005 03 03 - the cool, late afternoon light of early spring glancing off cold stream tossed boulders  Entry - Taking the Plunge by Virginia Bowden Well into the afternoon, on the day of the concert, I was reviewing my lists and checking what was left to do. It occurred to me that I was going to need introductory words to set expectations and get us all on the same page. Where to start? Virginia brought this poem and shared it at our Neighbourhood Folk - First Sunday - September 2025. As soon as I thought of it, I knew it needed to be the cornerstone of my introductory words to set the stage for the house concert. Today it is the 30th of September. A full week since I started this writing. It has taken me days and many hours to prepare to write this short piece. I had an idea of bringing in interleaving stories, of swimming, over generations, of women. Of our creative works, both domestic and artistic, that mark the passing of our lifetimes into our collective history....
Read more

When I Grow Too Old to Dream - 2023 11 12

Image
  Two years ago Mom moved in with me after forty years in mental health group housing due to the impact of her schizophrenia. She turned 91 on the day she moved in. She immediately suffered a serious health decline and we were put on the palliative care registry. This month Mom celebrated her 93rd birthday. She is a frail elder. Often when she has energy, she is singing in her room. This is a song she has been singing since she moved in. It was only recently I finally asked where the song came from. It turns out Aunti Ivy, Mom's oldest sister, used to play this song on the piano. The family used to gather around and sing together from her songbook. This was one of those songs.  Aunti Ivy is gone now. She was 11 years old when Mom was born. Mom must have been a little girl when this song was sung and she memorized the words. This week we have finally identified the song and it is going to be added to our songbook. We are now learning to play it. A new music project has been ins...
Read more