November 4, 2009
Colors of home
![[IMAGE] sunset](/blog/blogpix/sset.jpg)
…about the musicPlaces of life and longing.
Above, the view from a friend’s house on the north end of San Juan Island, looking straight out to the Southern Gulf Islands of British Columbia and straight in to the universe. As I relaxed in one of those chairs, I was convinced that were this my home I would get absolutely no work done whatsoever.
Below, the full, intoxicatingly scented bloom of the island’s biggest lavender farm. Yes, it smells like it looks: instant calm. The web hasn’t figured out how to download that to your desktop yet. You’ll like it when I can put a little button on this blog screen that invites you to “click here” to experience the e-romatic wonder of this place. Now that’s how to reach an audience! Or, depending on what odors one offers, how to instantly repel them.
![[IMAGE] lavender farm](/blog/blogpix/lav.jpg)
And here, one of my frequent visitors (or, music critics). He and his big ears keep coming back, as if to check to see if I’ll ever get it right. I mean, seriously: just look at the utter exasperation on his face.
![[IMAGE] visitor](/blog/blogpix/odeer.jpg)
Orange, purple, green, brown and all the other parts of the spectrum make up one beautiful aspect of my life. It’s pretty fascinating to embrace a bifurcated existence: one that’s remote and rural, and another that takes me from city after city– every month. Writing music, then talking about it in all those places. And, back again. I thrive on this balance, and post these snapshots not only to share the scenes with you, but to remind me what awaits in 17 days when I return from the five-state journey my 22″ roll-on and I start in the morning (uh, I think that might be the states of: confusion [where am I right now?], momentary panic [where did I place my boarding pass?], general bliss [what friendly people!] , illusion [surely they get what I’m talking about…uh… no?] and calm [yes, I’d love another glass, thank you]). I’ll try to post something here from the road while I’m traveling. No matter what state I happen to be in.
Glenn Buttkus said,
November 6, 2009 @ 6:29 am
Some months, some seasons, it seems that you live on the road as much as you do on the island. You travel like a rogue jazz musician, like a hungry blues band, like the minstrals of old; but more than that there is the teacher side to you, and the business person, and the promoter, and the hustler, and the friend. Hope this trip, like so many others, enrichen your life and your career–and when you return to your cabin in the firs on your wind swept isle, we shall be waiting patiently, like the two-point buck, like the lavender waving in the salt air, like the beaches littered with the natural sculpture of driftwood, like the black and silver foxes who nest in your hedges–all of us, with your cats, your spouse, your music….waiting for Alex and the sunrise.
Loved your music snippet, Longing For You @ 1:59, just the right blend and touch of jazz to ease my flutters and make me embrace this Friday, another end to another work week.Must be joyful sometimes working for yourself, only answering to the music of the spheres, and the deals and contracts you have hustled up.
Here, as you travel, is the Shapiro poetics of the week, to stir the air, and then anchor your focus and reawaken your gravitas.
Life in the Kaleidoscope
Orange, purple, green, brown
and all the other parts of the spectrum
make up one beautiful aspect of my life.
It’s pretty fascinating
to embrace a bifurcated existence:
one that’s remote and rural,
and another that takes me
from city after city– every month.
Writing music, then talking about it
in all those places.
And, back again.
I thrive on this balance.
Alex Shapiro November 2009