One More Layer
Posted on January 21, 2010 with 0 comments
He was having a rain stick malfunction and finally sixth take I got out my rain stick. “Longer isn’t always better”, I said, as his expert hands took hold of it and turned it towards gravity. If life could be so simple, I thought to myself. The flow of brittle seeds cascading filled my headphones perfectly proportioned to three final drumbeats on goatskin. The image on the screen of the sound wave bloomed and slowly receded in pink. “That’s the last thing I’ll record”, he said. I looked up at him somehow stunned at this revelation. After six months of meticulous tracking and retakes, we had finally reached the finish line.
A rosier pink on the edge of the cold blue sky this morning as I wake and rejoin the cog wheel of winter whiteness. Gone is my “summer-colored skin” as Joni Mitchell so aptly put it. I’m layered and hidden in flannel and wool and my introspective tendencies need tending like the woodstove fires I build and feed. The wide oak floor of the downstairs is covered with shredded bark and stray pieces of kindling, and so I sweep, the slow, methodical movement soothing my brain. I wish I could always be sweeping like this, using only my intention and one simple tool to care and care again - without effort, needing little, unfettered. Somehow sweeping unlocks the realization that I miss my children and their unconscious collaboration that had, over the years, allowed me to meet my need for sweeping fully, unabashedly. I miss their tumbling young voices and footsteps and the wake and flotsam of their sometimes joyful, sometimes jagged but always passionate games. In the depth of that memory, I miss myself.
Enormous snow flakes are flying through the sky, crowding my window, obscuring the darting jays of my yard. All it would take to tip the balance is to lean into it like I do the broom. A small act, to pick up a guitar. On an ordinary day like any other it could bring some relief but now I'm reluctant to let go of this paralysis of spirit like a petulant child. On a better day with a guitar under my arms, I might walking backwards (as usual) bump into myself, turn and be glad.
A rosier pink on the edge of the cold blue sky this morning as I wake and rejoin the cog wheel of winter whiteness. Gone is my “summer-colored skin” as Joni Mitchell so aptly put it. I’m layered and hidden in flannel and wool and my introspective tendencies need tending like the woodstove fires I build and feed. The wide oak floor of the downstairs is covered with shredded bark and stray pieces of kindling, and so I sweep, the slow, methodical movement soothing my brain. I wish I could always be sweeping like this, using only my intention and one simple tool to care and care again - without effort, needing little, unfettered. Somehow sweeping unlocks the realization that I miss my children and their unconscious collaboration that had, over the years, allowed me to meet my need for sweeping fully, unabashedly. I miss their tumbling young voices and footsteps and the wake and flotsam of their sometimes joyful, sometimes jagged but always passionate games. In the depth of that memory, I miss myself.
Enormous snow flakes are flying through the sky, crowding my window, obscuring the darting jays of my yard. All it would take to tip the balance is to lean into it like I do the broom. A small act, to pick up a guitar. On an ordinary day like any other it could bring some relief but now I'm reluctant to let go of this paralysis of spirit like a petulant child. On a better day with a guitar under my arms, I might walking backwards (as usual) bump into myself, turn and be glad.