|
| so ive been diagnosed with rsd in addition to cubital tunnel syndrome and im not very pleased
in fact im battling depression because my outlet and constant desire is to play violin and piano
and now that im getting pressure from all sides to produce studio work (i am in 3x the standard number of studio classes this quarter) at the same level of refinement as before and at the same fast pace
which i am more or less physically incapable of
it seems like my options are to:
-produce high quality work and not finish
-produce lower quality work and finish
but in any case playing music is not on the agenda
and the more down i get
the more i want to play
catch-22
hi ho.
| | |
| So basically my heart went into overdrive and exploded into my bloodstream and I had to keep my blood moving by jumping and pumping and bouncing along to the music until my heart remembered itself once the show was over and re-assembled back in its cozy niche in my chest cavity.
and all was right with the world.
| | |
| Choose a quiet
place, a ruins, a house no more
a house,
under whose stone archway I stood
one day to duck the rain.
The roofless floor, vertical
studs, eight wood columns
supporting nothing,
two staircases careening to nowhere, all
make it seem
a sketch, notes to a house, a three-
dimensional grid negotiating
absences,
an idea
receding into indefinite rain,
or else that idea
emerging, skeletal
against the hammered sky, a
human thing, scoured seen clean
through from here to an iron heaven.
A place where things
were said and done,
there you can remember
what you need to
remember. Melancholy is useful. Bring yours.
There are no neighbors to wonder
who you are,
what you might me doing
walking there,
stopping now and then
to touch a crumbling brick
or stand in a doorway
framed by the day.
No one has to know you
thing of another doorway
that framed the rain or news of war
depending on which way you faced.
You think of sea-roads and earth-roads
you traveled once, and always
in the same direction: away.
You think
of a woman, a favorite
dress, your old father's breasts
the last time you saw him, his breath,
brief, the leaf
you've torn from a vine and which you hold now
to your cheek like a train ticket
or a piece of cloth, a little hand or a blade -
it all depends
on the course of your memory.
It's a place
for those who own no place
to correspond to ruins in the soul.
It's mine.
It's all yours. | | |
| ...so I've been in France for a couple of months.
I've been so busy that I've only written about 20 or 30 pages in my journal. And for me that is quite little.
I can't even begin to say how happy and inspired I am here.
I gave my first (ever!) piano concert last night in Maison Forte. I played a lot of new stuff I've learned here. It's great having one of only two existing keys to the piano hall. ^_^
I'm really loving my fibers class. And the fibers students. And the teacher. Pam loves me. She told me.
I've met a couple of people who are so well-matched to me and who I am SO excited to hang out with back in Savannah. Kate. She is the biggest example. I fall asleep after talking for hours in her spare room as much as I sleep in my own room.
My room. Skylight. Sloped roof. Crawlspace. I have a kitchen.
I love it.
I love waking up and sticking my head out the window to see the sun coming up over the hills and greeting Bonnieux on the other side of the valley. I love following the progression of the snow levels on the Alps.
I love the sunshine. I love being outside. I love making things.
Finn (our Irish landscaper and resident poet...his stuff is amazing) and Dominique have given me French lessons.
Sylvan asked me to play keys for his metal band (a French metal band?! PWN!). He played me a song in his car. We sang along to Dream Theater together. Light to dark dark to light light to dark!
I am getting pwning bangs in Barcelona. Just you wait. I'm going to look awesome.
I've sewn books, bags, postcards, plates (yes.), pots of coffee (yes.), silverware (yes.), (to explain - for vernissage I am sewing a breakfast scene and all of the items contained, including tablecloth and clothing, will be for sale).
I probably won't find time to write again until I'm home, but... it's
more than I hoped it would be. In fact, I forced myself not to think
about the Lacoste quarter until I arrived because I didn't want to be
disappointed. I couldn't be. It's amazing. I want to come back next year. We'll see. There are negatives, but there are so many positives. It's just too emotionally stimulating. ^_^
| | |
| Bonsai.
All it takes is one to throw a room
completely out of whack.
Over by the window
it looks hundreds of yards away,
a lone stark gesture of wood
on the distant cliff of a table.
Up close, it draws you in,
Cuts everything down to its size.
Look at it from the doorway,
And the world dilates and bloats.
The button lying next to it
is now a pearl wheel,
the book of matches is a raft,
and the coffee cup a cistern
to catch the same rain that moistens
its small plot of dark, mossy earth.
For it even carries its own weather,
leaning away from a fierce wind
that somehow blows
through the calm tropics of this room.
The way it bends inland at the elbow
makes me want to inch my way
to the very top of its spiky greenery,
hold on for dear life
and watch the sea storm rage,
hoping for a tiny whale to appear.
I want to see her plunging forward
through the troughs,
tunneling under the foam and spindrift
on her annual, thousand-mile journey. | | |
|
