underbellies of clouds

I am caretaker to one of the world's most affectionate and needy cats. He is a charmer. And, true to his kind, he is continually getting in the way. Cute, huh? A sitting lap is a sitting lap to Charles, whether or not you're doing anything with your hands or legs.

I feel a bit lumpish right now - have been sitting at that keyboard all day. Didn't even get up to go for a walk. I'm looking outside at the black wetness - hmm. Fresh air and blood circulation would be good, but Oh the unappealingness of it.

Bloody fantastic day of practice, however. A half-dozen unfinished songs are suddenly coming into focus. One after another - lyrics suddenly attaching themselves to melodies, tempo and time signatures snapping into place. Such a good feeling, to finally fit the key pieces into the puzzle. Some of which I've poured over for ages on countless occasions, not knowing how they might fit together. I always get myself into a big paper-mess when I'm doing work like this. All the scraps of paper with disjointed ideas, open notebooks of lyrics, manuscript everywhere. I went looking through some old journals for more words, an exercise I must remember not to repeat anytime soon. Blech. My journal from last year is just depressingly full of garbage. Just the worst kind of toxic waste. Ugh, so grim. I think I'll stick with the pages I filled up in Hawaii... even though it might put me at risk, one of these days, of writing a happy song. Heh heh.

Speaking of Hawaii: I listened to a TED talk by Elizabeth Lindsay today, on the knowledge of our elders. She was talking about the Polynesians, who first discovered the islands of Hawaii.
"These mariners sailed 3 million square miles across the Pacific without the use of instruments. They could synthesize patterns in nature using the rising and setting of stars, the sequence and direction of waves, the flight pattern of certain birds. Even the slightest hint of colour on the underbelly of a cloud would inform them, and help them navigate with the keenest accuracy."
She spoke about her mentor, a master Polynesian navigator, lying down in the hull of the canoe, using his whole body to feel the shifting currents and direction of the waves.

I've been thinking a lot about the loss of ancient wisdom these days. There are subtleties that I feel have been disappearing, even just over the course of my 29 years. I can't elaborate much; it's just a sense of communication and sensitivity fading. A sense of integrity sort of being leeched out of every form of culture. I know it's not hopeless and it's much more complex than I could ever hope to understand. But it does make me feel the extreme importance of living in an awareness of the earth. And I don't just mean a 'let's recycle and ride bikes' kind of awareness, but a relationship with the ground underfoot, all that grows out of it, and all that lives because of it. I don't think that you can connect to life, and love the Earth, without being outside. A lot.

I am so excited for the warmer days ahead.

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bucolic strains

Isn't this lovely? Don't you just want to be there, maybe sitting under a tree?
Oh, the pleasure of the plains!

Saw Handel's 'Acis & Galatea' the other day - and couldn't help but chuckle at the opening scene: a group of shepherds and nymphs, swathed in lace and velvet and buckles and ribbons and great flowing wigs, gesturing daintily and singing, "Oh, the pleasure of the plains!" Oh yes, the pleasure, oh the pleasure.

I love Handel, but to be honest, this production was wasted on me. I'm not sure if it was just the story (ie. lack of story), or all the florid embellishments and prudish undertones. Two men love the same woman. One of them is evil - a cyclops in fact. Woman won't have the cyclops, and so the cyclops kills her lover. Too much passion over too little, maybe that's it. The lover is made immortal in the end, and everyone is sad but happy. Oh boy. Just too many perfect cadences and too many ornaments and too much delightful musicality for this sordid little scene. I dunno - maybe I was just too sleepy and dense to appreciate it properly. Everyone else thought it was spectacular, and I felt like a fraud. Which happens rather frequently at these concerts, actually.

The St. John Passion last week, on the other hand, was glorious. Now there's some serious subject matter. An innocent life gruesomely and cruelly taken - that's a reason for passion. Forget the fact that I'm not a Christian - I've never heard any composer imbue the word 'crucifixus' with more pain and depth than Bach. Just excruciatingly evocative.
It was Bach's birthday on that same day - March 21st. Good old Bach. Nobody really paid too much attention to him during his lifetime. His far less talented sons achieved more fame. If there's any character from the past I'd love to have met, it's Johann Sebastian. I'll just bet he was a lovely man. Humble as anything. Brilliant, slavish, perhaps eccentric, but modest. I doubt that Handel was modest.

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So much for the lambs. This new keyboard of mine is way too seductive, and I couldn't get away from it all day. Just took a little walk before dinner to get some blood moving. DAMN I love sitting at my keyboard, in front of my open windows, looking out at the water, feeling the spring air, and practicing. Why do I keep forgetting that practice is not boring? It's not boring if I'm present and awake - things continually evolve and change. Repetition is not really repetition. There is too much to do with these keys. Too many options, all the time. New songs grow out of mistakes. The body is engaged and thus not restless. And there's the kind of focused concentration that allows for thoughts to ruminate far back in the mind unconsciously. It brings everything in and yet allows for so much expansion at the same time.

I also just had a few glasses of champagne and feel quite nicely right now.

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No-power hour

This is looking out from a cave I mentioned once before. I love caves! Remember the book, "Hatchet" by Gary Paulson? I loved that book when I was a kid. Small plane goes down in the middle of Canadian wilderness. Boy survives. Has nothing but a hatchet. Lots of close encounters with scary animals, starvation, all the usual thrilling elements of wilderness survival! Anyhow, I seem to remember that he finds a cave on the beach to live in. This is what I imagine it looks like from inside his cave.

8:30pm is Earth Hour - so all power off! I really love this idea, and think we should all do it once a week at least. I can't decide what I'm going to do. Just read in candlelight? Write in my journal? Go sit outside in total darkness? Crouch in the cave and try to build a fire? Stand on the roof and howl at the moon? Fun times!

Woke up to that summer-brightness again this morning. I have one of the world's Great Views from my bed. Ocean, trees, mountains. And I swear I just can't get over how the feeling of spring makes everything look different. I am going to talk about this a lot, I'm afraid. I get way too excited when winter retreats. Best to stop reading the blog from here on in if you're starting to get bored with it.

I'm in good spirits today, rather glad to be on Bowen and not in St. Louis, where I hear they are still frozen solid. Ugh. I'm quite excited to go check out the little lambs today, and a particular beach I haven't been to in a while. Funny how I've got this compass inside me that often just points at where I need to go, any day that the sun is out. Without even having to think about it, I instinctively feel a part of the island calling to me. Tally-ho!

I think I'm just prattling now, and I could keep prattling for a long time, like a happy kid. But I'd better get my practice in before I head outside.

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presents that go poof

Two more pictures of cherry blossoms. Because there are few things as heartening as cherry blossoms against a blue sky.

What a strange couple of days. Today felt like November, yesterday felt like May. Life is amazing, incredible fun, mostly because it's often not that fun, so when fun things happen, they're sometimes more fun than can be believed. If you follow. It might seem more bizarre if every now and again a huge present exploded out of the ground and landed at your feet. But it wouldn't be more bizarre than the way life actually operates. Even if the present sometimes imploded as soon as you untied the string, it still would be terribly dull compared to real life.

I don't feel like writing about the real life events of today and yesterday and the day before. I'd rather write about the things I've decided to take away from them:

1. Always be ready to play a show, at the drop of a hat. Practice every day, you lazy ass! (These are instructions to myself.)
[As a side note, even after writing that, I'm tempted to erase it... I almost said out loud, "Every day?! Aw man..."]
2. Yes, every day. (But not today because my arms hurt and I'm tired.)
3. Get a case for the keyboard with WHEELS and make sure the sustain pedal always works.
4. Don't let your hosiery get to a state of unwearable-except-around-people-who-won't-judge-or-care-ness.
5. Always keep passport and important medications close at hand!
6. Continue to be careful about not committing to time-wasting, sticky obligations.
7. Never run out of good reading material.
8. Pray every day to the God of ever-changing-ness for acceptance of Not Having Control.
9. Imagine everything as possible and even inevitable and also forgiving.
10. Always say YES to opportunities when the heart lurches upward. Say NO when the heart lurches downward. (Do not confuse movements of stomach for movements of heart.)

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i saw the conga line for spring

My mind is a windmill, and my heart is gusting at 100 knots. Spring is unsure and tender life unravels secretly. I am inexplicably overcome by a desire to keep bees, not for honey but for pollination. While walking today, I listened to some music of my 'immortal elders', because it was transparent enough to allow the birdsong to come through. If it had been recorded that way, it would be saccharin; but outside under first cherry blossoms, it was sombre and lovingly painful. I am a thicket inside; paths are growing over. I am full of static but not stasis; all my organs are shifting position, I think, in restlessness. I want to see spring on my skin and want to know that I will bloom too.

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green soaked

Today can't possibly be long enough.
Brain is steaming, steaming like an ox in the field. So much stimuli and inspiration and emotional energy; I need time to work through this.

I had a dream last night that I was on a big ship, and I realized that there was a whale onboard, had somehow been sucked up by the engines and was on the ship deck. I pulled and tugged and screamed for help, and we managed to haul the whale to this hole in the ship, a hole that went straight down to the water. I had to aim so carefully when I pushed the whale over the edge, because there was so much machinery that it could hit on the way down. But it dove perfectly into the water, and I felt, strangely, so overwhelmingly sad. Then after a few moments, the whale came shooting back up in a perfect graceful jump, to say thank you. And I felt a little better.

I must have been exhausted yesterday - slept for almost 11 hours last night in a continual cold sweat, soaked through about 5 layers of blankets. I'll be so thirsty today. Woke up to the brightest sun I've seen since Hawaii. The light of summer. And the openness of summer too, as it's my day off.

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the sun behind

This will be the shortest longest blog I have ever written. Many many words were here, but none of them were right - and I am not being a perfectionist.
I took the ferry home during sunset; it was the gentlest sky, a palette of spring blossoms. The sun was gone, but the feeling of it still hung over the mountains and the water, over me. For it just couldn't take back with it all that it had brought.

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for the sake of variety...

... I thought I'd write about monster trucks today.

Rarrr!!!

For some strange reason looking at this picture makes me think about getting breast implants and hair extensions. I'd also like someone to bring me a cold beer, someone with vein tracks down his neck and barbed wire tattoos, named Bruce or Micky.

Hell yah, baby.

(*This segment of satire brought to you by a.ha.)

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if I had a pig

This handsome fellow is a Visayan warty pig.

This is a curly-haired Austrian Mangalitza pig. Looking coy.

Nice looking pigs, eh?

after a bright moon

What a day. I don't know why I always feel the urge to try to describe what I see, but I do. Maybe I'm just trying to put a net over something.

I was walking outside and had good old Tintern Abbey in my head. I was stuck on one section... This is what I like about memorizing poems. Once they are internalized, parts seem to just surface now and again in connection with some feeling or memory. And sometimes they come up, slightly changed. This part, I kept hearing in my head, with the beginning line of, "For I have learned to look on love..." I realized later that of course that was not right. But so it is, and it fits just as well, I think.

For I have learned
   To look on nature, not as in the hour
   Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes                    90
   The still, sad music of humanity,
   Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
   To chasten and subdue.

In the sunshine, everything is rosy, slightly glowing. It's like a pregnancy glow... nothing much to see yet, just a subtle but unmistakable luminosity to the tips of the bare branches, and the soft smudge of yellow-green at the edges of the fir boughs. I sat a long while on some mossy bluffs overlooking the ocean. I love a bed of moss - the way it looks like a dense forest from an airplane window. Love blurring my eyes, and viewing the ground as if I was 10,000 feet above the earth, looking over forests and hills and rocky mountains, swamps and desert. I love that all of life is contained in every aspect of life. I love that even a mass of people looks like a land formation from afar, and that everything enormous is contained inside everything minute, and vice versa.
I also felt nostalgia and a prickling of senses that I couldn't identify. I don't know if I was reminded of spring or summer or fall or winter. But I also think that all seasons are present in each season, and that human life is the same way. We are never just one age, and continually slide up and down the spectrum of youthful to ancient and inspired to exhausted.

The ocean was quiet and contained like a lake today. It was divided in half, one side writhing on the surface as if with delicate snakes, the other pulled taut and smooth. Something far away was jumping in the water. The splashes were big enough to make me wonder if it could be a porpoise. And above me, of course, were eagles and ravens, and in the woods sweet chicadees and robins.

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wood vs plastic

This is my piano. My sweet dusty piano. Doesn't it look scary and mysterious and all too inviting in there? Such a thrilling maze of hammers and felt and strings and pegs and wood and iron...

This is my keyboard. My workhorse. Even though it's just plastic and electricity and who knows what else, it's been good to me. I plug headphones into it, and the privacy is a glorious thing.
But I still think that all electric pianos sound like garbage when they're amplified, and this one is no exception. It's such a dim dull shadowy ghost of a real piano - not something to perform on. Though I have many times.

This is my new toy. It's a lovely thing, and I think I'm going to have to stop renting it and start financing it. The thing about electric pianos is that the 'acoustic piano' sound is just not something that can be mimicked by a keyboard, in spite of all our amazing technology. (In my humble opinion, of course.) But keyboards that don't try to not sound electric - rhodes, wurlitzers, organs etc - sounds fantastic live. Music I write for the piano can be saved for those rare shows when I get to play a real piano... if I also write music intended for keyboards and synths. I think that the more I embrace it, the more creative I'll be.

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anti-rust

It's not a good feeling, to reflect on this boredom. I resent it and I hate to catch myself feeling ungrateful in any way for living here, in peace, safety, freedom and security. Yesterday I said I would make amends for the boredom - that's what I plan to do today.
I'm just going to chalk up the sleepiness, lethargy and low mood to a purely biological response to the climate shift. I'm probably low-iron too and did just slightly decrease my meds. So, no big deal - nothing to take personally or puzzle over anxiously. There's a croton in my window - it has about 7 leaves. It probably does not trouble itself over why it is not thriving here.
Fortunately, I now understand that plunging into depression in search of a cause or an answer is a dangerous past-time - and that those black back alleyways in my mind are places I don't want to go alone. There aren't many answers to find back there - just plenty of addicts ready to lure me into a shadowy doorway and lock me up for a spell. I'm going to drop this metaphor now before I confuse myself. What I mean to say is that, as unromantic and drolly sensible as it seems, it's better for me to go to my toolkit and try to fix whatever is coming apart.
I slept for 10 hours last night so I don't think I really need the nap that I feel coming on. I'm going to close this laptop, put on my wellies, take my camera, and go for a walk. I might not take any pictures, but having the camera will encourage me to look at things the way I do when I'm searching for a good shot. Recite some poetry. Then I'm going to make myself a really beautiful lunch and eat it outside all wrapped up in blankets with a hot cup of tea. Then if I'm still grouchy, I'll call S. Then settle in with my keyboard and wire up the damn interface thing and record something on my laptop, whether I like it or not. OK, that's as far as I've gotten. That might be enough. I also have 2 great books to read, so I'll save that for a treat for later.
Btw: I did succeed last night in getting off my bed and writing some music. I wrote something I think could go interesting places. Something to play with.

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Just after 8pm and I'm trying to talk myself out of going to bed - or write myself out, I guess. I'm lying on my bed so I'm dangerously close to just falling asleep. But I want to fight it. I'm tired and I shouldn't be. There is something just screaming inside of me that I'm trying to suppress because it feels sacrilegious. I think I'll just say it and try to make amends for it later...
I am DEEPLY BORED here!
I want to play after I work, and I want to work and play and play and work, in whatever balance feels right at any given time. I don't mean play my piano - although often that's 'play' for me. I mean play like a child, like animals, like adults on vacation. I played all the time, every day, in Hawaii. Swimming in the ocean is play. Now I don't know how to play, and I'm bored. All I can think of to do is work and without some good play it all feels oppressive.
I'm being a grumpy-pants and hopefully it will be just a passing fit of immaturity. Actually, I think the boredom is just sadness. I miss that easy and instant daily dose of joy and I feel caged and impatient. I feel like I'm looking at a beautiful painting of a nature scene, yearning to jump in.
OK, time to man up and work on some music.

'Wake up, ding-dong.' (Said to myself.) 'Don't music-work, music-play.'

OK. I'll try!

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breathing in the forest, and work to do

Rain, morning.
Two airplanes and three airports coming home = instant viral attack. I've been fighting it off these last couple days. Today I intend to kick this cold to kingdom come. Neti pot, salt water gargles, vitamin C and 50 cups of lemon tea... No contest.
It's been a whirlwind since I landed in Vancouver, so I have not yet had a chance to get out in the forest. I'm pretty excited to jump into my rubber boots and see what the firs and ferns are up to these days. I wonder if the skunk cabbage is peaking through the mud yet. Is it too early for fiddleheads? I wonder who will have fuzzy fingertips or pink pregnant blossom bellies, and what birds I will see and hear.
When I come back, a hot bath. Mmm, a hot bath. Wear in McCarthy's Crossings some more. (I love a book all ruined by good times. A pristine book has lived a dull life. My big tome of Steinbeck shorts is crinkly with salt water and papaya juice and still peppered with sand. Crime & Punishment, The Sun also Rises, The Secret Agent - all sun-bleached, wine-dabbled, cock-eyed beach bums.)
Then the piano. Too many ideas, some overwhelm-ment of what to do with them all, and how to get them down before they evaporate. Working out a new technique that has a 'phasing' effect, Steve Reichesque - makes the piano sound like more than one instrument. Several new pieces on the go, trying to match up lyrics with melodies, and old pieces coming back in new ways. Had an idea for the piece I wrote for vibraphone a couple years ago - and was kind of shocked to discover that I'd lost the damn thing. I had several copies. Not any more. Waiting to see if the friend I gave a copy to still has it...
Trying to find a photographer cause I need some promo shots, whether I like it or not. I put an ad in Craigslist. 17 responses so far, and not one person that can write even 3 decent grammatically-correct sentences. Isn't that bizarre and scary? Is it wrong of me to judge a photographer by her English usage?
It's time to do a solo-gig circuit. I love a good BC roadtrip. My goal is to book 4 out-of-town weekend gigs before May. Urk, is that feasible? I don't know. Worth a shot. I also have to get busy with some grant writing and find me a publicist, STAT. And book all the flights and accommodations and car and gear rentals for the May tour. Apply for all the summer island festivals. Line up a bunch of rehearsals. And practice my ass off. Something a Dharma teacher said once stuck with me, a quote from some venerable monk: "You are perfect just as you are. And, there is work to do."

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adaptation

I won't lie - I cried when I came home. When I woke up the next morning, I forgot I was in Vancouver until I opened my eyes, and the disappointment was heavy. But now I'm sitting in front of my window and the sun is out, and it feels good to be back. The water is calm and I feel the deep familiarity of that soft but steely blue and that same blue on the mountains. I'm thinking of all the times I've wondered why the forested slopes, clothed top to bottom in green, look blue from a distance. I'm thinking of the sound of that water lapping against stones on a beach. Not the rushing, roaring, crashing vigour of the South Pacific, but a languorous inky murmur. The tall dry grasses and the tall lean firs and the naked rocks and deciduous branches are intimate memories of all my years here.
I am glad to have missed the darkest months. But now I'm glad to be here for the arrival of spring. I love the anticipation of that, the early signs. I love to feel the sun grow stronger and stay longer and I love to hear the birds return. And the first buds opening, so slowly and then suddenly, and the tree trunks yielding with oozing sap and fragrance. All of winter's iron jaw loosening its grip...
I spent this morning tearing apart my room, taking things down, packing things away, discarding things, streamlining every surface and clearing up space. Space, space, space. With spring I want space. Openness and air and a sense of impermanence.
I don't want to be attached to my belongings here. I want this room to be a neutral place, a room to visit for long periods and still easily walk away from. My time away really clarified for me the importance of space and lightness. I felt so free to move about. I want to feel that I am passing through, making nests out of twigs and moss. I am happiest this way - to feel that I am carrying within me all that I need. One day I might need something more permanent and secure, but that's in some unknown future. Right now, I crave having more time alone, and being able to walk wherever I go, being able to live simply and think massively. So I think I'll sublet a little place near work in town, so that I can spend my spare time writing and practicing, swimming, visiting with friends and playing gigs - time that would otherwise be spent on a long commute. I'm going to go back to living off a small cash allowance for a few months so I can focus my funds on my music career. And I will still come to Bowen on the weekends and whenever I have a spare day.
It's funny how this changes. My needs can change quite dramatically this way, every few months sometimes. At least every year. If I am tied down by possessions and obligations, it makes it very difficult to even be aware of these shifting needs. If changes are too difficult to make, then nothing changes until a major crisis forces it. Some people might think this flaky and restless. But I'm not restless, I just feel so much more able to recognize opportunites and possibilites and act on them.
I'm going into town tonight. It's basically a huge FNC. But I'm not too nervous. Because now, I feel like I'm just a visitor in Vancouver, here temporarily. Just passing through.

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Goodbye Hawaii

I'm coming home tomorrow. Don't know what to say about this except that it doesn't seem right somehow. It just doesn't seem right...

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on the volcano

Sulpher deposits from the volcanic steam!

Inside a lava tube.

Forest on the edge of the crater.

Spooky lava steam creeping out of the ground.

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