The snow hardens the tough rubber of my boots as I hike through the snow, and unless I am hiking rather vigorously with my thickest socks on, the chill seeps into my feet, residing for hours. As the sun slowly washes the snow away over days, shovels work on by piling heaps of snow at the base of sleeping trees on the Pearl St. Mall. On overcast days, cold blue light saturates, and photos carry the indelible signature of the season. Grainy and blue, I become frustrated with the results of freezing fingers and stinging winds.
This is the season I find myself sitting on a hassock in the corner of my apartment for an extra thirty minutes after lunch, soaking in the midday sun as I inspect my plants doing the same. Hugging my guitar to my chest, I rest my cheek on the curved body, closing my eyes toward the sun, tapping soft rhythms of snow melting from the roof, and rhythms of my restlessness.
Songs that come from lunch return some content to my chest, and I open the window halfway to let some sound out to my neighbors, in hopes there is one walking about who may find one of these songs resonate with a similar sentiment in which it was created.
Between songs I rest my cheek back on the side of my guitar, waiting for a new rhythm to move my fingers into song. I sing and shout for awhile, and finally when I rest my cheek on my guitar and hear nothing, just black silence, I return my guitar to its black velvet case, and ride my bike back to work.
While the fall broke me down, the coming of Winter has built me back up. As I finally feel rare instances of consistence in my work, my emotions, etc, I feel restless all the same. Every night I awake looking into the darkness, hoping to find faint hints of light whispering the coming day into my eyes. I laid in bed last night thinking how nice it would be to return home on the shortest day of the year - a homecoming in the quiet night of the year. A week later, I will return to Boulder, prepared to celebrate the coming of a new calendar year, awakening every day to new light, greeting the waxing sun, each day bringing us closer to the awakening of Spring.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Friday, December 14, 2007
Lavender
I was reading a college friend's blog this morning while watching others pass around me in Book End Cafe on Pearl St. Mall, and he used a quote that has landed me found several times in my life:
Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.
— Henry Thoreau
Pat moved on to talk about his realization of need for his prose and writing to be a celebration of his connections to others, not himself as an island . This thought immediately crumbled and washed away many thoughts of mine behind my blog as well. While I seek to find the truth, beauty, and clarity in this world, I often draw on self-realization, which normally have to do with the natural world surrounding me, and while I hope that my reflections and observations will encourage others seek out similar observations, I am somehow failing to truly encourage others to seek out such beauty, truth and clarity for themselves.
No one's writing is an island, for we all are a product of our environment. We are continually being reinvented, replenished, redefined by everyone that surrounds us, and it is wrong for me to treat my writing with such ownership. It has indeed remained my Ego Island for the past months.
And while I read Pat's journal and distractedly looked around to observe the masses swirling around me, the aroma of lavender invaded. I am obsessed with this smell. I have not yet figured out if this obsession has a deep seed in my childhood, for this scent never wafted the forests of Pennsylvania, yet out here in Boulder it is common for someone to pass by leaving an organically fragrant plume of lavender in their wake.
My ties to this scent may have developed recently from a massage oil Sara and I have, but I do not yet know. All I know is that when I smell this scent, I am completely distracted as though this scent is a song from the sirens to my sinuses. There is a carnal depth within this scent that hints at a certain closeness to all my surroundings, as if I was at once lying in bed with all of my surroundings. My eyes dart around as my nose tests the air like some bird dog seeking out the source, and I am drawn to that person, plant, or listless room decoration as though under a psychedelic haze, I believe there is some distant connection I must come to understand between us. Yet, just as the scent dissipates I return to awareness of my surroundings, no longer feeling the unity within the previous moment.
Perhaps this helps me realize why Sara and I recently bought a lavender oil to put on ourselves each day. I want to constantly smell this oil, if only to continually flirt within these feelings of deeper connection to my surroundings, and hopefully some way which I have yet to realize, this will help what I write to become more inclusive.
Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.
— Henry Thoreau
Pat moved on to talk about his realization of need for his prose and writing to be a celebration of his connections to others, not himself as an island . This thought immediately crumbled and washed away many thoughts of mine behind my blog as well. While I seek to find the truth, beauty, and clarity in this world, I often draw on self-realization, which normally have to do with the natural world surrounding me, and while I hope that my reflections and observations will encourage others seek out similar observations, I am somehow failing to truly encourage others to seek out such beauty, truth and clarity for themselves.
No one's writing is an island, for we all are a product of our environment. We are continually being reinvented, replenished, redefined by everyone that surrounds us, and it is wrong for me to treat my writing with such ownership. It has indeed remained my Ego Island for the past months.
And while I read Pat's journal and distractedly looked around to observe the masses swirling around me, the aroma of lavender invaded. I am obsessed with this smell. I have not yet figured out if this obsession has a deep seed in my childhood, for this scent never wafted the forests of Pennsylvania, yet out here in Boulder it is common for someone to pass by leaving an organically fragrant plume of lavender in their wake.
My ties to this scent may have developed recently from a massage oil Sara and I have, but I do not yet know. All I know is that when I smell this scent, I am completely distracted as though this scent is a song from the sirens to my sinuses. There is a carnal depth within this scent that hints at a certain closeness to all my surroundings, as if I was at once lying in bed with all of my surroundings. My eyes dart around as my nose tests the air like some bird dog seeking out the source, and I am drawn to that person, plant, or listless room decoration as though under a psychedelic haze, I believe there is some distant connection I must come to understand between us. Yet, just as the scent dissipates I return to awareness of my surroundings, no longer feeling the unity within the previous moment.
Perhaps this helps me realize why Sara and I recently bought a lavender oil to put on ourselves each day. I want to constantly smell this oil, if only to continually flirt within these feelings of deeper connection to my surroundings, and hopefully some way which I have yet to realize, this will help what I write to become more inclusive.
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