silence

It is curious how noisy "being alone" has become. We seem to have this perpetual fear of actually being alone and therefore isolate ourselves with distractions...thus becoming more alone? For instance here sitting at my computer I am alone...however with in seconds I can play music, sign on to instant messenger, check facebook all sorts of "social networking" things and other distractions are at my finger tips.

So people leave the house to be "alone" but walking even from one place to the next we are on our cell phones or listening to i-pods, and thus are not really alone. I even saw a woman kayaking the other day while listening to music. This seems really counter intuitive to me as canoing or Kayaking is for me a chance to listen to the world and examine things around me, I probably won't notice the jumping fish or Kingfisher if I'm listening to music, and why paddle around if not to notice things.

I won't say that I'm not guilty of this, I definitely listen to music when I run as a distraction, but then I don't think that I would contend that my goal when running is to achieve aloneness or to commune with nature in any way, rather it's really just to run.

I was getting really antsy "being alone" for the past few days. Sitting here in front of my stupid computer, trying to write cover letters and get in contact with various people. But I wasn't really alone. I went out this afternoon to read in a quieter part of the Quads, and ultimately was not successful at achieving aloneness or silence while reading. When walking or even sometimes reading there is always music of some sort playing in my head (my mind is a very noisy place to be) right now "se vuol ballare" is rolling through my head. Reading was not going well I was distracted by music and I kept on thinking about things (some good and inspired by the reading --is there finite amount of music--and some not so worth while). At some point I gave up and laid back on the bench and just watched the clouds through the trees.

And there it was. I was somehow in my own space and time. There was no silly or good music running through my head, and I was not distracted by thoughts. Certainly I must have been thinking, but not at the same intensity as earlier. Finally I did not mind being alone, in fact I think that being alone is a great thing, it is just this in between state of pretending to not be alone that causes such trouble.

uncertainty in art

I went to this artist chat thing at the last second with some folks. It was actually a very interesting conversation about this Juan Chavez's art and his conception of found art and public domain. It made me think which is ultimately the goals of these things. What I took away from him was the joy of discovery: whether it be in the finding of materials, finding of art (by the viewer in a public place) or the discovery of some interesting detail in a piece in a gallery. Some people got caught up in some ideas that I thought that he had covered adequately, in fact this one girl asked what I saw as the same question four times, M had to fight the giggles at that one and the artist shared an eye role with us. The project we were looking at was a giant "speaker" in which some band had performed...pretty neat! I wanted to ask him if he had any conception about what nature of music ought to be performed in there as there are certain composers who wrote (write) music in the manner in which he created art. but the opportunity never arose.

his whole thing was uncertainty in the final product. How will a space influence the end result, how does time (and the fact that he did some of these things illegally) influence the end result. There is certainly music like this. Chance operations and uncertainty. I'll write about it when I'm actually thinking....

summer

The things I associate most strongly with the summer are not surprisingly also associated with home, where I've happily been for the last week.

summer means sunburned shoulders crouched down in a field picking tiny strawberries.
summer means sticky red stained fingers and closing your eyes and seeing strawberries because you've been staring at them all day.
summer is spit bugs on flowers brushing your back and nose.

summer is also canoeing all day and exploring tributaries.
it's bakeing new things I've never tried before.

it has been in the past time on the ropes course and making up games with people who think in surprisingly similar manners to you.

later summer means black rasberries hidden behind fortified walls of nettles and poison ivy, then it's knowing what jewel weed looks like to sooth your stings.
it's riding through the woods and falling into the mud.
it's helping with theater and melting under the lights.

it's picking blueberries out of a canoe while someone reads outloud to you.
it's letting your brother convince you to vault over things.

it's going on vacation, reading in the treehouse, sailing, and smelling familiar smells of ceder and calimint.

mostly this week it's been spending time at home and getting to bake, picking strawberries, canoeing and letting my brother teach me how to jump over the four-foot trash can.

home

So as expected being a graduate of the University feels just the same as normal.

I am currently enjoying a week at home in Connecticut (no not that part of CT geez. I do actually like it here quite a bit. I live in the oldest town in the state, where there are lots of old coloniel houses and such. mostly I like looking over the farm fields at the mountains.
I also like backing unreasonably complicated things in a kitchen that has all the amenities.
I'm just letting my self drift briefly before I allow myself to think for real again