The time away from my usual surrounding is the gift I give myself two or three times a year. To step back and step into a new viewpoint.
As always, despite my protestations and traveling worries, it is a good place. In the mountains, nestled above a valley without running water or internet, the small one-room cabin has endless views. An outside shower allows me to be naked in the tall grass under a starry night, with an outhouse up over the hill. Yes, this is a good place.
The quiet surrounds me on the cool early evening. Light fading, I hear bits of the new string quartet I am commissioned to write. Suddenly last week an opportunity presented itself without much time, none in fact, to sidle up, dream about, or even be anxious over a new work – just a go-go-go.
I have not thought about composing this year and it is already August. All spring I had been engrossed in writing a new memoir about the emerging from a second marriage, composing and aging. That, and getting my music scores ready for my publisher has been all absorbing. A careful, detailed work of margins, spacing, page turns, and placing of the dynamics; it reminds me that excellence has a long tail. Not only in the composing of the music itself, but also in the attention to the score. Always a willingness to spend what ever time needed to create something of value on every level.
Excellence versus perfection; I have fretted about it before. I have no patience for perfectionism, it seems like an empty threat against the gods, superficial and a desire to control. Excellence, on the other hand, knows when to stop and when to tarry, when it’s done the best for now, while sniffing ahead for the next opportunity.
The summer night is falling. First there is a glimmer of yellow light, and then a covering gray. Soon, dark. The hills are misted with white patches that dampen green-green of the trees, making the outlines of each more clear.
The time away from my usual surrounding is the gift I give myself two or three times a year. To step back and step into a new viewpoint. A time with nothing to do but drink coffee and walk through the milkweed, golden rod and elderberry. I look out into the valley, and allow the wisps of a new composition to appear.
