hi everyone.

i love this thread.

my strangest seasonal joni association is "hejira," which for me will
always be a *summer* album.  i know, i know, despite the wintry cover
and the chilly emotional tone and "thaw out or freeze"...but i discovered hejira 
right when i needed it, which happened to be the beginning of a long, hot, 
airconditionerless summer in brooklyn--when i'd left a man i had been 
living with for a while and moved, heartbroken, to a great apartment in 
a wonderful old school brooklyn neighborhood, fort greene.  

hejira got me to come out swinging again--i would play it on my
crappy discman as i walked through fort greene park, and on the 
D/Q train stuck over the manhattan bridge, and on my tiny player in the
kitchen, as i figured out all the joys of cooking for one again!

"song for sharon," especially, that new york song, was like a gift joni
had wrapped up and sent to me--honestly!--RIGHT when i needed it.

so, despite all the iceskating visuals, for me hejira will always conjure
summer--and brooklyn.  and a tough but strengthening time.

actually, though, because hejira was written on a long, lone cross
country road trip--maybe i'm justified in the summer association--
don't know when joni took hers, but all of my own long road trips
have come in the summer (and, of course, were ALSO airconditioner-less!)

-- emily, in chicago 

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