Springfield Opera Gala Rehearsal

Getting to Know You

This is a note to a friend. We've just recently met on the internet. I paused for a noticeable span of time after I wrote that. So I'll repeat it...recently met on the internet. Now another pause and I'm checking my breath. Believe me, when I came to this box right now to answer her, it wasn't my intention to spend time on that one thought. But now it is taking over. Just that thought. Meeting on the internet. The little vertical line that marks the end of the typed word here--you know the one. It blinks on and off, like Hal from 2001, waiting for Dave's response. What else did you want to say Dave?



I watch it blink as I pause at the awesome thought of meeting someone and getting to know them through this odd meeting place. Boxes really. Little boxes and our voices fit into neat typed words. And we hear each other, or I should say we have the capacity to hear. Like James Cameron's ingenius theme of Avatar, I see you, with the broader meaning. So we can hear each other, feel each other. The vertical line blinks as I pause again and the phenomena of that. Watching my breath. Where will this take us? I wonder. We're onto something here. World. The world is on to something. Like Truffaut's character in Close Encounters, "This is im.por.taunt. Theez meanz zomething." Wow. Wow.



But time to reply. Before addressing specific points let me just check in for a moment. Check within. What do I feel? What is the feeling of meeting again? What am I feeling as I anticipate talking again, to my friend Jan...



Words have unimaginable power. We sling them around like they're one of those sponge balls which couldn't possibly hurt a soul. We spit them out or we hold them in. We form them in our minds or we collect them off a page. We turn feelings in to them so we can express whatever it was or is about the feeling. We also use them to paint with. We search for just the right one or groups of them, hoping the person they're meant for can get a feeling they may get from a painting. We crowd them in to our music, as if the music needs help. Oh but they're not harmless sponge balls are they? They have lead to wars. Hey, here's a thought, on Valentine's Day, they have lead to love. As I sit bouncing this power of my sponge ball, I'm reminded of the great responsibility to use my words well...



My friend Jan is a pyschoanalyst, among other things. In fact, why would I list that title first? She's a music lover with a lot of listening hours logged, from a long list of artists. She's a thinker of many things, including shamanic tradition. She's studied the classics and she's a fan of Harry Potter. She's traveled widely and besides her fondness for music, she studies the tones of voices in the same way that Henry Higgins studied phoenetics.



What moved me to reply to Jan in this particular spot, here on the Home, Home on the All Strings Attached, is because she mentioned the "in between" and I flash to Deepak Chopra's fairly recent analysis of the gap between breaths. I mention Deepak just because he's so prodigious right now. No different though than the chapters in the Tao te Ching which talk about the "not there" as that which is important, like where the spokes on the wheel meet (the hole) or the bellows for the fire, the door in to a room. Somewhere on these virtual pages I write about potential. I still wonder exactly what I was trying to say, but some vague connection to quanta in the physics realm. But a better way for me to think about it is to just handle it gently as the mystery.



Interested in music? Jan asked me. Vertical line blinks while I smile at it. Yes. Breath. Yes. I think of the Beatles, consumed as I am with everything about them. I love Mozart too and many many new things I hear, even these days of meeting so many fresh voices which take me to suites and sounds unfamiliar. A long time ago it struck me that our tendency to attach words to music is sort of a confusion. The music seems more primal and raw and pure without the complication of all that linear thought. Vertical line blinks. Where to from here? My mind pauses and I seek that "in between." What did you want to say Dave? Kubric was a genius wasn't he?



I don't know about Chiron but I'm thrilled Jan that you've lead me to him and to Aesclepius. Just now my Google search quickly confirmed what I suspected I would find. The snake entwined staff and how it differs from the caduceus. For you voyeurs looking in on this conversation between Jan and I, we were talking about being in caves and this conversation has links to the allegory of Plato but also to the gifts which come from solitude. But the reason I mention the snakes is because as his staff or as a caduceus, I don't think it removes the significance of Kundalini. I'm grateful of my connection to Gopi Krishna and to his spiritual son Gene Kiefer. All of that for another conversation.



I too love poetry, when I take the time to get the "in between" of it. But I also love the thought of a looser definition of poet as Emerson or Whitman would have used it. Emerson's poetry (to my unrefined ear) doesn't ring with the rhythm or harmony of Poe or Shakespeare and in fact seems downright clunky most of the time. So he wasn't probably a good dancer either, but he gave a broader definition for poets which I'm thankful for, and in that way, more of us qualify.



My brink of insanity about shaking hands is the frantic rushing in to this medium, so thrilled to find friends and have a chance to talk. I'm just a fountain of streaming nonsense most of the time and so anxious to find a listener. That's what I meant. So that's where you, my dearest Jan, with all your skills and intuition can take notes from. I know you'll have just the right prescription after listening to me, here on your couch in your office. I'm tempted to put the colon and close parenthesis symbol, but now you know what I mean. Where I could have taken up only the space of two of these flashing vertical lines, I've sprawled another two sentences. But you have more insight and I have more opportunity to paint this way.



The last thing, or I should say the last symbol I'll leave you with, in this land of the in between is a picture. Close your eyes and think about one of those little candy hearts with words on them. After you've had a few that say Happy Valentine's Day and Be Mine or those other messages NECCO brilliantly emblazoned with colored sugar on their tiny sweet billboards, pop this one in your mouth. It says "Nice to Know You."