The view out my window promises a beautiful Saturday morning. I however have a sinus headache, and have already been out twice with Tikka and know the humidity is higher than I would prefer. That doesn't make it a less beautiful day; it simply means I need to modify my expectations.
Moises is settling back in after my return from Texas, settling back into the apartment as well, as I don't think he was fully acclimated before I left. Hence the sinus headache. M is very clingy right now, and consistently tried to crawl up under my chin during the night whereas I usually manage to keep him on the lower half of the bed. I know he needs comfort, but I have learned that I am allergic to cats, only mildly so, as I can have him in the house as long as I vacuum and don't let him cuddle up under my chin, but allergic nonetheless, Cat-in-the-face was neither good for my ability to breathe or for my sinuses, but we will both recover.
I am planning on a slow day, a day for puttering. Next week is busy, so a personal day is a necessity. Even so I may or may not keep up, just as I did not keep up with the blog this week past, and I am beginning to accept that a production schedule doesn't really work because I am not really interested in production, in producing a particular thing. This is something that has shaped my creative life all along, even with sewing and knitting. I am interested in making, but with writing, like in knitting or sewing, the end result is a happy bonus that comes out of the process. I am not interested in the making in order to produce, I am interested in the process itself, and the results are simply a little something extra.
That said, I did actually finish something last week. I knit a small scarf. I had a skein of gray Ritratto mohair by Filatura di Crossa, and a few little bits and bobs, yarn samples from a mailing or two, so I knit a narrow scarf, I'm not sure I ever thought I would want a narrow scarf, but I love this one and look forward to the day when the weather will cool enough that I will wear it. I suspect that is a few months away. I've almost finished another sweater, at least the knitting part, but I don't yet have a place to block anything, including the above scarf. I may get that much of my craft room cleared away this weekend, but considering my pounding head, and a general sense of laziness, I make no promises.
This last week also ended up busy. Monday was intentionally quiet: knitting, practicing embroidery stitches, sketching a few design ideas. But I knew the week would be filled with meetings and events, and that quiet time was needed for balance, as I suppose it is, again, today.
The house is also progressing nicely. The walls have been opened up. The two small bedrooms that will be the new library are now one space, and I can get a wonderful sense of the space and the light. This photo was pretty early in the morning, an hour and a half or so
after sunrise, but still lovely.
And framing is going in, so I can begin to imagine the new layout, walk through and feel the flow. That translation from space on paper to something three-dimensional, a reimagined space, is wonderful, and I exciting. I fell it is going to be as wonderful as I imagined it would be.
Foundations will be going in soon. There are still meetings and decisions to be made both large and small. I love the process, but even though I am not doing the work, it is exhausting, and I am a bit behind.
It is also September, and the fall season has started up. There are plays, concerts, exhibits, events -- my ability to step back and not overload my social calendar has always been somewhat weak. I have learned to better balance quiet time, creative time, with going out time, experience and fellowship time, but I don't quite know how the demands of the remodel will play into that. I suspect that once I get through this first couple of weeks, my input into the job will quiet down and things will be easier.
In the meantime. I'm still plowing through ideas. I did take the time out last week to go to the production of Candide at the Clarence Brown Theater, which was utterly fabulous, one of the best things I have been to in a long long time. I knew Bernstein's score but had not seen the musical production. I have read the original play, in both French and English, but had not read the libretto. I love the way everything comes together here, the sharp wit, bitterness and hopefulness, the cynicism and satire in the world view. That is in fact, something that I think Voltaire does well, that combination of cynicism, with hopefulness. Of course Bernstein's music plays up the hopefulness. But I saw the same thing in Grass as well, in The Tin Drum. Can one be both cynical and naive? I think that is the essence of human greatness, that we need both. And that is also, of course, why we need art.
Truthfully, I had not been a big fan of Bernstein's score, although it is quite possible that this was due to my own lack of imagination. I had heard it in concert on more than one occasion, and, lushly beautiful as it is, I felt disappointed. But I also tend to feel that music meant to accompany something else, as a libretto perhaps, is not complete without the words and even then, perhaps not without the visual component. One needs all the pieces to come together. Do people who love show music love the music itself, regardless of seeing the show, or do they love the music because it also triggers for them memories of the show? I've never asked. And again, this may again be a crisis of my own lack of imagination. I don't think I will ever be able to listen to Bernstein's score again without reliving bits of this production however, and I think that is a good thing, just as I can't listen to West Side Story without seeing West Side Story in my head. But then, I love operas I've never seen live, or do I? Or do I imagine the opera in my head while I listen, and do I listen only to the operas I can imagine, whether or not I've heard them performed? Context, it seems, is always important.
The production is over the top and highly entertaining, and I love having the symphony present, on the stage, as part of the performance. Candide himself is wonderful. Everyone is wonderful. Really, I wish I had bought tickets for more than one performance. It would be a joy to see again and again. Who knows, perhaps I will.
