Thursday, April 06, 2006

Wafting scent of brewing coffee musings...

My day job little closet office is right above our little coffee bar at school. In the mornings, when the students drift in for their morning caffe, the grinding and brewing of the magic bean (organic, free trade of course) is in full force, and I am enveloped by the aroma (if I'm at my desk, which I happen to be). And so, it pulls me down for a cuppa. Yum. It is one of the things I like about my day job.

Odd and apparently disconnected ponderings:

I am a half assed student of John Cage’s ideas on randomness and chance as an element of creative work. (Actually, I’m a half-assed student of a lot of things…) Cage’s main area of endeavor was music, and he had the idea of setting up or allowing possibilities for things to happen, and redefined his definition of music. I don’t usually care for the product (musically) but tend to subscribe to the theory creatively in my own work. So this morning I’m driving along, listening to Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s Ragged Glory at a fairly high volume, then fumbled around with the click wheel while not paying much attention, and suddenly was filled with the lush tunes of Bach’s Orchestral Suite Hogwood 2 (a delightful name but no link cause I'm so ignorant of classical music that I can't find one!). Now, that sounds like a pretty far jump, but it was actually really nice. I think the Neil Young enabled me to hear the Bach better or at least differently. Random chance…good result.

I wore shorts today; the wind quit blowing, the sun was out, I was hopeful. I think the temp started dropping as soon as I got out the door and it is going to snow tonight. Go figure, I’m a one man weather changing machine.

I’m not sleeping much these days, thus the lack of evening ponderings. Lots of ideas, lots of energy, lots of thoughts, all a-jumble and a-tangle. But good stuff, little to no murky darkness, so while I’m not able to corral them, they are bright and filled with what feels like to be good energy. Spring? The moon? Or just life changes? Who knows, the pendulum swings, currently on the up. I’m rather enjoying it.

We live in an area where things happen kind of casually. A couple of years ago, during a hurricane which came in as far as the mountains(!) our roof developed a leak. Intermittent, not too much to worry about, but getting more frequent. So, pennies started being saved.. I tried to find and repair, to no avail. Since the roof is steeply pitched, and requires special hooks and ladders to do it at all (never mind safely) I gave in and called a contractor (local and of good repute). A huge step for me, the ultimate do-it-yourselfer. I hate asking for or having to call for help. This was…3 months ago. This morning, they arrived, unannounced. By Monday, we will be poorer by far but with a new dry roof overhead.

I have my camera with me today. For some reason I’m in the mood to take some pictures of water. We have a lot of small rivers and creeks around, with pretty good flows and of course lots of great rocks. I feel a bit of a metaphorical inclination driving this mood, and it ties into the wind. Now I’m wondering how a rock sculpture in the middle of the creek would look, or a wind sculpture with moving elements, placed at the creek or rivers edge.

Somehow, all this fits together nicely in my head.

Have a great day!