Day 296, January 5, 2020

Inspired by Esperanza

Tonight's soundtrack: Free Medicine with Esperanza Spalding

Writing is like anything else, it is like pushups, like snow shoeing, like ice skating, like playing an instrument, and when you wander off for a week or so, it is hard to return and find the flow again. 

Playing with portrait mode with 
Junebug.

Each morning, I try to write a little poetry. It comes out as verse, but sometimes it is more like a journal entry, or a list of ideas, or images. But, that too is a thing that dissolves with lack of use. It is a muscle that needs to be exercised and it is much easier when used regularly. And yet, like jogging, if I were a jogger, it is easy to beg off because of the weather, or the day is too busy, or something has interrupted the regularly scheduled programming of the day. And one day without writing, becomes another day, a week, and then it is exponentially harder to suit up and go for that jog. 

It is interesting that I have become a man of habit, that I seem to need these structures in my life to maintain progress. I've had an idea that it is structure that enables creativity. In my first conversation with Professor Wilkie, who would later become my advisor, in the University Club over lunch I talked about how the structure of a Shakespearian sonnet is part of what enables his poems to still resonate today. It was the specific structure of the iambic pentameter and the rhyme scheme that forced a word selection, a shaping of images and ideas into something that was bound and specific, and unique. It made something special emerge that was out of the ordinary.

To a much lesser degree, the way I structure my days enables the small modicum of creativity I can generate, not just in writing, but in life as a whole, I suppose. When I was little and my grandfather came to this country, he maintained the exercises of a lifetime in the military. Every morning he would wake up and do his stretches while watching Sesame Street so he could pick up some English. I would stretch along side him, but mostly watch Sesame Street. 

He must have had something right, as he lived a very long time.

Perhaps subconsciously I have emulated his sense of routine. Every weekday, after I get showered and mostly dressed, I do as many pushups as I am years old. On Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays I make a smoothie with breakfast. Every weekday I eat my breakfast while staring at a blank page in my notebook while holding the Japanese fountain pen my daughter got me while she was teaching English abroad. And then, every workday, except Friday, I write this blog. 

I wonder if one extended that structure to other parts on one's life if other things would fall into place and become more natural, easier. If I could vacuum on a regular rhythm, clean the toilets, windex the bathroom mirrors. Perhaps if those tasks were more structured, my life would seem more complete, fulfilling, or more like a '50s housewife. 

The days are slipping into evening. Today, I turned off the lights in my room when I took a break for lunch and forgot to turn them back on so that by the end of the day, my room had succumbed to the twilight, illuminated only by the laptop and external monitor. Even the chickens were returning to the coop and getting ready to roost for the night. I think I might have surprised them when I turned on the torchiere lamp by the window. 

I have been thinking about people who reach out and how one should respond. How do we create a more caring community for one another? In this time of distance and isolation, how do you press palms across a distance? 

I have been dreaming too. Strange dreams where I am living in a boarding house or hostel with dormitory rooms of single beds, and I have too many jobs with too many commitments, and the sun is so bright that I cannot see well enough to put on my own pants that I call out of my ex-wife to help, if she is there. She does not respond.

There is something about desire that makes time move differently. The desire for things, people, experiences, but especially experiences. Watching Esperanza Spalding makes me yearn for that deep rich feeling of the upright bass. It has been too long since I've felt it pressed against my body, run my hand upon the worn smooth varnish on the neck and feel the deep sonorousness in my chest, pressed the vibrations of the scroll against my head, something I think Ray Brown used to do when it was too loud to hear the bass. It is a physical instrument, like writing with a manual typewriter. But like a typewriter, it responds with a delightful vibrancy. 

Standing outside on a sunny day playing an old Kay bass. Some days just sound so much better.

I remember

listening to voices

and measuring time

by presences and absences.

There was movement of fabric,

clothes and sleeves.

There was always music,

and glasses,

food being made,

the hot pot of mushrooms

and deer antler,

the noxious elixir

of sustaining life.

The man in a white 

tank-top undershirt

is the same man in 

his button down

rubbing Ben Gay 

onto my sprained ankle,

fishing for frogs.

A long driveway

is an aesthetic statement.

The last time I fell asleep

was while driving home

from some moderate distance

and it was nearly imperceptible,

the loss of sensation,

the momentary elevation,

and the gasp

the gasp

of returning  to life.

Take care and be well,

Leo

The Sawmill River and Franklin at lunch.

Things I've learned in the new year:

1. Bone stock in the box from Stop and Shop doesn't work for tteokguk.
2. Brie is not a great morning substitute for cream cheese on a bagel (too rich and you taste like brie for the rest of the day).