September 01, 2005

10:30 p.m.

The Rain in Maine

Wednesday

It's been overcast all week, and today the drizzle and fog have overtaken our little hill. It's lovely. My quarters are in the original dining room, a small woody space with a little slanted, beamed roof. I can hear tyhe rain very close above me. There is a double, wind-open window on one end, and I set up my worktable here. It's an oval affair with end leaves that fold up and rest on legs that rotate out as needed, so I open just one, put the other flat side against the window, and do my work here looking out at the woods and the back lawn. A little stand of birches is within sight, and another couple just outside the window. I've always loved birches. They're fragile and susceptible to wind and ice, but their snowy bark fascinates me and they're cheery and they stand out in a crowd.

Down the hill a bit is the pond, which I can't quite see from here, especially without my glasses, but I know it's there since Chris mowed the weeds down this time. I've written about the his and hers sitting rocks that Chris's dad placed at its edge. Pond gazing today would result in a wet bum, so I'm hunkering down by the window.

We went to bed very late last night -- I probably didn't go to sleep until 2:00, but was up just before 8:00 and started working on my music. It's been productive so far. I have an a cappella piece that my former trio used to do, a true story about a dog that someone saved from being dumped, in a sack, into a river in Georgia. Today's band can't render it because it's written for three women's voices, so one of my tasks this week is to rewrite it for six voices, three women and three men, so that we can perform it with another trio we know. It's an ambitious project for someone relatively unschooled in creating sheet music, who doesn't play piano well enough to actually bang out the parts together, and who doesn't actually have the other trio present to see if parts are in their ranges. Add to that the fact that the piece is free-sung, with no established meter, and the note values as written are approximate at best - it's a feel thing. So there are no measures as such, except in one section. Welcome to my way of doing things! I've pulled some magical rabbits out of hats before, and I'm confident this will work eventually. Carol will help me check parts when I'm done. I hope this unorthodox way of presenting the piece won't scare the others off, or make them think I don't know what I'm doing musically. The truth is that I do. I know what established forms I'm deviating from, and the choices are conscious. We'll send them a recording of the piece along with the sheet music -- find a way to overdub all the parts so they'll know what it's actually supposed to sound like. That's tricky, too, as each part depends on the others' entrances.

I'd like to try to get it finished, or roughed out, today, although I have quite a long way to go. We have other new material to rehearse, difficult stuff, and this week I also wrote a brand new song. Carol and I have had this idea for a long time, that we'd keep stealing individual lines from each other. She borrowed a line from me a few years ago for something she was working on, and we thought it would be cool to do a whole set of spinoff songs, but so far we hadn't written any others. There was a very cool line of hers I'd been saving all this time, and had written a couple of stanzas and kept them in the file until further inspiration hit. I incorporated a rhythm I'd been wanting to try, and stole a verse and a bridge from another unfinished lyric snippet of my own. It's sometimes like making a car out of spare parts. You just keep putting in pieces until the right ones work together. Also, often you have to wait until a second or larger perspective develops, because otherwise songs can be relentlessly depressing or painful or... just born of an unfinished process. I want to offer people not just story but resolution, conclusions drawn. And sometimes the most unlikely images come together and find a relationship, and you have to wait for them all to show up.

So, it rains. Carol is up, doing yoga in the living room. I haven't seen Chris yet. It's 10:14. I must get back to my dog song. I still don't know when I'll leave; not today; maybe tomorrow. Not later than Friday, I think. The traffic is going to be very heavy this weekend.

Thursday, late morning

This is the first nice day since we arrived. The rain was steady for most of last evening, and a couple of leaks in the roof caused me to move my bed. But today the high clouds are passing, and it's pleasant as a perfect early Fall day should be.

Still, I have an inexplicable restlessness now. I'm antsy as hell and I'm packing to leave, even though we could work two more days just practicing steadily. I've been reluctant to do anything that brings me out of the little world of working on my two projects, yet there are so many things we need to work on together. But by this morning I can't stand to hear them puttering in the kitchen, or Carol practicing her new song again in the living room. I can't concentrate. Plus I'm thinking about how I want to miss holiday traffic, and paint my apartment, and not have to talk to anyone for a while. It feels too bad in a way, because this is our retreat and today is a perfect day to relax. Carol said yesterday that the six-part piece I'm working on for us and the other trio might be impossible to get together; they live in Maryland and it's so hard to rehearse that way, and it'll take a lot of work. But Chris has been bugging me for years to rewrite it so he can participate, and this is the only way I could think to do it. But now I feel a little doubtful, and it's so much work I don't want it to be wasted. I might feel a little deflated because of that. Also I had a "living space" dream last night (recurring theme) that was like a melding of my little room here and my apartment at home, and I was so delighted to be there at last, exploring all these doors I hadn't known were there, figuring out where my work desk would be, that I rather wish I were still there.

Anyway, it'll take me a while to gather my things. I haven't told the gang that I want to leave sooner than later, so I don't know what we'll go over today. Just want to hit the road.

Also I have to call Steve, because his brother lives (lived?) in New Orleans and his home may be under water now. I've been putting off that call, though I could have made it from here, because Steve is so long winded and I'm having enough trouble concentrating on anything right now.

I did come up with a good song here, barring a word or two that are still eluding me, so that made me happy. What's up with me, anyway?

Thursday night, 10:30pm

When Steve and I started going out in January, I wasn�t used to dating someone. Now I find I�m not used to the endless, skittering aftermath of what he calls �breaking up.� Why do we have to keep having these conversations where he asks me, �What happened?� and I explain AGAIN what happened, for me, how I grew to not love him romantically any more, and how it was only a few months and we were still getting to know each other and seeing if it was going to be a fit, and it wasn�t, and why are you asking me this again, and please don�t make me go over it again because I have nothing else to say about it and it�s pissing me off that you�re not just accepting it. At least he wasn�t whiny (thanks, Lexapro). He was very good, actually, articulate and thought-full and reasonable. And he listened. I�m glad about that. And I tried to listen to him. At least we got the sex issue out of the way and I won�t be dreading being come-on to.

Gosh, I feel so proprietary about my body now, too. I�ve established these mental boundaries around it, like no one is entitled to it now and I get to keep it to myself. I was so hot for Steve at first, when we started, and I thought we had sex too soon but then it was okay anyway; but now, because I don�t feel strong emotion for him, I�m not the least bit turned on. Not one atom of me, not one nutrino is sparked by his proximity. Lesson: no such thing as casual sex, not for me.

In spite of the ripples, it feels good to be free. I know that free is how I�m s�posed to be.

I have a very busy two months coming up. I won�t have much time to mull or ponder or space out. I hope we make a little money.

And, in any case, as I thought when I pulled into my parking space today, I have water and food and a flush toilet and my apartment is not under water. All these other complaints are just part of the little play we occupy ourselves with when our basic needs are met. Goddess please bless all those displaced this week.