Meditating

I have taken up meditation at long last. And the very first thing I noticed while watching my mind was this: the voice in my head that tells me I'm great is the very same one that tells me I'm dreadful. This has been a special thing to recognize.

The other thing I noticed is that meditation is mentally almost identical to practicing music. Only before, I didn't realize that I was allowed to quiet or ignore my thoughts, so sometimes they just ran over me and I had to take a break. I thought that finding "the zone" was more a matter of luck, but it's a skill! So hooray for that.

Revelation

This is the back-story: Since last October, I've had this friend on Facebook whom I did not recognize. We had a handful of friends in common, and the worst part was that she clearly knew who I was and had said many friendly things, while I- feeling like a jerk- drew a blank.

Then, this morning I dragged myself out of bed, splashed some cold water on my face, and out of nowhere, realized exactly who the mystery girl was! She used to go by a different first name, is all. But the crazy thing is that I had forgotten all about her, which is weird because I really liked her and we were pretty close friends. Hung out at eachother's houses and everything.

So get this- life feels pretty long, right? I mean, you have a lot of memories stored up, and from this richness comes the sense of having been around for awhile, right? But imagine how long life actually is. If I lost (for a time) all memory of a good friend from my thirteenth year, just imagine how many other things have happened to me that I just don't remember anymore! Finding this girl in my brain really felt like plucking a card out from the middle of a deck. I guess it's good that we don't have to haul all our memories around with us all the time, but it does make me wonder what all the other cards look like, and how it would feel to be able to access every single one.

A Poem

I rise in the morning on life's bleary shore,
My vestements still wet from the evening before
And fully expect yet another downpour
Refrain:
With a hup-to, hop-to, give me all your money,
Clip-clop, button-pop, don't you think I'm funny,
Pitter-patter, cleaver-splatter give the mouse a nut,
And put a dab of powder on the old man's butt.

Red sky in the morning, the sailors all cringe,
I stare at it dully from under my fringe,
And gingerly step to avoid a syringe.
Refrain

The Fun Forest's littered with signs of good cheer,
With end-caps from crackers and top-caps from beer,
Two-thousand and nine, I will not spend it here!
Refrain

French Movies

Another day, another disappointing French movie. I keep trying for a moody romp full of ennui, wry innocence and je ne sais quoi, but end up with clunkers like Bord de Mer and Pauline a la Plage. I guess they truly don't make them like they used to. This one was La turneuse de page (The Page Turner): a young girl fails her proficiency exam because she is distracted when her auditor signs an autograph during the girl's performance. Even though her parents say they will continue paying for lessons, she gives up the instrument. She grows into a lovely, prim young woman and gets a job as nanny to the (now neurotic) auditor's son. Armed with sensible shoes and pencil skirt, she becomes the woman's page turner/security blanket and makes a couple of passes at her. Of course, she betrays her by walking away from an important performance, leaving the pianist unable to play, but the bad seed is forgiven. The pianist falls in love with her. The girl leaves the love note in the pianist's husband's mail, where he finds it after the girl has left. The pianist collapses on her white carpet and we end with the girl walking down the road, expressionless as ever.

But they missed all the possibilities! In my American remake, the pianist will become hypnotized by the girl's youth and simplicity, while the girl desires to be valued for her potential as an artist...but that's the rub. It's not the pianist's fault that she quit, so there can be no real satisfaction in the revenge. Also, the girl will be high on the attention paid to her by the great artist and we will be made to doubt her resolve to destroy the older woman. She will play the son's rising star against his mother's fading one, using the promise of her person as the snare. Finally, there will be lots of close-ups of skin (freckles, goosebumps) and hands to capture the Edwardian subtlety of the seduction, and the whole family will go to the beach at some point.

New Year

The days before Christmas were amazing here in Seattle. It snowed and snowed, and nobody could drive anywhere without chains because there were no snowplows or salt. The ice packed onto the streets and we came to a halt. I spent an isolated Sunday strolling around my neighborhood, and everybody else seemed to be doing the same thing. Steep Queen Anne Avenue was blocked off and people were skiing and sledding down on whatever was handy- cardboard boxes and cookie sheets. I saw a discarded can of Pam cooking spray on the side of the road. The rest of us watched and smiled and chatted with one another. People were so friendly that day! It was truly remarkable- like a different city entirely. I remember the sound of laughter and delight and the foghorn filling up the snow-white harbor.

...But the new year reveals the same bleak old landscape and here we are, scowling past eachother in the streets once more. So it's just as well that my Seattle sojourn will come to an end in February! I will be returning to the land of ice and frost, to re accustom my lungs to the alpine air for spell and leave this alien place without rancor or regret.