devolution

well, i went to A+E.

no panic attack, aided by keli's accompaniment and some cool messages from ma homies which gave me a shot of courage. and no x-ray either. instead a pair of doctors prodded and poked my hand while trying to work out what was causing me so much pain today. they hummed and hawed, i cursed. loudly.
nothing broken. but it turns out i damaged tendons in my hand on my return journey from toronto in a luggage related incident (that'll stop me from returning home with twice my body weight in future, eh?) said tendons are connected to my thumb's oposable movement. hence i move my thumb and i feel pain in my wrist. unenthusiastic about injecting my hand with steroids (breaks the pain cycle but doesn't actually heal the tendon and by killing the pain might encourage me to go on using my thumb) they dispatched me with a makeshift splint to stop me moving my thumb for the next week so it can recover from today's agonising 'flare up' and then a month of minimal thumb movement and no load bearing of any sort with my right hand. as for the chronic, ie underlying, symptoms of last 8 weeks - only time will tell but the prognosis was, 'tendons are buggers to heal' and i could be putting up with a dodgy thumb/wrist combination for a while. i'm booked in to the hand clinic in 4 weeks and if things haven't improved we may resort to an injection. i get the distinct impression that tendons, whilst a stunning piece of biological engineering, have proven elusive to medical treatment. the docs were clearly fascinated at the complexity of how one's hand works as a peice of machinery but sorry that there is so little to be done to solve the problem. physiotherapy is pointless it seems. a moving tendon is not a healing one.
so, armed with a lot more knowledge of how my hand works, instructions to self medicate if needed and basically put up with the dis-ability as best i can and try not to let it get me down, however frustrating, my right hand is now a live experiment in what our species was like before we got opposable thumbs in the great journey of evolution. yay. :0|

i am thankfully left handed but in this right handed world, like most left handers, i do a load of stuff with my right. this is gonna be a frustrating few weeks and will be a lenten test of patience, but at least i can write.

that said, still proud to be a southpaw...

drama over for now.

LB,x

ouch!

i am pretty much without the use of my right hand today (planning to go to a&e and see if they'll give me an x-ray and then do whatever needs to be done to stop it hurting) so typing is problematic... i think i may have had a fracture for past couple of months and not known it...


but here's 3 good things in the world of entertainment to add to martin scorsese's win at the oscars...

::

well i should have posted this yesterday but i only discovered it today. last night :living tv: started airing the x-files from the pilot and plan to show the entire series.
i'm kinda jealous of anyone who gets to watch from the start.
if you missed the global phenomenon the first time round, well worth checking out now. the chemistry is smart and thus sexy.

::

last week i got the compleete season boxset of six feet under. stunning stuff. another boundary breaking show. i missed season 5 as i decided to live without television so i'm watching from the beginning to build the tension... completed s1 last night. utterly compelling and convincing.

::

track of the week
LOVING this. bloc party's latest. track 9. can't get off the turntable.
bloody great interview with lead singer in the latest issue of Attitude.
makes me want to drive with stereo on full blast, windows down and singing with unabashed passion with a buddy to drum on the dashboard...

intriguing that he's been critical of morrissey's evasiveness over his sexuality and yet it seems to me that the phrasing of this track owes so much to the mozza...

the bass line is deeeeeeelicious...

::

right, off to A+E i go. i am hospital phobic so i am not looking fwd to this one iota...

LB,x

a violin plays...

thanks to Padraig for bringing to my attention this fabulous poem, courtesy of the writer's almanac from american public radio.

i was slightly freaked out to discover that today's poem (click the wednesday tab at the above link) is funeral blues by w.h.auden.
i was reciting that poem in my head as i was thinking a lot about funerals today... no idea why. it was just one of those days...

edited to add: the tuesday offerings are breathtaking...

happy birthday to chuck palahniuk and david foster wallace. one day i WILL read infinite jest. i will i will i will.

LB,x

out of silence

my RL alter ego has been feeling heavy laden with darkness in need of process... one day i feel fine, the next, it might as be the end of the world...

a fellow blogger and i were in agreement the other night that it is often that which we would most like to write of that we can't...

i swear to tell the half truth and nothing but the truth so help me G-D...

so, in the meantime, with as much living-in-the-present contentedness as i can muster, here are some nonetheless heartfelt film experiences of the last couple of weeks to rec...

::

two weekends ago. saturday night. despite the queues of eligible belfast bachelors at our respective doors, seeking to wine us, dine us, don't remind us, jayne and i opted to make our own amusement and thus nestled ourselves in the loving arms of a double bill at qft...

for your consideration
i'm a big fan of christopher guest and his ensemble and their brand of tragic comedy. not my favourite of his offerings, (on reflection i wish this had been made in his familiar mockumentary style as i think it would have served the story better), but i laughed a lot and this is worth it for catherine o'hara. she stole the show for me and i have nothing but admiration for her as an actor. i doubt there are many actresses who'd be willing to do what she does in an industry that puts so much stock on actors looking flawless. i left thinking i'd love to have this crew over for dinner. they've got their heads screwed on and ultimately, while laughing at how ridiculous people can be, these are not comedians without a sense of compassion for the humanity that exists in even the most ridiculous amongst us.

leonard cohen: i'm your man
what a man. what a writer. what songs. some great covers. not only are the interviews with cohen lovely, but there's also interviews with the contributing artists, including nick cave, and in my book he always delivers. as for the live music, anthony singing if it be your will is incredible (it's the one i have not been able to shake form under my skin) and rufus wainwright and nick cave both have a whole lot of fun with their covers... but one is struck in these performances not by the quality of the artists but how good a songwriter cohen is... well worth getting on dvd be you a fan or not. i now want his entire back catalogue. (more info here)

saw the following two on saturday and sunday night respectively. both on this week at qft. well worth your time and money...

the science of sleep
enter bizarro land. i'll admit to never having seen any of gael garcia bernal's movies until babel, in which he had a supporting role, and i'll additionally admit that i didn't know that was him 'til the credits rolled. (cinema rarely featured in my former RL life so there's some catching up to do. my father tells me motorcycle diaries is great. at least he spared me the look of pity/horror we Xers are so good at when we discover one of our flock has failed to keep up with the curriculum. i know this look cause i've mastered it rather well.
anyway, where was i)
since he's always spoken of in gushing tones by women of a certain sensibility, i was intrigued to know what i'd think of young signor GGB in a leading role. not exactly lacking in the looks department i'll admit, but it was his energy that got to me rather than his face and physique - exuding boyish light but undercut with the kind of emotional rawness that comes from loss, that for some reason i find attractive, [knocks head repeatedly on table knowing this may never change].
i found this quirky, textural, and beautiful but for as much as i laughed, i ultimately found myself feeling a deep sense of sadness, which faded to a rough edged melancholia, that i still haven't shaken off.
visually stunning and arresting, the script is just as delicious, and therein lies the sadness running under this story. there were numerous moments when i wished i could hit pause and just relish in the beauty of the words, some of which cut really close to home, or indeed cry out, "oui! oui! it's jsut like that!"...
see this in the theatre before dvd, there is so much visual detail to take in... this is one i'll want to revisit... a delightful depiction of how complicated our feelings can be...perhaps of how our inner imaginings and losses control our lives far more than external reality...those losses colour every new perhaps-love we meet with the hues of fear... that honest relationships are the messiest...

also on this week in qft,

die grosse stille (into great silence)

"vous m'avez séduit, O Seigneur, et j'ai été séduit"

this was an experience beyond words... contemplative. tender. surprising. delightful. beautifully photographed. at times so still it was more like looking at a series of exquisite photographs than a motion picture. observant without any apparent agenda, certainly not one to convert or convince, but just to let be. a documentary that seemed to be made in the spirit of the place and people being documented.
in the last few moments i realised tears were running quietly down my cheeks. i had no idea why and was taken by surprise as i felt no soaring emotion, just a deep stillness...
in a rare moment of speech, one monk is heard saying to his brothers, "it is not the signs that are in question. but ourselves."
this is a remarkable piece of film making and quite unlike anything i've ever seen. again, this one really is well worth experiencing on the big screen.

(info on these 2 and for your consideration are on qft site, here)

::

i met with four familiar faces yesterday: one intentional, followed by three by chance... none saw my tears... but that sadness i felt at the end of the science of sleep has hung around me since... perhaps it was the quiet accepting nature of both die grosse stille and that of a friend that moved me to silent tears... perhaps one cries for what one cannot put words to... of the things we hold so deep within ourselves they are beyond language...

one of the frustrations of blogging is that often it is thing one feels greatest urge or need to speak of most, of the untied ends, that one is least able to or perhaps capable of putting into words...

this is perhaps why is see this space as best dwelt in as an alter ego... to protect what is sacred as much as to express it...

::

there is a lie that drags us
beating and pulling
into the disappointment

::

so much to be gratitudinal for, so much progress made and so much more stable out here in real life, but part of me feels dragged and beaten all the same... there are miles still to be travelled and lessons still to be learned...

but i am learning to ride these rockier days with the knowledge that they pass... you let the tears silently fall regardless of whose looking just like you learn to let your body tap a rhythm as you listen to your iPod and type in a cafe...

LB,x

p.s.
welcome T-punk. your 13/33 year old scenario causes me to think about anxiety. i thought of it earlier, as a good friend of mine, who is 5 years old, proudly showed me and some other adult friends the 3 valentine's cards he received this last week and gave us account of the gradations of affection the 3 senders have for him. to be in such a delight-filled conversation with someone who is blessed with not yet holding any apparent anxiety about romantic or platonic relationships (he gave 2 cards, to entirely different girls) was rather like meeting someone from another planet. he is blithely unaware of how complicated this "playing at being a grown up" is going to get, and we adults were left in a mild state of shock. :0)

emma - in response to your question on the communication as domination thing, sorry for delayed response, an oversight on my part. i don't have, nor will i be able to give, any more detail on that paper, nor can i think of any specific texts. having left the world of structured education the best part of a decade ago, and not currently working as a researcher, which i have done in the past, i avoid hunting out texts on specific subjects...these days i prefer to note what provokes me, wonder why it does, and then let my radar just pick things up, rather than looking for them... it serves me better on a personal level, as it makes my life more playful and provisional... i have to resist a very strong urge to go to google and from there spend a week devouring info like a pacman, and preparing a dossier for you... i have written this paragraph not for you but for me, specifically to make sure i don't do that...
however, if i come across anything by chance, i'll be sure and pass it on... it may be useful if you are interested in reading about this topic to note it could be explored in various disciplines - psychology, philosophy, communications, and conflict resolution/mediation all immediately spring to mind. all the best, LB

all good things

clements, botanic...

belated happy 14th february.

i was pretty down on all things valentine this year... which i'm aware was not because i'm unromantic but speaks to just how romantic i probably am but refuse to admit...

in truth there were moments in the past few days when i would've happily nuked the entire male species (well, the straight ones anyway) but i decided to err on caution and put it down to PMS...better to be safe than sorry. and it has to be acknowledged that stuarty and mark proved themselves to be fine upstanding representatives of their fellow men... the former created a fantastic lunch for his good wife and myself, complete with red roses for the table. the latter called over in the evening and he and i had great chats over a picnic of cheese and assorted delicacies, washed down with a bottle of muscat he brought back from last year's jaunt to Provence - a little dessert number we drank in copious quantities and like all good muscats tastes like an elixer of the gods... we drank it from martini glasses...
it was a great way to spend the evening and my spirits lifted greatly, although my half of the bottle of muscat may have played a little role in my improving humour... we talked of what matters to us and the people that matter to us and quietly acknowledged that (rather frustratingly) you can't tell your heart what or who to fall in love with... part of life is just feeling stuff and the challenge is to know how to live with that uncontrollability...to live with intent... to be fully alive... and that running from oneself is a futile pursuit that takes us nowhere... to wonder what the hell that thing i call the zing is, that spontaneous sensation of a stomach flip at the mere sight of another, and whether it's enough, and what caring looks like...

i'm so glad marky is back in the neighbourhood... we texted jude, both mindful that were he still in london it would no doubt be to her doorstop he'd have gone to celebrate friendship rather than mourn singledom...

so the day lacked any sigur ros soundtracked big gestures of passionate undying love but rather the warm generosity of friendship... and maybe that's what i needed this 14th february... thanks gents.

::

since the arrival of the 'Pod, i've discovered the sucking vortex of expenditure that is the iTunes store... so right now i'm listenign to Red, the second album by the communards, which was one of my favourite albums in my early to mid teens.
somewhere i still have an essay i wrote for my very own "captain, my captain" although it's taken me the best part of 20 years to start seeing in me what i think he saw back then... he asked us to write about our favourite song and in what seems now like a very 'me' thing to do, i chose 2...both songs from this album, contrasting in terms of style but together making social point...

no one had up to this point educated me in gay rights, in fact i'd suggest the opposite, but with the mere glimpse of the first gay couple in eastenders and a subsequent household ban of said programme, (the daily mail was delivered to our house at the time and i have doubt it was probably up in arms), i went with my gut... i suspect if my parents had had any idea what i was playing on my walkman it would have been confiscated... so my early teenage listening was heavily weighted toward british gay pop acts (although at the time i didn't make the connection between some of favourite acts...) my younger brother would educate me away on the path to very different sounds over the coming years, but relistening to this album for me still feels like a private but somehow innately political act... moving one moment, celebratory the next... undoubtedly synth-ridden but this is a great 80s album... it does what it does very well, and i feel like i'm coming home listening to it...

if i ever find that paper i wrote amongst my boxes of stuff from the past i'll post it here (in all its unedited defiant teenage and no doubt fairly naive glory) along with the comments from my english teacher... 'cause funny thing is, i'm pretty sure there's little i'd change with it and be pretty proud that i held a passionate conviction that would last well into adulthood and not be replaced but only added to with the arguments to back it up... as new friend tim said over coffee, "oh to go back to your 13 year old self for a night with the experience you carry in your 33 year old self"...to offer some encouragement amidst the excruciating insecurity...

::

last night i saw the episode of the west wing where toby is confronted by a group of rather convincing child suffrage activists. as i realised with shame and bemusement that i somehow didn't get myself round to registering to vote in the upcoming elections, i kinda wish i'd had the vote when i was 13, before i learnt what cynicism was, or at least, before apathy set in... i can't believe i didn't register...women died to get me the vote. i consider this nothing short of an insult to their memory...

::

ooh shuffle has just offered mmm mmm mmm mmm by crash test dummies. i must take a religious moment...

::

spent the last few hours having a long overdue one-on-one conversation with Pete (he who spawned ikon). we've been at the ikon table a lot in recent weeks one way or another and as my feet very naturally firmly swing back under said table, (after spending much of 2006 on self imposed 'sabbatical' to concentrate on giving my inner world some attention), i've been looking forward to getting some time for intentional discussion...
in the ongoing collective conversations those of us who are sometimes called ::old skoolers:: often find ourselves re-walking what is for us well trodden ground with the newer folks in the crowd, or clarifying one's vocabulary or individual perspective with those whom one does not share a history. this is typically pretty exciting and challenging, and i love hearing fresh perspectives of others, but on days like today it's just really nice being able to converse with the full knowledge that one is standing on mutually understood ground with rarely any need for translation...i guess it's just a rather different kind of conversation... so we explored with length and depth all things ikon and then some... this kind of time with Pete is something i treasure as friends as much as collaborators, and it is a marker to me of our shared commitment to our friendship in the passage of time that we have learned how to communicate together... our conversations are unique to us... i think we've learned to give each other space to try ideas on for size and not rush ourselves into decisions or hard held positions... and in doing so find a nice kind of shared perspective which still reflects our individualities amidst this dynamic crowd... colour me energised and thinking this is shaping up to being a good year for the crowd...

::

right, better drag my ass home and get me some dinner...

LB,x

back to the audio womb

well, i guess i better start the big upload, there's a lot of cds needing burned...new iPod just arrived.

the engraving?

you gotta rock yourself a little harder

(love to paul-the-harbour, who's lovin' josh ritter, and will appreciate the choice i'm sure...)

there's no competition for the choice for first track... here goes...

LB,x

...

thanks for those who jotted their thoughts in the margins of this scrap book as they leaned over my shoulder...

i'm left kind of speechless...

::

i spent some time over at pete's blog today... man, there's some difficult stuff there... it also leaves me speechless...

::

it's after five and it's still light outside...

::

i'm thinking about story, about science, creationists vs richard dawkins... of how we do this thing called living without losing our minds...

::

you're putting a line
where there should be a not a line

::

someone told me they're writing a paper on all communication being domination...

::

is this the truth of being human?
that we are fundamentalist by nature. we cannot understand us without them?

is this the truth of the gospel?
that there is another way...

::

we could go together if we wanted to... but we keep fighting to make peace rather than surrendering...

::

what is on the lips of the assassin as he takes a bullet between the eyes...? Christ knows... the unknowing haunts me still...

::

he said, the metaphor is more...

::

all these things swim and merge...

::

there are no words...

LB,x

tall tales

Spent a lovely couple of hours with the ever-so-lovely Mo. Mo makes me feel happy and safe. She’s sunlight. And kindness.

We dandered ‘round the market, talked over coffee and headed over to the waterfront and explored the co:ordinates exhibition together. She asked me what I knew of the artists and we both felt the same warm rush of inspiration at the individual and collective beauty of it… of the courage in it, the craft… the honesty, the quirkiness… the colour, and texture…

::

when i was getting my degree and taking a class in what i think was called organisational behaviour, synergy was defined as, "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts"…

::

Mo reminds me that we humans are the creatures who have story, are story … we break down our walls and differences by listening to the stories of other’s lives and letting them entwine with our own… of not being afraid of the hard edges of some of our stories, of the loss and pain… but in the hearing we are called to an embracing of the other…

It’s so much easier to love when we remember we are unfolding stories… so much easier to bear pain and loss… to accept and live with others…

::

But so often our tales are colliding…

::

Another wise woman in my life says, "most people never set out to hurt one another… they are doing the best they can at the time… you can let go of blame and anger and hurt when you look back and see that" … after grieving comes a maybe kind of peace making… with ourselves and others… a letting go…

So perhaps forgiveness is wrapped up somewhere deep within these stories… We can’t live with the stories of others til we live with our own…Perhaps we can only let go of the dark stuff by first meeting it, accepting it, feeling it…

::

Resistance is futile…those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it…

::

For so much of my adult life this far, I lived in an imaginary future because the present wasn’t a place where I flourished… the greener fields always lay ahead… I was always wishing for… I see now that I wouldn’t or couldn’t deal with the past, the story of what had come before… as I learn how to narrate the story of the past, the present becomes a much more satisfying place to live and the future… well, whatever will…be will be…

::

Chris tells his boys stories… wild, exotic, ridiculously silly tales in which they are the protagonists, the stars… as he tells his sons stories like his father did with him, they make weekly trips to an underworld place. in this secret magical land, reached by a clearing in a forest where vanishing daisies are the portal to a kingdom of imagination, there are always 2 great armies poised for battle…
this week the toothpaste army is ready to lock horns with the battalion of toothbrushes… next week, it’s the warring regiments of pencils and erasers, or it’s salt and pepper shakers ready to tear each other apart… whoever is at war, these particular adventures have a common dramatic turn of events… our young heroes will step into the space between and cry, “stop! In our world you two go together!” the armies are astonished. How shocked and amazed are these enemies when they hear of how there exists another place where they make so much more sense together than apart?
These laughing boys are the courageous peacemakers inside a story… learning to understand that life is about dealing with conflict… learning to look at things differently and help others see things differently… to see the complimentary nature of our difference… to be protagonists of another way… it’s hard to avoid thinking of another kingdom I heard of as a child… these boys travel in their father’s storytelling to a place where we understand what it means to ‘go together’ and stop our fighting…

::

LB,x

significance in everydayness

Am back in the arms of ::Midlake:: again… man, I love this album…

The drums/percussion rhythm in young bride is infectiously tappy… that’s a technical music term i just invented… makes me want to be in a pick up truck, or on a rolling train, or astride a horse…

::

my track pad is broken and I’m loving my maybe-not-gonna-be-temporary replacement – a wireless 2 button mouse. I can right click again – probably the one thing bar the delete button Microsoft has over Apple. In the grand scheme of the world pressing ctrl plus clicking is hardly a chore but the ol’ right click seems to make a qualitative difference.
If it wasn’t for needing both my usb ports for some of my peripherals I’d not bother taking my baby to the mac doctor to get said track pad fixed…

Anyways, no idea what that’s got to do with… just seemed a mundane significance in my little world… well, better out than in…

::

in truth, today has been about the significance of the mundane and ordinary… of what lies beneath the tensions in everyday interaction… of being pissed off with a taxi driver happy to sit in gridlock traffic rather than find an alternative route and my intense frustration at his disregard of my need to get from A to B as quickly as possible, nor being able to communicate my frustration…

::

I never complain to cab drivers or waiters or shop keepers… I was served what can only be described as swill last weekend in a café in portrush and I’m still irritated that I didn’t protest…

So. Sigmund has dispatched me back into the world with a new kind of homework… if opportunity arises, this next week I’m to raise my complaints when the service industry fails to meet their end of the bargain…

::

the guy beside me is playing a very goofy air guitar… the girl he’s having coffee with is laughing… they almost certainly work together… she wants to let him know she thinks he’s funny and that she knows how to have fun… he’s tapping his feet repeatedly… she’s not…. She plays with the scarf around her neck and struggles to pay attention when he’s not playing the joker… they don’t mirror one another at all save for leaning in across the table every now and again… how will they start to talk about what really matters to them? both are looking for connection but they’re not yet speaking the same language…

the couple across from me really like one another with affection and really listen to one another… they are in relaxed synch… she plays with the hair at the nape of her neck continuously… more physically contained than he but he’s not the issue, she always sits like this… she was brought up to not take up more room than is polite but her parents never envisaged her in scruffy converse boots… she is a combination of what she was expected to be and who she really is… his hands carry his expressiveness but his eyes tell a story… he listens with his eyes… they both do… the rest of the world slips into the background as they talk… they don’t work together… she takes a call on her mobile and despite taking in his surroundings his gaze always falls back to her face even though she’s looking at her knees as she speaks into the phone…

from inside this womb one relies not on sounds but body language to tell you the mood of the world…

like others, I sometimes resist listening to music so as to have a full experience of the world… but sometimes in cutting one sense off from the world, the others pick up so much more…

like others, I sometimes listen to music with intent, no distractions… but ya know… there is a part of me that tunes speak to when i’m just letting it surround me and my eyes are watching the world and hands are tapping on the keys… a part of me is always listening with intent…

there’s just not enough hours in life to hear it all… so much tunage, so little time…

LB,x

ourselves on canvas

there was something incredibly beautiful about seeing the ikon co:ordinates exhibition for the first time... professional artists mingling on the wall with those who'd never tried anything like this before... a daring and a egalitarianism... all these pieces somehow speaking together...

...been thinking 'bout creativity... and what it is that allows us to tap into that raw channel of open expression of what really matters... of how it is we get past our rational selves and just say it how it is for us...

i've got no insight... just letting it all float about and feel gratitudinal (man! there's a word i haven't used in a whiles) for the opportunity to express... and that for me it's neither process or product that are primary, but message, or perhaps voice... be it with a pen or a brush or a victorian printing press...

i'm drawn again and again to the art of speaking what we feel...

it feels like flourishing and it's a joy to see others doing it in their own ways...

we've all got stories to tell... and i guess i'm surrounded by folks all wanting to let those stories all out...

praise the something-like-nothing that i feel moving beneath it all...maybe it's just love and the sense of collective becoming expressive community...

hmmm, whatever, it's all somehow very cool in the best way possible...

LB, x

a pause

in this RnR time i've been taking these past couple months to shift my orientation from looking back to looking forward, one of the challenges has been keeping a good healthy routine when i don't have to get out of bed and go to work...my sleep pattern has improved greatly of late and on days like today i have a little list of things to do with writing for pleasure in the afternoon as my reward for productive mundanity...

so, this morning, accompanied by good tunage,
coffee has been consumed.
correspondence has been written.
i have clean clothes again and my jeans no longer smell like a chip shop in portrush

still to do...
resume needs editing
room is a tip and needs major tidying...
no longer needed belongings need to get bagged up for charity
so while i potter, here's some photos from the north coast... (as i bring some order to the chaos of my little room i'll muse on last night's launch of ikon co:ordinates... i can't believe we made it, but we did and it's great...)







LB,x

tenderness

tuesday, clements botanic...

i spent much of the past week at the Soliton sessions, which included a trip to the north coast for a residential. the sessions are designed to bring together those involved in emerging church movement for conversation... there was much conversation to be had and friends to be made from GB and USA... unsure of where to place ikon in this movement, if at all, i gradually let go of didactic questions and relaxed into the process by allowing myself to be surprised by people... i found much to contemplate and consider...

::

hello to those new friends who said they'd be dropping by this way to look over my shoulder... you know who you are... looking forward to hanging out in the future and the possibility of collaboration... keep in touch...

::

most talked about album of the week in my little world...

rosie thomas' these friends of mine. just sublime. feels like the sound of wanting to touch another's fingertips with your own with tentativeness and tenderness and the sadness that you can't, or won't, for fear you would lose your soul to love...

favourites so far...

much farther to go
kite song
her achingly gorgeous cover of REM's the one i love
these friends of mine

::

also on the turntable: aaron espe's my whole life. aaron played a set as opener for juliet turner at the soliton sessions. his guitar playing was deft and beautiful... i think i fell in love for just a moment, which might explain why i was tongue tied when i approached him to buy a copy of his album... ah, boys with guitars...

this song was so simple...and so lovely...

Melody

Melody
come speak my heart
now set me free
melody
come out now
and carry me
melody
you've got a story in you
set it free
melody
you'd be a fool to let it be

so i'll take my chances on you
and i'll be romantic with you
and i'll face the consequences with you
come on melody

melody
you've got a story in you
set it free
melody
you'd be a fool to let it be
so don't give up until you've tried it
do anything, but don't you hide it

and i'll take my chances on you
and i'll be romantic with you
and i'll face the consequences with you
so come on melody

::

right, ian mobsby's here for coffee and chat.

later...

LB,x

something 'bout...

well, right now, nothing...

i spent yesterday afternoon in part processing some thoughts and enjoying being back at my keys...and a fairly varied and lengthy post was composed...

that has got lost in the ether...

so i have to decide if i want to rewrite from memory the post that resulted or just let it go and write something different...

needless to say there were some music recs in there and some greetings and salutations to new friends who said they'd drop by and peer over my shoulder as i splurged on this space....

those will definitely be redrafted and posted.

lesson: if in compose mode on blogger while off line do not let your mac battery run down to zero.
lesson learned.

grrr.

LB.

letting go...

Was at Whiterocks beach yesterday morning just after nine a.m. Frost on the sand. Thick mist wrapping itself around the castle ruins and the cliffs. mystical and freezing, surfers like black ninjas looking brave and fragile in the relentless heaving and pounding surf.

We walked with a guy named jim, a beachcomber, storyteller, geologist, environmentalist... he told the ancient evolving story of the landscape and the first people to arrive on this coast 9000 years ago. he told us his own story and of the people he has met, of his conversations with his God.

We took large rocks, as big as we could hold, and stood and faced the surf.

I stood at the back of this group of figures.. all motionless... all facing out to sea... their still forms silhouetted against the waves. in our standing and gazing we felt the weight of our burdens. One by one each turned and silently thumped these rocks into a pile on the sand.

Jim choked back tears. on this freezing beach surrrounded by wild ancient dynamic beauty, what was more beautiful than this memorial to our burdens? i saw it as an act of witness to our acknowledgment that we are heavy laden and we long to make peace with whatever will help us lay them down.

this morning those stones will have long been washed up by the surf, our act of togetherness in vulnerability and courage dismantled by the sea... i will think of that beach and know that in that mystical place where land meets sea in neverending collision, lies a rock, a rock i named, offered to i know not what, in a living daring act of prayer, that will shift with the waves, lie heavy in the sand... a solid, black piece of the earth, it is holding my burden, a silent offering, like an intercessory candle in a church...

::

love has been the cause of all this suffering
what has been our loss has been its gaining
so lay your burdens down
burdens down

::

LB,x