today, i decided that i would devote some time to "projects" (things that must or should be done). in particular, i fixed a bike that's been upside down in the yard for (i am not exaggerating) years. and i started my seedling factory. there were a few more things that i could've done, a few other impossibles or difficults, but i felt i had done enough to warrant me passing to another phase of my day. so the rest of the day, i've been working on my self. it's a routine that i employed, most effectively about a couple of years ago at the start of the pandemic. i just go over some things that i think make me stronger or smarter, or which i simply enjoy. when i "fall off the wagon," as i did last year- due in large part to a significant amount of external responsibilities, so i don't particularly feel guilty about it- then i tend to neglect myself, and i become like this untended yard, that starts to develop its own jungle of weeds... if i don't want that to happen, if i don't want entropy to creep into my life, then i have to keep on top of things. take care of myself. so in this moment, i am.
the wind is blowing. i love the sound of the wind... except when it starts to drag the branches of the nearby bottlebrush tree against the eaves of the house... but other than that, i like the sound of the wind. it makes everything seem clean. motion. current. flow... life is, or ideally is, flow. when we are disconnected from flow, in any way, then we are left with our own inertia and stillness, and resistance. and we wonder what disconnects us from ourselves and from life? because in stillness (which is a fiction?) we start to fall apart. we start to analyze. the glue that once held us to love and life is suddenly absent... maybe we are on different parts of this spectrum in life. and at different moments, with different challenges, we must learn to appreciate our position, understand it, in order to reconnect to it. old age. the loss of possibilities...
yes, that reminds me. about a week ago, i went to a dance party with my wife. it was a "new wave" party (meaning they were supposed to play music like the cure and depeche mode). i looked at the people around me, and found most of them looked tired and old- has beens. and yet, they were hungry for life. they were moving their bodies, in unexpected and sometimes unappetizing ways. i wasn't sure how to react to that. like should i join them in this unappealing frenzy? or should i be dignified as the grave? i kept my eyes, for the most part during the dances, on my wife- her happiness, her cute dances... and that saved me. as long as i have her as a partner, no matter how the world changes, how we change, we can see joy and find joy in each other... but it still left me with this question, which i suppose will repeat with greater and greater insistence as i grow older- how do appreciate life when less and less of it seems relevant or beautiful to you, or from you? will i still have a voice to sing or speak soon? would the world even hear my words from beneath the croaking of my voice? things like that.
in any case, i have no choice but to keep writing, to keep singing, to keep playing music, to keep doing art. it's not "therapeutic." it's existential.
