A Good Weekend

It started off with a quiet Friday evening and me watching a good movie. "Protagonist" is a documentary of four disparate but parallel life stories told through the structured framework of formal Greek tragedy. Great stories, great puppets, I recommend it. Saturday, I cleaned the house. Not quite like a fiend, but there are no longer grapefruit-sized balls of cat fur hiding in every corner. Also, the kitchen has returned to its comfortable and user-friendly status. Went to a Baroque oboe recital that was unbelievable. My friend G is finishing up his DMA requirements and this was his last recital before he moves to Indiana. He is a real character and plays with so much elegance and elàn (out comes the crossword puzzle vocabulary!). A bunch of us went out to a bar afterwards and K came and met me there after he was done bowling in pajamas with a bunch of the Kwifflebee/Oberlin people. This morning, I fooled around on K's guitar (totally cheated by tuning the g to an f# to mimic gamba tuning), managed to sing and play La Folia, figured out some Marais and then wrote a fun progression which I scribbled down in tab for future use. Meanwhile, K had cooked us delicious scrambled eggs with vegetables and cheese, it was sooooo yummy. Then I tagged along to the foursquare game in which I eventually participated and really enjoyed. Playing with people who are fun and not very competitive is great. This was followed by lunch and much browsing in an amazing loose tea store. On my way home, it started raining and I actually had an umbrella with me, so I ambled along listening to the downpour and staying dry from the knees up. I arrived home to the bread I had made yesterday and subsequently forgotten about and even played some gamba!

Happenings

I have returned to the world of the internet! Both much and little have transpired since my last post. For efficiency I return to the convenient list format.

-Watched some movies. Nell: very good; Where Angels Fear to Tread: not as good

-Recorded a song for my gamba bluegrass album. Recording quality is low, audience approval (audience of one, K) is high. Refinement in recording technique and equipment would be helpful, ability to listen to my own voice without cringing would also be a plus.

-Went to NYC for one night to see an art opening. Survived Lucky Star bus-ride, ate good food, walked for hours, saw wonderful art, fun people, did crossword puzzles. Saw father who returned me to Boston and had dinner with me and K. K liked father, no word yet from father on useful insights into psychology of K, verdict pending.

-Had a "sick day" with K (who is actually sick) on Thursday. Soup was made, books were read, crosswords were solved, tea was drunk, much laziness ensued. A good day, all around.

-Today, I recovered from over-extended social muscles. Sat around, did crosswords, read, listened to music, stared off into space, snacked, failed to accomplish anything useful. A quiet day that I will finish off with a movie (of course).

Random thought of the day: letters are awesome, real letters, on paper, with handwriting. I think I will write more of them. Not because I want to receive return posts (although it's always exciting to get a letter!) but because you can have a burst of thought about someone, put it in the mail and forget about it so that it's a surprise when he or she gets back to you about it!

Also awesome: gigantic thunderstorms! Today's was amazing. I even lit candles on the off-chance that the power would go out (can't seem to find J's lighter and so I lit them off the stove which wouldn't have worked in a blackout!). Sadly, no such luck, but I did watch the pouring rain travel in the wind like little bits of fog swirling around the street. The kitties started at the thunder and ran around the house in terror while I luxuriated in the intensity of the whole thing from the vantage point of the couch!

More Stolen Words

A dear old friend of my family and brilliant writer, Steve Kuusisto, posted a poem on his blog this morning that made me smile so I've decided to repost it here for all of you. My father once said that the aim of poetry is to bring back the dead. He hasn't yet explained to me how this works but Steve's poem puts me in mind of the idea.

How Poetry Works

I wasn’t one of those who believed in the end of days.

I gave a butterfly my fingertip.

I was sweaty, loving, crude, open, honest, and bookish.

I didn’t just "believe" in the Bill of Rights,

I wove my clothing from its threads.

I held the kelson of creation and a dying man

And knew they are the same.

I saw the constitution of the living and of the dead

And knew they are the same.

Sometimes in the sweetness of a summer’s hour

I held the face of the man I loved

And I held the face of the woman I loved

For all faces are divine

Reposed in the ardor

Of the sky.

What did I tell you anyway?

Poems hold so tightly to everything, everyone--

There is no good time to go.

These leaves know nothing

But light and dark

And how to live.

--S.K.

Stuck in a Rut

Been a while since I've been seriously stuck but here I am again, unable to do anything unless there are people around. I tagged along with K this morning to the Arboretum (where he volunteers) and got to help label various plants. Mostly this consists of leisurely driving around the beautiful grounds, talking about the trees, trying to locate specific plants on confusing maps and then switching out the labels because the sub-species name has changed, or the info about where it is isn't actually correct. We relabeled some rhododendrons and some bamboo. Hearing K and the guy who works there rattling off the family names of various trees and shrubs, talking about the "peak" of the various flowers, tasting immature plums and speculating about various fruit. It made me very happy. Why am I always so excited about the things I don't know? Why am I not excited about early music right now?

Heard a fabulous concert last night of mostly Victoria with lots of my friends singing. I loved hearing Renaissance stuff again, it's been a while and I miss singing. There is so much I should do but don't want to. So many primary sources I should really read, so much technique I should rebuild, so much music I should learn. But when I'm here alone, I don't want to do anything. Yes, I know it's just my weird form of depression, but it never fails to confound me that the moments I least want to do anything are also the moments I want the most. I have so many conflicting dreams, I don't know what to follow. I'm not sure if I want to be the person I've been aiming to become anymore.

I'm sure I'll feel better in the morning and maybe I'll start the work of digging myself out of this terrible hole I've fallen into.

Shostakovich!

Last night, after the frisbee game, K and a friend of his and I went back to K's place and ended up listening to the entirety of the eighth quartet (one of my favorite pieces in the whole world). What an experience! Having failed to listen to any "classical" music post 1750 for the better part of a year, the dissonances and rhythms were so fresh and striking all over again. It was as if I'd never heard the piece before even though I knew what was coming. Re-experiencing the languid sorrow of the first movement, the heart-racing fear of the second, the subversion of the third, the terror of the fourth, and the resignation of the fifth, brought my heart back to places I hadn't visited in a long time. I loved every second of it. And I loved seeing K and his friend both go through their own versions of the ecstasy I was feeling. To see the expressions on their faces when the harmony crunches itself up into a place you never expected it to go, a place you didn't realize music could go. To see the shock in K's features when the lone violin note is interrupted by the banging-on-the-door/gunshot themes, the dawning comprehension when I pointed out the name-theme and when he identified it later on his own. That was pure joy for me. I love music theory, I love science, I love explanations, but I don't want to know Shostakovich's secrets. Somehow, he does things with harmony that no one else can, things I don't understand, can't replicate on my own. He moves masterfully between dissonance and consonance, milking the expressive power of both. He is one of my favorite composers and I had forgotten about him. How happy I am to be reminded!

MmmHmm

Two nights ago, I made a lemon cake for T's 25th birthday party (see facebook for amazing pictures of said party). Last night, I made a feast. What can I say, I was feeling inspired! T and his roommate and Stiney came over as well as K (to whom I will introduce you in a later paragraph). Here is what I made:

-Apple-carrot confetti salad with lemon juice and dried cranberries (check-plus and easy to make!)
-Spicy lentil-filled deep-friend pastries (check-plus on the filling, check-minus for all the hassle of rolling them up and frying them)
-Sweet potato bread (check-plus as always!)
-Bell peppers stuffed with rice, tomatoes, mint, dill and parsley with a creamy feta sauce over them (check-plus!)

Needless to say, we stuffed ourselves, and then ate more, and then ate cake! Then we cleaned up the kitchen and sipped tea and played Anagrabble (a game with the Scrabble tiles). It was fabulously fun and I'm still smiling to remember all the different spices and flavors and all the wonderful laughter with friends.

Okay, who is K, you ask? K is a new friend and a wonderful person who also happens to be an extremely attractive man who by some grace of god likes me too. He's not a musician (I never expected to date anyone other than musicians!) but listens with more emotional intelligence and passion than many musicians I know. He may not know the words I've learned to use to describe music, but he knows the feelings that are behind them. I'll tell you more about him in the future if I don't manage to scare him off! But for now, I'm happy.

Now it's time to get back to eating left-overs and writing blue-grass tunes!

Some sort of credo

I just watched "Jesus Camp." Yes, yes, I knew exactly what I was getting into. I knew it would be upsetting, confusion and anger-inducing. And yes, I watched it anyway. Much of it is what you'd expect. Much of it reminded me of the several Evangelicals I've met throughout my life. I was prepared for the intensity of belief, the anti-rationalist viewpoints, the genuineness of feeling. What I wasn't prepared for was the emotional manipulation of young children. It's one thing to teach children what you believe, what you want them to believe, but it's totally different to tell them they are inherently bad people and that everything they want is wrong. All those shots of the kids weeping during sermons just about broke my heart. I'd be interested to see where those kids end up in 20 years. Some will probably be preaching or having babies to preach to, but maybe some will find other ways to live. It's a veritable children's crusade with as many psyches damaged as lives lost in the first one.

At one point in the film, a child declares that America is sick and only Jesus can cure it. I say, we are all sick! Always, every single one of us. We all make do, we all find things with which to console ourselves. But leave me my options! Maybe Jesus will cure you, but I require Bach, and perhaps Marais too. My sickness requires fresh vegetables, and good books to read. We all have the same malady but every individual requires a different treatment!

Half of me wants to run away to Europe and never look back and the other half insists that America is not "God's nation," it's my nation. Maybe I'm too much my mother's daughter (she wrote a whole book about sense of place) but I'm attached to this land, to the fruit trees, the lakes, the crazy weather, the winding highways, even sometimes the stubborn insistence on excess. I'm not sure I'm cut out to spend my life fighting the Evangelicals (nor do I think that stooping to their mercurial metaphors is a good idea) but I can be evangelical about what I believe. It may not be written in a inconsistently-translated tome in dire need of some editing nor is it necessarily articulatible (especially without neologizing!) but I'll try. At this moment, I believe in beauty, in happiness, in the large and the minute, in individuality, in love, in the logical and the inane, in laughter and tears, in change and whimsy and in loyalty, and perhaps most importantly, in contradiction, in the gray area in between everything. I believe in "I don't know."

This instant, I believe in eating more baby carrots.

End of sermon.

One notch above miserable

The very worst part about being an adult is getting sick. When you're young, you get leave to do nothing, others will pick up the slack for you. You have a family to commiserate with, to make you tea. You get to stay home from school, eat whatever you want and watch movies all day. As an adult, there are no perks. The cats still need to be fed, the bills need paying, the only food is what you make yourself and the dishes pile up if you don't do them. Then there's all the anxiety about the things I should be getting done, the grand plans I'm not working on because I'm sitting around being sick and feeling sorry for myself! Ah, self-pity, what a trap you are! My tea, the tissue box and I are going to escape, we'll hide in the livingroom, with a book perhaps and let the day pass quietly. The only thing I got that the germs don't is time, I will patiently outlive them!

Lazy Summer Days

So, let's recap the last week or so. Went to Florida to ostensibly visit my grandfather and his wife but really to see my dad and sister who visited at the same time. We luxuriated on the beach, got sunburned, laughed. We fought too, but not much and it was good to see them both.

I also just found out that the trip to Taiwan is canceled. Apparently, the economy there is very bad and the company that was organizing the tour went bankrupt. I'm disappointed but also a little relieved. People my age are supposed to love to travel, and I do love seeing new places but the traveling itself wears me out. I need time to recover from the trip before I can really enjoy a place and usually there isn't enough time for that. So I was nervous about being on the other side of the world, jet-lagged, with three days to fix a harpsichord and prepare for a professional concert series. I would have loved to see Taiwan, to walk through the natural gorge carved out of marble, to eat exciting food, to teach Baroque cello. But there is a lot more of my life coming up in which I will do those things. For now, I'm happy to enjoy what I have in Boston: great friends, decent weather, my lovely house, free time.

I cooked for the first time in a long time last night and it made me feel like me again. I can still bake bread without a recipe. I can still create something delicious out a pile of beautiful vegetables.

So here I am, sitting around the house, not really doing anything but enjoying the mundanity of it all and scheming up adventures and dinners.