notes from the kelp

…click to listen:

…about the music

Re-paired.

If you happened to read the comment section to my penultimate post, you know that I quietly eulogized the newborn fawn that I saw once last week, but not again the next day when his mother strolled by. Well, happiness today: as I was on the phone in the kitchen, I looked out the window and there he was, standing in the woods in front of me next to his mom, suckling, exploring, with all his white spots looking a little more spread out across his growing body. I won’t give names to these creatures because I know their lives are routinely shortened. Yet it’s impossible not to take some proprietary interest in these cuties.

A very young fox poked her head into my studio door yesterday, too, and then fox trotted off to the front of the house before I could snap a pic. My wildlife photog documentation is sorely underwhelming (the little fawn here is, literally, trunk-ated) and I flog you, dear kelphistos, with amateur shots barely worthy of a sixth grader’s homework report. But what I lack in ability with my camera, I still see in my mind’s eye, observing and pondering these encounters long afterward. Jane Goodall was one of my heroes when I was in sixth grade, after all.

…click to listen:

…about the music

Music for two napping kitties.

It’s been bright and sunny outside. Foxes, raccoons, frogs, bucks, does, fawns, robins, eagles and hummingbirds pass by the picture windows at all hours of the day. But do these two notice? Nope. When you’ve got someone great to curl up with, the rest of the world just doesn’t exist.

And by the way, these guys give a big paws up to the growing number of U.S. states finally legalizing same sex marriage. Here’s to purrogress!

…click to listen:

…about the music

Prelude to the afternoon of a fawn.

Truth in advertising.
Here is a little behind, along with its mama’s larger one. Not a great pic, but the best I could do while washing the dishes, spotting the pair, and snapping them quickly through the kitchen window.

There are few things cuter than watching a newborn fawn closely follow its mother as it discovers what this world is all about. So far, it has learned about my wood chopping pile, the salal-draped shore pine forest around it (salal is the low green plant you see in the pic), the neon blue dragon flies that buzz everywhere, my garbage and recycling bins, the endless sound of all the birds and frogs in the trees, and the way the driveway gravel feels under those little hooves. I am hoping that s/he does not get an object lesson about cars. This is a dead end rural road that sees very few four-wheeled critters each day, but there are way too many sad stories on this island of car versus deer. A losing proposition on both sides of the windshield.

I, too, am a little behind. Not only because I am a fairly small person (when people meet me who have only seen me on the web, they’re often surprised by this and proclaim that gee, they always thought I was much taller/bigger/whatever… maybe my photos make me look like Compozilla, the monster whose notes attacked Cleveland?). No, not only that. But because I’ve finally been home for a length of time, and the amount of catch up in all realms– music, social, house stuff, island stuff– has been enough to keep me in the moment of living my life, rather than the post-modern pursuit of reporting about living it. Thus, I’ve fallen a little behind on my regular blogging schedule.

This, however, will change. Enough cool things are going on that I’ll take some time to describe them in upcoming posts. I started to find it ironic this spring that one of the key things that I go around the country speaking about for workshops, conferences, and university classes, is the great professional benefit of being present and interactive on the web, 24/7. And yet, due to being so busy talking about it, I was having less and less time to do it!

Web presence is much more than static website updates– it means consistently creating new material and information to pop across people’s pixels that plugs them purposefully into a perception of one’s personhood. Sorry, just had to do that. MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, listservs, and the endlessly engaging blogs out there that deal with pithy matter (as opposed to my often defiantly un-pithy matter here in kelpville), all serve as serendipitous portals to income-producing careers. It’s been working consistently this way for me for quite a while, and so I like to inform and encourage my peers as well, that they might experience similarly happy results.

I joke that apparently, the key to success in my business is to move to a remote, bridge-less island floating out in the middle of nowhere that many have never heard of. Works like a charm– my composing career has never been so busy since moving far away from a big city two years ago. So I guess this makes me a bit of a musical guinea pig. Oink! Maybe my next piece will be for swine flute.

…click to listen:

…about the music

Island time.

I like the pic of the little puddle jumper taking me away from Friday Harbor, but I much prefer the two that show me coming back (yes, that’s a landing strip and not someone’s driveway). I’m home to stay put for a while and write a whole bunch of music notes! Hooray! And, to spend time outside in this glorious weather. After twenty four years in southern California, living in a place where seasons noticeably delineate one’s outdoor activities is still a real change, even into a third summer living on the island. Today was nearly eighty degrees, and despite my ever-present music delivery deadlines, I couldn’t help but spend a couple of hours working on tidying up the decks and the landscaping. It felt great to do a little huffing and puffing in the sunshine, and I suspect that the notes that emerge tomorrow will reflect all that light, too. Summer, while it lasts, is as precious as any creative inspiration.