"It's just as natural as the weather in this moody sky today" - Hejira, Joni Mitchell

To be honest, I've been self-isolating for awhile now.  As an only child, solitude feels like a natural state of being.  As I've stepped away from the public entertainment sphere in degrees over the years to balance the needs of motherhood, I discover a different voice, one that feels quieter but more true.   I remember using this measure of song and songwriting as a young writer- that if my writing and performance felt "True", I had achieved my goal of creative expression.  Joni Mitchell's writing is so many things- complex, universal, deeply personal and unique.  It was a pleasure to learn this song that feels like it captured the writer's truth and resonates deeply in so many hearts.  Please enjoy my piano/vocal arrangement of "Hejira" by Joni Mitchell.  

Hejira- Joni Mitchell

I'm traveling in some vehicle
I'm sitting in some cafe
A defector from the petty wars
That shell shocked love away
There's comfort in melancholy
When there's no need to explain
It's just as natural as the weather
In this moody sky today


In our possessive coupling
So much could not be expressed
So now I am returning to myself
These things that you and I suppressed
I see something of myself in everyone
Just at this moment of the world
As snow gathers like bolts of lace
Waltzing on a ballroom girl


You know it never has been easy
Whether you do or you do not resign
Whether you travel the breadth of extremities
Or stick to some straighter line
Now here's a man and a woman sitting on a rock
They're either going to thaw out or freeze
Listen, strains of Benny Goodman
Coming through' the snow and the pinewood trees


I'm porous with travel fever
But you know I'm so glad to be on my own
Still somehow the slightest touch of a stranger
Can set up trembling in my bones


I know, no one's going to show me everything
We all come and go unknown
Each so deep and superficial
Between the forceps and the stone


Well, I looked at the granite markers
Those tributes to finality, to eternity
And then I looked at myself here
Chicken scratching for my immortality


In the church, they light the candles
And the wax rolls down like tears
There is the hope and the hopelessness
I've witnessed thirty years
We're only particles of change I know, I know
Orbiting around the sun
But how can I have that point of view
When I'm always bound and tied to someone
White flags of winter chimneys
Wave truce against the moon
In the mirrors of a modern bank
From the window of a hotel room
​

I'm traveling in some vehicle
I'm sitting in some cafe
A defector from the petty wars
Until love sucks me back that way