too much thinking

somehow, amidst the tornado that we call "the holidays," i find time to paint. i also find {or rather, make} time to apply to graduate school. a fact that for several reasons i've avoided writing about here. first, i must be honest in saying that i wish i was "successful" enough as a musician and writer that i didn't feel i had to do this. but then, it's all relative i suppose. also a matter of timing. perhaps this will be better for my creativity and my spirit than i could ever begin to imagine. i therefore approach it with excitement, and the entrails of such negativity, begin to wither in the sun. or snow, as it may be.

secondly, i don't want to have to admit to you folks if i don't get in anywhere, because as much as i would like to think that it's entirely subjective and i wouldn't take it at all personally, i figure that just isn't true. but then why do i assume that i have to ever write about it again, that i have to detail the foils of this decision.

if anything, this forum is a place where i write selectively about whatever i choose on any given day. for all you know, i could be accepted to a thousand schoools, and then decide at the last minute that i have changed my mind entirely. next fall may see keri and i raising sheep in southern spain. doubtful, but one never knows. furthermore, why do i care what you folks think about my intellect? {assuming of course that my acceptance or refusal has anything to do with my intellect} as much as i try to tell myself i don't care what other people think {and for the most part i'm pretty good at this} i find that we all do to some extent. it is to some degree, what makes us human after all.

anyway, what this all adds up to, is the simple fact that applying to graduate school is a pain in the ass, and costs a lot of money. i've been saying to keri, that i think i should write a book about the absurdity of the GRE, and the poor design of university websites. boo hoo. pull out your violins.

and for the record, i still haven't been able to load those damn songs onto my machine. of course while this all sounds rather whiny, i'm really in good spirits and have nothing to complain about. here i sit wondering where the sun has gone this last month, when nearly 100,000 are dead in asia, and the war chugs along in the middle-east. good god. sometimes our ethnocentrism makes me sick. and here i am worried about money. perhaps i should take all of this grad school money, and send it over there to people who really need it. write a letter to the prospective schools, explaing that i still wish to apply and attend, but that i've sent my money to people who need it. wouldn't it be amazing if we lived in a world where that worked? where they would reward such a thing. perhaps it's my job to make that a reality. or perhaps i just need to sort out my brain a bit today. too much thinking, too little walking. not enough music. poetry.

"perhaps i have to put myself in order,
beginning with my head.
i'm going to divide into numbered squares
my brain and cerebellum,
and when a memory crops up
i will say 'a hundred and something'.
then i will recognize
the wall and the climbing vine,
and perhaps i'll entertain myself
giving names to forgotten things."

~Neruda

we'll all float on

Christian Kiefer with his banjo, which was not recorded that day. After a round of drummer cancellations, he ended up behind the kit, stringed instruments in their cases. Sleeping. December 4th. Having turned thirty two the day before, I felt older.

The port of San Francisco. It is evening. I spent my day walking about the city, and reading in parks. Looking for a tea kettle. That evening saw me drifting away from the city on the back of the ferry boat. Why I had never taken this boat before was a mystery to me. I stood watching the light fade away, the sun falling, casting blue on the bay bridge. I was mesmerized {as usual} by the stunning grace of the city.

Me, in a hotel, with the sun coming in.

The lights of the city, seen from the deck of the boat. The wind, biting my skin. Me, the only one sitting outside.

Keri and I at the San Francisco airport. 2:30 pm eastern standard time. {11:30 in California} sleepy, but awake from the plane. Laughing about how absurd it was to watch people react to the famous man in first class. The oohs and ahhhs. The strangeness of our post-modern, western culture.

A street in the middle of the Canadian winter. A white street, filled with snow. The lights shining down.

The view from a winter window. The pink sky, reminding me of spring evenings on Kentucky street in redwood city California. The nostalgia thick. It makes me think of jeff mcdowell, and miss him. Wonder just how it is that I’ve never seen his child. How does life do that to us all? Send us adrift in some giant sea.

Another shot of San Francisco from the ferry boat. My god I love that city. All of it. everything about it. everything.

And then rosie, who is currently my favorite living dog {that I know.} how is it that we can miss a dog so greatly?

I am currently reading {yes still} The cave by Jose Saramago in which there are some amazing insights into the brain of a dog. The soul.

And so the fire burns. Christmas has come and gone. My wife sits beside me reading as I type. I work on a mix cd {s} about which I will soon write, as it has consumed me. Obsessively so. Thoughts still scattered. All things {time included} blurring together. A link below to an amazing photographer. Some artists, in their greatness and conviction {and altruism}, cause me to question just what the hell I’m doing with my life. Perhaps these questions never leave. Christian wrote aptly about something related to this {more or less} on his site today. The mind reels. The fire burns. The winter lives. The wife reads. The man contemplates a walk. Yes, that’s it. a walk. “and we’ll all float on okay” {hints from the mix}

sebastiao salgado {afore-mentioned photographer}

the best cup of oolong

i would like to write about the hip-high snow banks. the funeral of a great man that i never knew. a story of him, up on a hill overlooking istanbul, a scooter carrying all that he owned. post photos from the trip to california which were neglected. write of having tea with my wife a few days ago, the best cup of oolong i've had in some time. so many other things. the act of running with snowshoes. shoveling the car out. dancing on a busy streetcorner, to the slowest of music.

but christmas is nearly here. there is a turkey to deal with, and family on the way. there are memories of this time a year ago, and there are lights casting a water-like reflection on the snow. there is a fire. there is a cat by my side on the couch. there is mulled wine. bread and cheese. the second christmas in the snow for this california boy. i shouldn't rush my words like this. they should fall out like streams not oceans. they should have more meaning than the rushing of fingers. they should be less scattered.

and they will. tomorrow perhaps.

"how the clock moves on, relentlessly,
with such assurance that it eats the years.
the days are small and transitory grapes,
the months grow faded, taken out of time.

it fades, it falls aways, the moment, fired
by that implacable artillery~
and suddenly, only a year is left to us,
a month, a day, and death turns up in the diary." ~Neruda

{for the man who is gone}

it is just cold

it is amazingly cold here. i have been patiently waiting for the day upon which i break my own personal "this is the coldest day i have ever experienced" record. and voila. here we are. the old record, was set on a sunny day in new york city. i don't recall exactly what i did on that day, but i do have littles slices of memory floating about. walking past that outdoor ice rink somewhere near fifth avenue, the old man raising his arms to the sky. central park, empty by central park standards, the ground covered with ice. watching the kids in the neighborhood, write their names and other impermanent grafitti on the car windows. the strange feeling of a frozen nose. sadly, as i sit here writing, the temperature rises {i just checked the thermometer} from 22 degrees below zero to ten below. fahrenheit.

perhaps the strangest thing about the weather here {being from california} is that there is usually very little fluctuation in temperature all day or night. strange. it is just cold. also strange, is the fact that the people who live here seem to find the cold more unbearable than i. as keri and i walked home last night, she tried to pull me along, scurrying her feet, but those of you who know me, know that i walk slowly. period. walking fast somehow goes against the grain of who i am. i would prefer to be an albatross.

and this winter, i feel there will be many firsts. as yesterday for example, saw my first time snowshoeing. {sp?} which was magnificent and peaceful. i felt so wonderfully adapted to my world. the temptation to walk across the frozen lake, will of course not leave. i've begun to grow afraid to walk in the woods alone, for this impulse may consume me entirely, and watch me drowning in a frozen lake. what a horrific death that would be. utterly devoid of peace. and so winter is here. my second christmas holiday in the snow.

today i will shovel the paths {a daily experience} and walk in the woods. paint. sit by the fire and read. try to figure out how to load the songs from our tequila infested, far too late at night, drummerless {with christian and another friend sitting in the best that they could}, emotional turmoil infested, oakland recording session into my new recording equipment, which seems to require NASA training to operate. ugh. and of course the sad news that while i have been writing, and drinking tea this morning, the temperature has unexpectedly risen, thusly causing me to miss the opportunity to break my record. damn. the sun shines brightly on the snow. it is a beacon that calls to me. come outside jefferson. come out and feel the ice form on your eyelashes. watch your spit freeze to the ground. suck in the cold air, thick on the lungs. thick on the lungs.

clicking

i arrive home to a world enshrouded in snow. a wife and a friend that miraculously survive a car crash on the ice, and a plane that dips and soars too much. erratic. i avoid the computer for days, and turn inside. i wander through myself. the time blurs. then i am sitting inside on the couch, and look out at the streetlamp. sodium. green. i see the snow falling in the light, and walk outside with my camera. click. click. click. click. click.

for those still writing about the {tired} subject of my deleting certain posts, i refer you to something i wrote over the summer. go here.

now, back to the fire and the music and the soup and the glass of red wine bought for my 32nd birthday. i raise my glass to another year. they just keep clicking don't they?

showing the grays

Currently sitting in a café, across the street from Dolores park. The sun is out. French music playing. People with computers. Others, with books. Others yet, talking. A man behind the bar, with enormous pink sunglasses. A woman to my right, wears the perfect skirt. Blue. Sandals. I wish I’d had the foresight to bring sandals on this trip. Although, after my sock-sliding, inch and a half long-splinter in the foot, incident, I currently need the best shoes in the world. I limp. Kids with dyed black hair, and leather jackets. A man, who looks like Elvis, wearing the 50’s uniform.

I recall walking past here years ago, looking over a woman that reminded me of a friend from college. This friend from college had drifted into air, {new york air} and has drifted further since then. A memory. A balloon. The only trace, a soft line, on a child’s hand.

So keri has gone and I remain. Days with Andrea and Matt come and go, feeling ever grateful for their love. And I leave today, to wander. I will spend the last two days of my 31st year, stumbling about the city. Berkeley. Marin. Tonight I visit friends I’ve had sixteen years or so. The history of our lives, the mere collection of years, never ceases to amaze me. The things we all know of one another. The smallest of details. We will laugh {as always} and comment on the slow dying of our youth. Compare our growing bald spots. Show each other the grays.

So I miss my wife already, and feel as though a limb, while not severed, has gone entirely numb. Sometimes, it seems there is never enough time. In our walking here, we only scratch the surface. Ice lingers, beneath the nails. We walked through Berkeley yesterday, visiting the places that made my old home, my home. Live oak park. The cheeseboard. The pub on Solano avenue. 4th st. Peets. The memories flooded. How is it than I can miss my old home, and my new home at the same time? A purgatory of time and space.

Thoughts {and words coming from those thoughts} feel scattered today. Feeling a bit out of my skin, partly the result of traveling. Reading a book on true love, by Thich Nhat Hanh, a gift from my wife. Also reading “the Cave” by Jose Saramago. A bit ironic to be reading a book about Buddhism, while switching back and forth between it, and another. Such it is.

The sun and the grass of the park call me. The familiar voice of the air. I understand that it is snowing today at home. So I will soak the sun with all that I’ve got. I will pull my t-shirt up, and let it taste the skin of my belly. My arms. My face.