Pensees

I. Horse Dreams
Yesterday afternoon I had a striking and sudden daydream--not sure if that's even the right word--that would have lead me straight to a soothsayer if I had been a Roman. Even now we'd be looking at bird entrails.
I imagined us stabling horses behind our house. I imagined walking out to a barn in black rubber boots and pulling down harnesses, reins, and saddles from large iron nails and leading out a beautiful old mare that was well past mothering years and was going to spend her old age in our care. I imagined little boys growing up with the sound of hooves and snorts and whishing tails in their ears, and thought about all the hundreds of years that humankind and horsekind were in partnership. In the daydream there were vines planted behind the house on a gentle hill that had been dug up just for that purpose.
Next, just as vividly, I imagined crouching down over the kitchen floor and pulling back the old laminate so that I could put in some new tile. I imagined rented tools in the garage, and the stove and refrigerator looking out of place while they waited in the living room for the job to be done. I had no help--I had graphing paper and measuring tape on the kitchen table, and I could smell the old house smell under the section of floor that was already ripped up.
It was mildly terrifying.
I'm not sure where the horse daydream came from, but as soon as I think about it I can remember the smell of my parent's old couch where Sam, Pax, and I would stand looking out through the big living room window that faced south and watch the horses that were pastured across the road. Sometimes we'd get walked over across the road and try to screw up the nerve to offer one of them a handful of clover. (Between the possible nip of the electric fence and the smell of their breath and the peril of the teeth, I'm not sure that I attempted this terribly often.) There certainly is something beautiful about a little boy watching a horse in wonder and fascination.

II. Roasting Coffee
I get Yirgacheffe coffee about every other order, because it's a good bit more expensive than the other varieties. I'll get something cheaper, and then by the time that I'm halfway through the bag I've realized that it simply isn't as good as the Yirgacheffe and that I'm willing to pay for the top-quality bean the next time I order. This time I wanted to save a little money and ordered the Tanzanian Peaberry. The first time I roasted it I burnt it badly--it doesn't crack nearly as audibly as any other coffees I've worked with, and I ended up stopping the roast at the burnt smell instead of the usual timing by listening. Yesterday I watched the roast (and sprayed empty husks everywhere) but came up with a much better tasting result.

III. Food in Company
Last night J got up from her book, went into the kitchen, and came back with a bowl of chips. Guess what I was doing five minutes later? Yes, eating chips and salsa. (Supper was a bowl of soup of 5 PM...we were both hungry.) But I never would have left the warmth of my blanket if she hadn't gotten up first. I think that social context is an underrated factor in eating choices. How many times do I have seconds if no one else at the table is having seconds? How many times do I turn down second helpings if everyone else is reaching in? When I eat with 90 lb vegetarian friend, neither of us are likely to finish all the food on our plate. When I eat with the trombone section of the orchestra, I'm very likely to finish my plate and have an extra half a beer as well. When I eat with J, we eat healthy and we usually don't have extra helpings. And eating with the tuba player is maybe the most impressive/disturbing thing you've ever seen.
N.B. J says she felt disgusting after eating chips at 9 PM and is never going to do it again.

IV. Food in the Iliad
I'm in Book 24 of the Iliad, the greatest and most beautiful chapter ever written. How many hero stories do you know of where the two mortal enemies (if you could consider Priam to the the "enemy" of Achilles...Achilles is really everyone's enemy, including his own) reach the climactic moment by grieving together over their losses, neither softening nor changing from their purposes, but sharing tears, honor, and then sharing a meal together? Bread, meat, and sleep...good gifts from the gods.

V. Maps
I love the map of the Mediterranean in my study. I think James gets his love of maps from me. I'd love to put some more maps up, and I know that somewhere out there is a devoted reader of this blog who used to subscribe to National Geographic and now has, sitting in a pile somewhere, a stack of old maps that they are hoping to give away for semi-educational purposes. Dear Reader, if you have maps of England, France, the Levant, or New York, I am especially interested.

VI. Florida
As far as I know my Mother and Father are still in Florida. (I'm not exactly sure when they left or are planning on coming back.) Florida is such a beautiful name for a state. (It means Flowers in Latin). It sounds even more beautiful when you look out on muddy sidewalks, piles of gray snow, and a bleak, colorless sky. I hope they're having a great time.

VII. Darwin
Reading the whole Darwin book is going to be an exercise in concentration--there are certainly sections of interest, but these only develop gradually as a punctuated variation from long passages of extremely technical biological details. (See what I did there?) One redeeming feature--he was a man (and a writer) intensely and infectiously interested in everything that he wrote about. When someone enthusiastically loves their subject, even if that subject is the tailfeathers of domestic pigeons (a species much-loved and cultivated) they are highly readable.

Fatigue (A Panegyric to Coffee)

It's about 1 PM, and I'm driving back from a morning rehearsal in Buffalo. I packed a snack to get me through the morning, but I just can't seem to keep my eyes open. I know there's a Tim Horton's about 10 minutes ahead at the travel plaza, but I think about all of the entries for "coffee shop" and "Wegmans" on last month's bank statement and I steel myself against stopping. If I can only drive for another hour, I can be home and make my own coffee. My eyes begin to close again, and I snap them awake. I hold one hand on the wheel, and roll down the window. I slap cheeks and shout at the top of my lungs. It's raining outside, and I'm getting soaked from spray on the highway. I roll the window back up and try to refocus on the podcast I was listening to. My eyes are closing again. I pull into the rest stop.

It's pitch black in our bedroom, and I roll out of bed with a full bladder. There's an empty tumbler on the nightstand that had been filled with scotch and ice as I read before bed. I shouldn't have stayed up so late, but I wanted to finish three chapters. I don't let myself look at the clock until after I come back from the bathroom. I readjust my glasses and find the display: 5 AM. I smile, then pull on a bathrobe and head downstairs. I'll have an extra half-hour to read this morning.

It's the final round of an audition in Charleston. I've been up since 6 AM, and it feels much later than 8 PM. It feels like I've been up for several days straight. I've been in dress clothes all day, an I was on a plane all day yesterday. I've already played two full rounds--the Promenade, the Ballerina, Mahler 5, Pines of Rome, some of the Bartok Concerto for Orchestra, then some Brahms, some Strauss, some Wagner, some opera excerpts--and that was just the first two rounds. I took aspirin, then waited in the practice room, feeling exhausted but wide awake with the nervous energy that it would just be an hour...forty-five minutes...thirty minutes before I played again. Then it was the final round. Heldenleben, Dvorak, more Stravinsky, more Mahler. And now I'm sitting on a folding chair in front of a screen holding a piccolo trumpet and looking at the first trumpet part to the Bach Magnificat. I've been playing all day, and the last three bars on this audition are an ascending arpeggio to a high concert E on piccolo trumpet. It needs to be articulated lightly, easily, playfully. My lips hurt, my teeth hurt, and my whole face feels like it's swollen.

It's 11 AM, and I'm playing with James. We just built our third marble run of the morning, and he wants to tear it down and build another one. The one that's on the box. I'm hungry and my coffee has worn off. I've been lying down on the floor to work on the marble run, and there are lots of other things I'd rather be doing. I need to practice at some point, I need to empty the bucket on the spigot out back, and there's laundry that needs to be folded and put away. But I won't be around in the afternoon, and this is my only chance to play with him. He's scolding me already for not paying sufficient attention, and I end up putting my head down while he tries to build part of the marble run on his own. My eyes don't open again until he lies down next to me and gets right in my face. Now he wants to play hockey.

It's pitch dark in our room, and I roll out of bed with a full bladder. There's an empty wineglass on the nightstand next to me from earlier in the night. I tried to stay up and read my Oxford book of Latin poetry. I'd been looking forward to it all day, but then Owen got to bed late and we had to spend extra time cleaning up the house because James' marble run was spread all over the dining room, and it was 9:30 even before we went upstairs. I don't look at the clock until I get back. It's 2:30 AM. I'd love to try to read some more, but I know that I need to go to bed.

It's 7:15 PM, and I haven't practiced yet. J agrees to take the kids, and I probably should put in a full hour. I know that if I don't put in the work to tackle some of the weaknesses in my playing now, I won't have the time to practice them once the orchestra kicks up again and I'm always in rehearsal, or need to give up practice time to learn upcoming repertoire. I put in 45 minutes, and the time flies by. Owen is howling upstairs because he's so tired, and James is begging J to go outside even though he's in pajamas. She needs someone to put James to bed so she can nurse Owen, and Owen can't go to sleep until I stop.

It's 5:30 AM, and I didn't get back from my concert until 11:45 the previous night. I meant to get up and go running, but I just roll over and turn the alarm off. I need the sleep.

I'm actually not a zombie most of the time. Thank God for giving to us mortals coffee, which gladdens the hearts of men. Coffee reads my books, plays with my kids, drives me to work, and practices my trumpet when this frail and mortal coil is too weak on its own to do any of those things. But, there is a limit. Like yesterday, when I feel asleep twice on Pax and Kylie's carpet. (I vaguely remember Abby sitting on my head at one point.) I don't know whether there is such a thing as a Natural Law or if it can ever be known properly, but maybe there is some cause for a Sabbath rest. That rest is a good reminder that no matter how hard I will myself upward and onward, I am mortal animal with breath in my nostrils and a belly that needs feeding. If I don't rest my animal self, it will retaliate with a soul-numbing fatigue. And then the coffee can only go so far.

I officially resigned my position at LCS today. Here's to more rest in 2016.

(Though probably still lots of coffee.)

Cafe; a Fable

"How Coffee is so well-reputed, how it enervates with its heat and richness all the men which drink thereof, I will now tell. The cause is hidden, but its divine power is well known.

A little daughter of Hermes and the goddess of Cythera the naiads nursed within Ida's caves. In her fair face the mother and fair father could be both clearly seen. When fifteen years had passed she left her native mountains and abandoned her foster-mother, Ida, delighting to wander in unknown lands and to see strange rivers, her eagerness making light of the toil. She came even to the Arabian cities and to the Arabs, who dwell in the sandy southern climes. Here she saw a pool of water crystal clear to the very bottom. No marshy reeds grew there, no unfruitful swamp-grass, nor spiky rushes; it is clear water.

But the edges of the pool are bordered with fresh grass, and herbage ever green. A turbaned shepherd dwelt by the pool, one who loved not hunting, nor was wont to bend the bow or strive with the Arabian camels. Often his brothers would say to him "Kareem, take now they scimitar or thy bow and vary your ease with the hardships of the hunt or raid." But he takes no hunting-spear nor sword, but at times he bathes his shapely limbs in his pool and combs his hair with a boxwood comb, often looking in the mirror like water to see what best becomes him. Now, wrapped in a soft robe, he lies down to rest on the soft grass before the waters. Often he gathers garlands, and on this occasion too he chanced to be gathering flowers when he saw the maiden and longed to possess what he saw.

Not yet, however, did he approach her, though he was eager to do so, until he had calmed himself, until he had arranged all his robes and composed his countenance, and taken all pains to appear beautiful. Then did he speak: "O maiden, most worthy to be believed a goddess, if you are indeed a goddess, you must be Venus; or if you are mortal, happy are those who gave you birth, blest is your brother, fortunate indeed any sister, and thy nurse who gave thee suck. But far, oh, far happier than they is he, if there be any promised husband, if you will deem any worthy to be your spouse. If there be such, let mine be stolen joy; if not, may I be thine, thy husband, and may we be joined in wedlock.

The youth said no more, but the maiden blushed red, for she knew not what love is. But still the blush became her well. Such color have apples hanging in sunny orchards, or ripe coffee berries.When the youth begged and prayed at least for a brother's kiss, and was in the act to throw his arms around her snowy neck, she cried: "Have done, or I must flee and leave this spot--and you." He trembles at this threat and says, "I yield the place to you, fair stranger," and turning away pretended to depart. But even so often he looked back, and deep in a neighboring thicket he hid himself, crouching on bended knees. But the maiden, freely as if unwatched and alone, walks up and down the grass, dips her toes in the water and her feet. Then quickly, charmed by the warmth of the sun warmed stream, she threw aside her thin garments from her slender form.

Then did the hidden youth truly burn. His eyes shone bright as when the sun's dazzling face is reflected from the surface of a glass opposite his rays. Scarce can he endure delay, scarce bear his joy postponed, so eager to hold her in his arms, so madly incontinent. She dives into the pool and swimming with alternate strokes flashes with gleaming body through the transparent flood, as if one should encase ivory figures or white lilies in translucent glass. "She is mine," cries Kareem, and casting off all his garments dives also into the waters. He holds her fast though she strives against him, steals reluctant kisses, clings to her.

The daughter of Hermes denies her as best she may the joy he craves, but still he holds on and clings as if grown fast to her. "Strive as you may, wicked girl," he cries "still you shall not escape me. She calls aloud to the gods "Better to die than be thus violated! Save me father, or make me strong to overcome this youth. Or if I am to die, may he and all others who taste this water forever be changed who taste it. Let them rise early in the morning to come to my streams, and may they fall sluggardly asleep lest they make journey to it each day."

Even as she speaks Cafe is dissolved into the warm water. The waters which had been clear are turned a rich brown. The youth weeps alone, denied his joy. He kisses the waters, and the life-nourishing warmth commands him at once. Her parents had heard the prayer of their daughter, and changed her in the waters with their uncanny power.