u

It was such a gorgeous day to wander the city. I woke up with such indecision and so ready to attack all directions. This happens every so often, and usually when it does, I waste a lot of time driving, parked out front of places contemplating whether I really want to go in, or stepping inside to determine that it’s too noisy, too packed, and not the peace I seek in order to do my work.

Today was like that but without the regret or frustration. Instead, I reframed it and thought only about the personal experience I was having with just myself, enjoying my own company. It’s not always easy to adjust my thoughts to give myself that kind of headspace.

After my morning walk, I changed clothes, got dressed up, and began at the museum of art in the center of the city. I walked around looking at all of the pieces I have seen for many years, but I studied them more deeply. Such minute subtleties, making the whole difference when you step back and see the big picture. Those details are the lives and stories we live, in our minds, in our day-to-day, every second. Without the evidence of our unified concentration, the memory of what was, is lost. That is art. That is living.

Why should anything be remembered? What value does an artifact bring to its current attention holder? Why ask these questions at all.

Curiosity is a moment inebriated. I’m drunk on them.

I remembered today my introduction to classical music. I was very young, maybe 5 or 6, and I got a “ghetto blaster” for Christmas. I was in love with that thing, micro-dialing the tuner to every inbetween station I could hear with my ear pressed to the small speaker. In them, I heard Morse code for the first time, what sounded like people talking on the phone in a distant time, someone yammering on about Jesus that scared me, all the hits I heard in my parents car’s, and a local classical station that became my mainstay. There was something deeply felt with the kind of music I was hearing there, and it really felt like my own secret, interpersonal experience. Somehow through this music I felt the world open up and knew only that I wanted to explore further. It was the feeling I was after. I’ve realized that it’s the feeling itself that the composer is after, too. Taking in music most hours of my day and night, and more often the silences, I default to that proverbial station, still, always in pursuit of the drunken moments.

Making an earnest effort to not get lost in the details, the beauty of today was feeling enough to inspire this entry.