A Narrow Line

The equinox has come and gone, and the dark is taking up more time than light as sunrise and sunset are pushed closer together. Waking up in the dark – the relative dark of Somerville, where the street lights are always blaring – with the sunrise so far off takes some getting used to.

As I sit here drinking my morning coffee, lines from Robert Ashley’s Perfect Lives are arising, unbidden. “This is a celebration of the changing of the light.” “The transition always takes one by surprise. Always.” Perfect Lives is an opera that is so much more than the sum of its parts, and its parts are like so many sparkling jewels.

My thoughts are still touching on transitions, which isn’t surprising. Next week is a transition of a sort, as I start school to learn a new trade. But it makes me aware that right now I’m in the midst of infinite transitions that I can only really see out of the corner of my eye. Some I can put a name to, but most remain nameless – I can’t figure out the starting and ending states. Transition to what, from where? Everything is change, but it’s so fluid, there’s a imagined sense of solidity. Until you look and see that it’s nothing but beautiful change, pure transition.

I am in love with the ordinariness of life.

It’s a liberating feeling to not know something, exhilarating to be able to look at something without the expectation of already having to have an opinion or plan. It’s more than a little scary, too. I feel comforted when I’m padded with pre-formed judgments, but it’s clear that it limits my vision and the richness of my experience.

I think back to right before I left music school, and how I’d almost entirely lost the ability to hear music. I would hear structures and chords and timbres, but in the almost instantaneous analysis I lost the experience of the music itself. I couldn’t figure out a way to break through, and it made me sad. It took me a long time and a lot of practice to start hearing again.

I’m grateful that it’s possible to cultivate that state of not-knowing, to be more at home there. It’s nice not to know, nice to see the possibilities that arise out of not-knowing.

I removed the air conditioner in the window this morning, another sign that Summer is on her way out. I love this transition period, where the line Summer and Fall overlap and lines get a little blurry.

I managed to over-inflate two bike tubes while fixing a flat on my bike this morning. The first “boom” was so loud and unexpected it made me jump and knocked a few magnets off the fridge (the floor was due a mopping anyway, so why not add a bit of bike grease?) The second was almost expected, and I’m surprised the third tube managed to survive.

It got me thinking about a favorite topic of mine, “knowing when to stop,” or more generally “how much is enough.” Too much air and I get an explosion, too little and it’s under-inflated and will puncture at the first hostile hunk of pavement. Just enough, and… well that’s where all the magic happens.

The PSI gauge on my bike pump (if it worked) would give me just the right number for “enough” air, but with life, not so much. It’s about finding that place through observation, trial and error. The Buddha, master of metaphors, had something to say about this, using a harp string as an example. What sticks me is similar to what got Sona stuck; I get down on myself for being too slack, and in addition I get down on myself for being too tightly wound. It’s a game I’ve set up that I can’t win.

Frustrating! But that’s the beauty of practice. Seeing my behavior is practice, and another step on the way to easing into balance. And it doesn’t hurt to remind myself that even if I’m a little under- or over-inflated, I still wobble onwards.

This site is a phoenix, rising from the ashes of seven years of archives and a point of view that no longer fit. It’s enough of a rebirth that it needs a new name. I’m not sure what it’s about; I’ll let it grow into purpose. If there’s one thing in particular I hope to accomplish, it’s to celebrate the wonder of the present.