It was a terrible day.  Then, near the end of it, I got to go on a walk.  By myself.  So I had all this headspace and only my own body to hoist up and down the hills that lead to the water near our house:  Murden Cove.  It's real name was Murder Cove, on account of a woman's body found on the shoreline years ago.  But that name creeped people out, so the city made a nice little swipe on the "r" to make an "n".  And I really like the name Murden Cove.
I came down the lane where the path opens out to display the silver water and sky, just one big palette of rich greys.  And I catch my breath because even it's stillness is so alive and it smells like sea and someone cooking over a campfire somewhere and it's moist and almost warm today though it's October and I had this weird feeling like I was in college again and could do anything.  And I breathed in the smells there, thinking, "the very sight of this salty water feeds my mad heart."
Walking along the water a bit I can feel my body lowering it's anger shields, like if I was a bird my ruffled feathers would be smoothing back down. I tell God I love this part of what He made. It's one of His best ideas, in my opinion.  I tell Him that all the time, like how He made the water and then the shore and they both teem with life, at this magical point where they meet.  Ravens were feeding all up and down the shore.  One lone seagull kept bleating.  I saw My Blue Heron perched on a bulkhead, giving me the stinkeye.
Earlier in the day Evelyn "offered" me a bite of her dried mango, all soggy from her gumming it.  That's the first time she's ever done that.  This event and my walk at Murden Cove salvaged the day.

Telemetry means heart, I think

Samuel works on the telemetry floor in a hospital, which is the heart floor. He came home the other day and told me that they admitted someone who has "broken-heart syndrome". This is a true medical disorder. A person with no previous heart problems can experience sudden heart issues (palipatations, murmers, failure) after the loss of a loved one (be it death, divorce or break up). I stood gaping for minutes upon hearing this. In all the old books, they always say, mysteriously "...and then she died of a broken heart". And now we've learned that they could have!

Salmon Le Sac

We went camping yesterday. Camping means staying in a hotel with my mom while my dad and brothers strive (and fail) to find empty campsites, and end up staying in a hotel down the road. It is hot and dusty on the other side of the mountains. After having breakfast at a cafe close to our hotels we went down to the river and watched people float by on inner tubes. I found little whirling eddies to dip Max's feet in. The sun had baked the rocks warm and the water was cold enough to turn your legs red.

I think about the Ciaconne. How it's spelled Ciacona and sometimes Chaconne. How I haven't practiced it the last two days. It lays inside me though, gathering momentum. Someone told me once that even if you don't physically pick up your instrument to practice, if you go through your music in your minds-eye, hearing and picturing all the movements that accompany practice, that your brain doesn't know that you actually are not doing it. And you will improve.

This sounds like an excuse to me.

I do it anyhow and let it assuage my guilt.

All day Max leaps with joy in my arms, delighted at the prospect of life. I whisper encouragement in his little Dopey ears. His exuberance is contagious.

Mirikatani

Samuel and I watched a documentary about Jimmy Mirikatani. A Japanese artist, born in America, who lost his citizenship during the internment camps of WWII. It made my heart feel swollen. He is a little 80 year old man, who staunchly informs everyone that he is a "Great Master Artist". Jimmy-san. He is famous for his paintings and drawings of cats.
Also, I started Ciaconne practice. But not at the beginning. Some things are best not started at the beginning.

My goal

I have decided to learn the Bach Ciaconne for violin. I have wanted to learn this piece for years. In my mind it is the greatest piece ever written for violin, it is a musical novel depicting the whole of humanity, especially its: longing, hope, tenderness, nostalgia, fear, determination, long trials of the soul, epiphanies, loss of hope, ecstacy, joy and sorrow. To name a few, though it seems very trite to talk such about something so expansive and varied as the workings of the human heart. I harbor a strange hope that there is an answer in this piece somewhere. Bach, being a man of untouched and unparalleled genius, must have known something that very few people know, to have written a work of this epic proportion. His music seems revealed, not jostled up of his own imagination. I have a copy of his 6 Sonatas and Partitas for violin solo, and the second half of the book is actually a copy of his original notation. The front page says, in large, scripted and beautiful writing,

Sei Solo a

Violino

Libro Primo

His handwriting is like art and it soothes you. I once heard that if you added up all the time Bach spent notating his vast repatoire, strictly dipping his quill in ink and putting it to page, it would work out to 23 years. That doesn't count any time he spent daydreaming out the window, or trying to work out a particular harmony, or making decisions about the harpsichord arrangement. In his original notation of the Ciaconne, the piece is 4 1/2 pages long. Transcribed into modern, more legible notation, the work is 13 pages.

It has been rearranged a multitude of times for other instruments, but more often than not, the arrangement calls for more than one instrument. It has been re-written for quartet and though not a single note was added, all four players are busy with parts. One can't begin to imagine how Bach visualized this for one, relatively small, four stringed instrument: it can be played by a full orchestra! He attains this multi-texture by employing "double-stops", a technique which requires the violinist to play more than one string at a time. In fact, the Ciaconne starts with a chord of double-stops played on all four strings. At once.

I shall start at the beginning. This week I will spend determining the best outline for my time of practice.

Cure for the headache

My thoughts feel heavy and like my brain is crunching on them. Causing this headache. Crunchy thoughts. Chewy tight brain. I want someone to gently remove my head and pour purified, fresh, stream water that is warm from the sun through all the cracks and crusty crevices in my head. Swab with care behind my eyeballs. Let them air dry in a tropical location then tenderly replace them. Maybe, while they're at it, they could remove my neck muscles and beat them with a meat cleaver till they are limp and inoffensive. Then slick my neck skin back over the muscles, drip the last of the clean water from my brain, screw my eyes back in, and respectfully replace my head.
My headache-free head.

I had a dream last night that I was fleeing the city with a midget, who had to jump start our escape van, and a really courteous downs syndrome man. I asked them to stop at my apartment so I could get Cheechee, my lion. Then I spent way too much time, while they were waiting in the van all ready to flee, trying to find the right pair of jeans, because my favorite ones smelled of mildew. This last part is true in real life.
Today Max wears a bright orange sleeper. He looks amazingly handsome in it, considering its the color of a bleached road cone. He looks handsome in most things in fact, though I refuse to let him know this, lest it go to his little big head. I know he is already vain, because he changes his outfits at least five times a day. Or rather, he has me change his outfits by "accidantly" peeing on them. Or throwing up on them. He chews on his hands non-stop now, and its just one step further to gag himself. I catch him at it all the time. He has another new skill as well, rolling from back to belly. His does this with an earnest compulsion that suggests he can't not roll, even if he wanted to.
Anna has called, and Max and I are off to coffee with her. Max has been clamoring for a hot chocolate all morning, the little hedonist.