Sometimes hearing a song just takes me back to my room in my parents house. Hearing the sound come out of the one plastic wood paneled speaker of the G.I. Joe’s sticker covered clock radio cassette player.
Waiting to hit record at the right time to get your favorite song of the radio. Always missing the first moment of it. but then you have that crackly copy to listen to whenever you want. And that made it valuable.
The pandemic and quarantine has really changed everyone’s routines. And it is true for my family as well. While all homebodies to a certain extent, we have slowly acclimated to this new routine. With the at home learning of the kids and the at home work of the parents, the end of classes in the spring bled into the habits that usually happen in the summer months out of school. That regularity and movement that resulted from the old routines make us uncertain of what the regular is now, with those routines set aside. Are we going back to what we were used to? Will we still see those beloved aspects in what we go back to?
I used to feel that I was acclimated to uncertainty. When you don’t remember all the details of something and rely on others to fill them in, you get used to the idea that you can’t be certain of everything. And build up trust with your friends’ memories and recollections. That trust made me certain of what was since I had stability in my job and home. That even if I didn’t remember all of the details, I knew that everything was there somewhere.
Now are we sure of where things have been? Everyone thought the American economy generally worked, but that was proven not to work. People thought that the government generally got stuff done, and now America hasn’t finished its first wave of Covid infections, while elsewhere countries had enough reduction of cases to get worried about the next wave of infections. The flood of information and lack of trust of experts has led to doubting everything that people see, no wonder that we are anxious. Nothing is certain. And people want to know, people want routines.
I used to be completely ambivalent about my face. I mean, everyone has their own hangups on how they look. And I do too. But I never really thought about my face very much. Now that I have a full beard and not a goatee, I shave less often. My hair is cut very short , so I don’t worry about brushing it. Mainly I only saw myself when I brushed my teeth.
I am always in touch with how my family look, I see them every day. I like to think I am observant, and do make positive comments when people get a haircut or make a change.
But I have been paying attention to my looks a lot more lately. With some much time in all the various Zoom calls and meetings, it would be impossible not to. I am getting grey in the beard. I look a little tired. You really do notice the bags under my eyes. And the gap in my bottom teeth from the baby teeth that haven’t fallen out yet.
IS this what everyone sees when look at me? Not sure how I think about that.
Putting on a Fitbit means I keep getting reminders About getting up and needing to move. It has made me realize how much of my job involves sitting and thinking slash typing at a computer.and how much of my usual day was getting up and walking around though and how much of my usual day was getting up and walking around the Lenfest center. It has been good to find the time to walk in these new days. And seeing less people on the sidewalks has me looking around more. Here are some pictures of flowers I have seen in this spring turning to summer time.
This a great time of the year, season wise. Mid-May in this era of Virginia mean it’s not too hot yet. The days can get very warm, where wearing shorts gets you to the ideal balance with the weather. And at nighttime, it gets nice and cool. A slight chill deep in the middle of the night. Where the cool breeze coming in from the open windows means you need blanket to snuggle under. And with the windows open the sounds of the neighborhood roll in. At night you can kind of hear your next door neighbors in their yards, chatting or working. But at this moment, when I am waking just after the sun has risen, but before I usually wake up, the dominant noise are birds. Bird calls from a bunch of different types. Loud and insistent, taking control of the day that is beginning. Sustained trills, rhythmic tweets, calls for food by babies in nests. This is their moment, before the humans start their racket. So loud, you wonder how you could have been sleeping through it. It is good to wake up to. It be reminded that we are part of a larger system. That is around you whether or not you notice it.
My latest ear candy comes from the movie: Echo in the Canyon. A great documentary exploring the music being created in the 60’s in LA, predominately coming from the artists living in and around Laurel Canyon.
Since I am always a sucker for that era of music, this was a delightful look at the origins of the songs, and talking to the artists and also some artists that were inspired by the songs.Jakob Dylan obviously has a love an appreciation of the crafting of music and the works created by these artists. It intermixes him covering the songs with collaborations with other musicians of his era. Pretty great stuff.
It is a great example of what Austin Kleon calls a “scenius”. Which is the idea that genius is more communal than individual. How many leaps or changes in a field really happen without individuals being affected by another? This is one reason I really like working in the theater. You are always bouncing ideas off of others and that you can support the work of others, which may inspire you to dig deeper and try more.
Spotify has a Playlist of songs from the movie.
It was so loud. The storm rattled the roof so much I was picturing the repairs as I opened my eyes. The rain whipped against the windows. It was not yet light out, so the room was dim. And one of the first things I noticed was that the numbers of the alarm clock were dark.
As the rain slowed to a stop, I noticed the usual background noises of the house were absent. The power was out.
With the ongoing pandemic, I wonder how long the power outage would last. Usually the power is out for minutes or hours. But this could be longer.
The house is silent as I search. All the CDs are in the garage, and We can’t play records without power. We got rid of the radios because their reception was horrible, it was better to just to stream NPR online.
But I found what I was looking for in the third drawer from the bottom. It seemed like a silly gift at the time, but the hand cranked radio was finally going to have its moment.
Isn’t this a sign of the times we are in right now? There have been times where all five of us are either on a video conference or watching a video of a lesson.
Ann put it right, the WiFi is the weakest link in this situation.
With the onset of the social distancing, the family has been at home for what is now 2 weeks. It is interesting how a routine can be thrown to the wind. We used to have a decent process of tidying up and cleaning during the regular school week. But now that school is online and at home, we haven’t found a new routine yet.
When we were in LA in 2017, we had a smaller house and an everyone at home routine that included tidying. Back in Lexington it has been harder to create a new routine in the old environment. Luckily Ann and I have a similar level of tolerance for clutter.
Looking out my front window this morning I was greeted with a gorgeous sight. In our front lawn is a weeping cherry tree. So this time of year it is in bloom with pink flowers. And due to the slope of our property, we look directly into its branches.
The spring is a great time at our house because of the flowering trees and bushes we have. Now I didn’t plant any of them. They were all here when we first looked at the place. The previous owners had planted them. They invariably had thought carefully about what to grow and where they should go. I don’t how much they thought about what future owners would think about their choices. But they set about creating a view they would want to see.
And this morning as I was grateful for what I had, I also realized that I should be grateful for what had been passed down and given. For the previous owners had, by creating the world they wanted to see outside their window, had given me what I enjoy as well. And they have reminded me that the choices we make today, create the world we live in tomorrow.
