We were talking about making music, versus playing notes. J was commenting that she observed the shape of the music by watching the players' body language: it was like they were on a journey. E said, "That's very perceptive," because one of the things she is always conscious of is that music is notes passing through time, and it is her job and delight to follow and guide that journey.
Later I attended a concert where she came to the microphone and talked about the piece the group was about to play. "This music has a trajectory" she said, "you can't just sit where you are," arms held out, encircling a rotund shape.
I envy her certitude. She knows her craft, and she can find that trajectory and follow it, while the rest of us follow her in turn. We find that trajectory through her interpretive journey. We watch and listen and move along with her. It's thrilling in a way that other journeys are not: I find myself holding my breath...will she make it? where is she going now? wow, this is amazing, I can't believe I'm here!
In fact, having a brilliant musician share that trajectory is one of the joys of life. But there is a certain sorrow too: it's over too soon, and the guide is gone. Also, following an expert guide has its own hazards. While the experience is perfect, it is also mediated, not completely experienced. Part of a journey is plotting the course, and we feel lazy or cheated if we follow someone else's footsteps. There are templates, guidebooks, maps and reviews, but ultimately the journey must be one's own discovery or it's meaningless.
And here is where I bog down. I love following the brilliant artists. Musical, visual, literary, scientific...you name it, there are some amazing minds and talents out there, and I want to experience their insights, to follow their journeys. I am not a genius (or rather, as Elizabeth Gilbert said on TED, I may just have a rather lame one). And, isn't there a certain ego in this need to plot one's own course, not to mention stress? Is it really worth it? Read the lives of explorers: even if they are sure, their followers usually are not, and there's that waterfall over the precipice, that dragon, that formless chaos, just waiting for people who leave the safe places and get too close.
Life is mutable, life is change through space and time. Life is music, in a sense, the melody passing through time, changing, moving....And it's not so easy to find the trajectory of a life. So much of life is a reaction. It doesn't seem to have a meaning or a movement. It's more like the Philip Glass score I saw in the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis: play freely for 40 minutes. pause for 1 minute. play freely for 25 minutes (Merce Cunningham Exhibit, May 2017.) It's random and ugly and...not music. The very freedom, illusory though the scripting shows it to be, means the trajectory cannot be understood, even in retrospect. I pity the dancers who try to give visible form to that chaos as it is moving through time. And yet, that's what we are doing, trying to follow the trajectory of our lives.
All my experiences continue to point me down that path. The journey is continuing, and I'm still not making sense of it. While right now I'm looking at it in terms of music, I continue to turn to literature and philosophy and poetry. When I was 13, I read The Chosen, and I was deeply moved by it, by the elements of the coming of age, the relationships with the fathers, the emotional underpinning that ultimately controlled the overt intellect. Male oriented, steeped in intellectual Judaism, it yet seemed to be the story of all kids trying to find a place. Potok starts the book with this lengthy quote:
“When a trout rising to a fly gets hooked on a line and finds
himself unable to swim about freely, he begins with a fight which
results in struggles and splashes and sometimes an escape. Often, of
course, the situation is too tough for him.
In the same way the human being struggles with his environment
and with the hooks that catch him. Sometimes he masters his
difficulties; sometimes they are too much for him. His struggles are all
that the world sees and it naturally misunderstands them. It is hard
for a free fish to understand what is happening to a hooked one.” –Karl A. Menninger
So, the journey is a struggle, one that cannot be understood from the outside, and one that cannot be controlled from the inside. Or can it be? I'm reading Karen Armstrong's The Great Transformation, and I've just reached the point where the philosophy of non-violence is being transformed by the Buddha. "The world, whose very nature is to change, is constantly determined to become something else...It is at the mercy of change, it is only happy when caught up in the process of change, but this love of change contains a measure of fear, and this fear is itself suffering" (pg 278.)
I have taken change as my lifestyle, but that very statement implies that I am in control, that I see the trajectory. And I don't. Is it possible that I'm following this path in order to learn just how ego-driven I am? Is the path I need to follow the 8-fold one? Can I get there as a nomad, planning and scheduling and budgeting my way through the year? Or do I need to observe these self-centered ephemeral thoughts and let them go? Do I even want to?
I don't think so. For every thought about weight and health and wealth, there is the soft touch of warm fur, the smooth silk of cool water moving along warm skin, the astringent deep warmth of coffee in the mouth. For every planned excursion, there is the delightful oddball discovery, like the Little Free Libraries dotting the neighborhood landscapes. For every great work in the museum or every amazing plant in the arboretum, there is an artful graffito or a century plant in a humble garden, growing higher than the telephone pole. And I would not experience any of these if I did not also take my egocentric self on these planned and plotted journeys, if I did not tell myself these stories.
So...trajectory. the path that a moving object follows through space as a function of time (Wikipedia)...the curve that a body (such as a planet or comet in its orbit or a rocket) describes in space (Merriam Webster online dictionary)....the path described by an object moving in air or space under the influence of such forces as thrust, wind resistance, and gravity, esp the curved path of a projectile or the course of a disease (freedictionary) an intelligent network connecting publishers to retailers, libraries, schools, and new distribution channels around the world (trajectory.com)
It's all about movement through space and time. And do I really need to plot that movement or analyze that change? Or shall I go back to that spreadsheet (recording those expenses) or that calendar (inputting those events)? Yes, I think I should move along this trajectory and tick off the box on my mental ToDo list that says "think for a bit, and write what you thought."
Tuesday, June 27, 2017
Monday, June 26, 2017
The theory of dog walking
Years ago, I saw a picture of a young woman walking a pack of dogs of all shapes, colors, and sizes. It was a black and white photograph, artfully composed, and it really wasn't about the dogs, although that's what drew my attention, of course. That, and the control, the sangfroid of the dog walker. She and the dogs were in profile, leashes fanned tautly away from her fist, her long hair flipping behind her in a breeze and glowing at the edges. She was braced slightly backwards against the pull of the leashes.
There was so much in that picture: beauty, social commentary, economic ironies. I have it in my head that I found it in an anthology. Maybe it was news pictures by the decade, maybe pictures by a famous photographer, like Annie Leibovitz. It was her sort of picture, as I remember it. And the memory is all I have to go by. A google search brought me yoga poses, silhouettes, people walking large numbers of dogs, people walking 2 dogs, dogs looking straight at the camera, dogs running in a park, two-fisted dog walkers, burly young men walking in sweats, older gentlemen in tweeds and hat. None were the picture I sought. I tried searching phrases, I tried searching single words. Examples: "new york" dog walkers, or leibovitz dogs, or my piece de resistance, "new york" young woman dog walker "annie leibovitz" black and white. I limited by "images" and skimmed through several pages of images. Nada. But one thing struck me as I searched: none of the dog walkers displayed the equanimity that I remembered. They all looked overwhelmed, stressed.
The reason I was looking for that picture is that now I'm paying for my lodging by walking dogs, specifically the dogs that I am pet-sitting. And tonight, as I unwound the two leashes for the umpteenth time (pink for the girl dog, blue for the boy dog, I kid you not), I thought back to that image and I thought..."it had to have been posed." The naive nascent photographer that first saw that picture didn't think in those terms. I was new to the idea of an industry of dog walkers, said industry being created by a society of people who want pets but don't have the time to actually care for them. Instead of speculating on photographic logistics, I pondered paradoxes: why have a dog if you can't walk with it? why have a dog in New York? Dogs need to run free, right? I also pondered the skill of the walker: how did she manage all those dogs, each pulling with a hugely different weight. Did she ever get off balance? What happened if she fell? It was a lifestyle on several levels: owner, walker, dogs. I thought about that, and I admired the lines created by taut leash and flowing hair.
Now, I think, yes, she was probably posed, but that just raises more questions. How did they manage the pose? The dogs were all in front of her, all going in one direction. None were stopping to sniff, the leashes weren't tangling, the dogs weren't barking at trucks or straining at the leash to eviscerate a squirrel. It was actually rather boring, and the girl clearly thought so too: her face was composed and still, giving nothing away. It was a job, that's all, maybe an hour in the morning.
It's not a job for me. It's more an avocation. I'm not getting paid (well, other than with lodging). I am fascinated by the different personalities of dogs and owners, and I am certainly neither bored nor composed. I am in loco parentis, trying to make sure the fur babies are happy and healthy. I'm learning the neighborhoods while I exercise myself and the dogs. I'm absorbing the styles of houses and gardens, and I'm meeting the neighbors. I'm checking out the trees, and I'm enthralled to discover that both neighborhoods have a little free library. And, I'm starting to recognize the differences in dog owners.
I discover that I was a lackadaisical dog walker. I had few tools of the trade: some treats in my pocket, some plastic bags saved from the daily paper delivery, a leash that fastened to the collar. I'd say "Walkers!" and Carbon would run to my side, wagging her pseudo-tail. I'd say "Sit!" and she'd sit while I hooked the leash to the collar. And then we'd be out the door. Sometimes it would be along walk with H, through the Laurelhurst rose gardens. Sometimes it would be a short walk to the nearby park. Eventually we had to limit to 1 short walk a day, as her laryngeal paralysis kicked in.
The process is more involved with these other dogs. For one thing, these dogs all have harnesses, the donning of which they resist. They walk away, they duck their heads, they shake themselves vigorously afterwards. Partly because of the resistance, it takes me forever to figure out the proper procedure for winding the harness so that legs and head are in the proper holes. I try not to get flustered, because I need to make sure I have keys, sunglasses, and plastic bags. And not just any plastic bag: they also have special waste bags. Rudy's were green and square, dispensed from a box, rather like a kleenex box. I pulled out two and tied them to the leash handle. Cookie and Didi have long blue bags that fit into a dispenser made of hard blue plastic. It's cute, shaped like a little bone. The top unscrews, and the roll fits inside, with the end poking out through a hole. The dispenser clips to the larger leash, and I never have to worry about the 3-dump walk...until tonight, when the roll ran out.
Control is a problem. These are small to mid-sized dogs, so I can handle the pull, but they are definitely not under voice command. Cookie and Didi mainly focus on sniffing, although they will chase the occasional lizard. Rudy had several quirks: he hated all trucks and German shepherds, and was a little wary, even of dogs he knew. And he was obsessed by the grey squirrels, straining at the leash as the squirrels raced up the tree trunk and then over our heads to the other side of the road. But, as long as those distractions were not present, he was amendable to "come!" while Cookie and Didi are not. Didi, in particular, has a fondness for a particular type of lush lawn: she'll lie with her entire belly pressed to the grasses, cooling off. She won't leave until I pick her up and carry her away. Of course, it's hotter here. I don't really blame her.
When I get home, I have to wipe their feet, even if they didn't get muddy (and they don't: it's dry, dusty, and hot.) But, these rituals are easy to learn, and while my nature is slapdash, I have plenty of time to follow the patterns that make the animals happy. And that makes me happy. Part of the reason I'm enjoying this gig is that it gives me a chance, a requirement actually, to get outdoors every day. I've needed this for a long time. So, while I don't have the skills to manage the multiple dog walk, I do have the theory down: pick up the waste, notice the hazards, get outside, and be consistent.
Now that I think of it, those are darn good rules to follow even without the pleasure of a dog companion.
There was so much in that picture: beauty, social commentary, economic ironies. I have it in my head that I found it in an anthology. Maybe it was news pictures by the decade, maybe pictures by a famous photographer, like Annie Leibovitz. It was her sort of picture, as I remember it. And the memory is all I have to go by. A google search brought me yoga poses, silhouettes, people walking large numbers of dogs, people walking 2 dogs, dogs looking straight at the camera, dogs running in a park, two-fisted dog walkers, burly young men walking in sweats, older gentlemen in tweeds and hat. None were the picture I sought. I tried searching phrases, I tried searching single words. Examples: "new york" dog walkers, or leibovitz dogs, or my piece de resistance, "new york" young woman dog walker "annie leibovitz" black and white. I limited by "images" and skimmed through several pages of images. Nada. But one thing struck me as I searched: none of the dog walkers displayed the equanimity that I remembered. They all looked overwhelmed, stressed.
The reason I was looking for that picture is that now I'm paying for my lodging by walking dogs, specifically the dogs that I am pet-sitting. And tonight, as I unwound the two leashes for the umpteenth time (pink for the girl dog, blue for the boy dog, I kid you not), I thought back to that image and I thought..."it had to have been posed." The naive nascent photographer that first saw that picture didn't think in those terms. I was new to the idea of an industry of dog walkers, said industry being created by a society of people who want pets but don't have the time to actually care for them. Instead of speculating on photographic logistics, I pondered paradoxes: why have a dog if you can't walk with it? why have a dog in New York? Dogs need to run free, right? I also pondered the skill of the walker: how did she manage all those dogs, each pulling with a hugely different weight. Did she ever get off balance? What happened if she fell? It was a lifestyle on several levels: owner, walker, dogs. I thought about that, and I admired the lines created by taut leash and flowing hair.
Now, I think, yes, she was probably posed, but that just raises more questions. How did they manage the pose? The dogs were all in front of her, all going in one direction. None were stopping to sniff, the leashes weren't tangling, the dogs weren't barking at trucks or straining at the leash to eviscerate a squirrel. It was actually rather boring, and the girl clearly thought so too: her face was composed and still, giving nothing away. It was a job, that's all, maybe an hour in the morning.
It's not a job for me. It's more an avocation. I'm not getting paid (well, other than with lodging). I am fascinated by the different personalities of dogs and owners, and I am certainly neither bored nor composed. I am in loco parentis, trying to make sure the fur babies are happy and healthy. I'm learning the neighborhoods while I exercise myself and the dogs. I'm absorbing the styles of houses and gardens, and I'm meeting the neighbors. I'm checking out the trees, and I'm enthralled to discover that both neighborhoods have a little free library. And, I'm starting to recognize the differences in dog owners.
I discover that I was a lackadaisical dog walker. I had few tools of the trade: some treats in my pocket, some plastic bags saved from the daily paper delivery, a leash that fastened to the collar. I'd say "Walkers!" and Carbon would run to my side, wagging her pseudo-tail. I'd say "Sit!" and she'd sit while I hooked the leash to the collar. And then we'd be out the door. Sometimes it would be along walk with H, through the Laurelhurst rose gardens. Sometimes it would be a short walk to the nearby park. Eventually we had to limit to 1 short walk a day, as her laryngeal paralysis kicked in.
The process is more involved with these other dogs. For one thing, these dogs all have harnesses, the donning of which they resist. They walk away, they duck their heads, they shake themselves vigorously afterwards. Partly because of the resistance, it takes me forever to figure out the proper procedure for winding the harness so that legs and head are in the proper holes. I try not to get flustered, because I need to make sure I have keys, sunglasses, and plastic bags. And not just any plastic bag: they also have special waste bags. Rudy's were green and square, dispensed from a box, rather like a kleenex box. I pulled out two and tied them to the leash handle. Cookie and Didi have long blue bags that fit into a dispenser made of hard blue plastic. It's cute, shaped like a little bone. The top unscrews, and the roll fits inside, with the end poking out through a hole. The dispenser clips to the larger leash, and I never have to worry about the 3-dump walk...until tonight, when the roll ran out.
Control is a problem. These are small to mid-sized dogs, so I can handle the pull, but they are definitely not under voice command. Cookie and Didi mainly focus on sniffing, although they will chase the occasional lizard. Rudy had several quirks: he hated all trucks and German shepherds, and was a little wary, even of dogs he knew. And he was obsessed by the grey squirrels, straining at the leash as the squirrels raced up the tree trunk and then over our heads to the other side of the road. But, as long as those distractions were not present, he was amendable to "come!" while Cookie and Didi are not. Didi, in particular, has a fondness for a particular type of lush lawn: she'll lie with her entire belly pressed to the grasses, cooling off. She won't leave until I pick her up and carry her away. Of course, it's hotter here. I don't really blame her.
When I get home, I have to wipe their feet, even if they didn't get muddy (and they don't: it's dry, dusty, and hot.) But, these rituals are easy to learn, and while my nature is slapdash, I have plenty of time to follow the patterns that make the animals happy. And that makes me happy. Part of the reason I'm enjoying this gig is that it gives me a chance, a requirement actually, to get outdoors every day. I've needed this for a long time. So, while I don't have the skills to manage the multiple dog walk, I do have the theory down: pick up the waste, notice the hazards, get outside, and be consistent.
Now that I think of it, those are darn good rules to follow even without the pleasure of a dog companion.
Monday, June 5, 2017
Daily texts and notes, May
 |
| May 20-1: On my way, after a week in Minneapolis, IA, and IL with sibs, nieces, nephews, and grand niece |
  |
| The outside of Meteor Crater, AZ |
18-buck overlook fee:
Not a senior yet.
May 23:
A 2-day drive to
Petaluma; now at rest,
Watching clouds roll in
May 25
An afternoon drive
Through bucolic Marin:
I find a cheese sale
(Late lunch/early dinner)
May 26 Finished creating travel blog, prepped for Mock Tutor session.
May 27 Passed Mock Tutor Session, drove to Santa Rosa
I've met my charge and really like my host
It's going to be a pleasant gig.
May 28, 2017: Now I am 58. What I saw today. Little Free Library and a squashed lizard. I borrowed The Clue of the Broken Locket. :D and dragged Rudy away from the flattened lizard. But he got a dead bird later
   |
| My birthday breakfast, Chez Santa Rosa housesit. Where's the sparkling wine? |
May 29, 2017.
With his hind legs braced
In a perfect downward dog,
He sniffs well and pees.
(A quiet day, obviously)
May 30
Facing into wind
Bird chase cut short by leash
Bored by flowers.
May 31
Hike through redwoods
Followed by La Crema Wine.
The dog stayed at home.
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