preparation

Like a cork in the sea, we will rise above the wave ahead.

I do music, so I'm wont to see life in musical terms. Right now, for instance, I'm coming to a cadence. Without moments of punctuation, the flow of time seems endless. The ends justifies the middles. The beginnings are just ends with more hope. Defining these moments help us to take a step back, get some perspective.

I'm finishing a period of about 6 months of voluntary homelessness in which I focused on making music--and not making money. I'm beginning a period of 2 months of drifting in a sea of hospitality between Paris and Prague, visiting friends, making new ones, and (re)discovering cultures through language.

When I quit everything (teaching music theory and music appreciation at Chicago State), I started a blog, the first one that I've managed to update consistently. After some searching, I found a quotation about a Danish writer, Jens Peter Jacobsen, about how he insists that his characters "embody the struggle" against whatever societal forces that keep them from living life in their own way. Writing music, already, runs contrary to the American model that values hard work, regular hours (9-5), and owning property in the suburbs. Going further, I quit gainful employment and went off to be by myself in a house in the woods. Sounds like Walden. But, just as Thoreau was close enough to Concord to walk there with his laundry, I was close enough to Chicago to go back nearly every weekend--either by car or train (and once by bike).

I realized that my struggle was less against external forces than internal ones--ghosts from my past and my own habitual thoughts and actions.

Now, my challenge is to go with the flow

Don't push the river, it flows by itself