Slowing Down

Slowing Down

   Just as I finished writing about blogs vacating, projects stagnating, novels abandoned, I thought I had it figured out.  And then, the realization that has come to hit me the very next day...the pace.  The demands put on oneself are sometimes too subtle to notice; but gradually they build and build until one day, you take another look and it feels forced. 

   I thought I had it down for today, the draw of music, the mastery of Beethoven, the demands of violinist Christian Tetzlaff pushing the boundaries of his instrument, the ability of music to snap Glen Campbell out of his deep Alzheimer's state if only for a few hours for the farewell stage, the feedback John Lennon accidentally caused when he moved too close to the amp (a revelation that he turned into the opening of I Feel Fine)...I thought it was there.  The Magic of Music.  And then the clock signaled it was late, then it was early, too early, and there was much to do.  Could I  get it all in?

   The answer of course, now that I look back, was no.  Well, yes.  But it would lose that initial spark, that passion.  This was now a demand of sorts, a deadline to meet and to get it down on the screen before the clock strikes twelve or two or whatever, just don't mix the numbers into 1s and 2s and all that grammatical stuff.  Don't leave out anything.  Hurry.  Time for a cigarette, if only I smoked.

   The point is that some of the things exciting me are getting larger and larger, and there is SO much out there...the drought, genetic altering, dying bats & bees, color, invasive species (did you know that the kudzu vine overtakes the equivalent of 100,000 football fields each year?), Fukushima (we're not done there yet), drones, Samuel Adams, dark energy.  It was quite honestly, a world of information out there waiting.  A fascinating world.  But the pace, oh dear, I simply couldn't keep up with the pace.

   On reading my earlier writings, I realized that I was sort of like a kid leaving Disneyland for the first time and trying to tell his mom & dad everything all at once.  You should've seen the water fly, and Goofy, oh mom he was sooo tall, and the fort at the island, oh and I almost forgot about the ghosts. Mom, the GHOSTS at the haunted mansion...an, and the fireworks, dad.  They went on forever and I had this ice cream and there were these cool guys in striped jackets playing music behind this giant merry-go-round and...

   Whoa, slow down, son.  There's plenty of time to go over all this when we get home.  You can tell me all about it in the morning.  Ahh, but dad, you should've been there. 

   So, I think I'll be that kid for a bit.  If there's a slight gap in these musings, like a few days or a week, or maybe even a bit more, you'll know what happened.  I'm just going to take a snooze, dream a bit and settle down a little...sort of let the magic sink back into me before it gets away.  Who knows, I might just make the list of blogs to consider from the Google team, that is, once a few years float away.  It's been fun, and I don't think I'm done...just dragging a bit.  It was such a great time, dad.  Really.  Are we almost home?