notes from the kelp

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…about the music

Ahhhh…

Saturday night between 7 and 9:30 p.m., three good friends, Charles, our guide and I kayaked almost silently through the Haro Strait. We were flanked by bald eagles, Dall’s porpoises, small fish that jumped giddily out of the water, rhinoceros auklets, and the memory of a large pod of Orca whales who swam in this same spot just an hour earlier. When twilight surrendered to nighttime, fascinating sparks from bioluminescent life forms lit up in the water with each paddle stroke. Vancouver Island and B.C.’s smaller southern gulf isles met our gaze across the sea, and as the clouds gave way to the sunset which gave way to the stars, I knew I was in my own version of Heaven.

I chose to accompany these pix with a little excerpt from the “Nunc Dimittis” movement of my “Evensong Suite,” since it seemed so fitting. The text refers to how, upon seeing baby Jesus, Simeon declares that he’s seen God’s salvation– something God had promised he would experience before he died. Well, for me, and for a lot of folks just like me, moments like this are my salvation, and the power of the universe in its natural beauty, in its art, and in the kindest interactions with others, are the only saviours that matter. Amen!

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Afloat, in the air.

I was utterly charmed to discover this new cache of multi-legged life above a little aloe plant next to my front door. Suspended in a frozen tumble amid thin web strands, a hundred or more of these tiny, tiny spider babies experienced sunshine and pine trees for the first time. And, the regrettable circumstance of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The previous week I had captured and relocated an unremarkable, pale colored spider who I first inspected under a magnifying glass before helping it change zip codes from atop my kitchen cabinet to beneath my wooded ferns many yards away. I was taken by the significant chevron design on its outer abdomen, and pored over photos in my various arachnids-for-geeks books. It turned out that I had saved the life of a little creature who could have seriously impeded my own. It was a Hobo spider, not uncommon in these parts and who, like the Brown Recluse, makes up in necrotic, flesh-eating, potentially lethal bites what it lacks in fashion sense.

I’ve always loved spiders. An essay I wrote years ago describes just one of my many ongoing co-habitations. And so when I saw these adorable babies, my heart sank. Could they be a burgeoning squadron of Hobo spiders, soon to unintentionally menace those of us living here paying the property taxes? I scoured the internet for proof of their innocence. “Baby Hobo spider photo.” “Hobo arachnid young photo.” “Pictures of newborn spiders.” Nothing. Crestfallen, I flashed back to a related episode from years ago in Malibu.

The deed was done as rapidly and humanely as possible. I felt terrible. The next day I stepped out to the deck and gazed sadly at the space above the aloe where my little nursery orphans had hovered so trustingly. There, toward the edge of one leaf, was a lone survivor. Smiling, I walked back into the house, and immersed myself in my music.

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…about the music

Illumination, from all sources.

The lighthouse at Lime Kiln is one of this island’s best loved spots. Between sightings of Orcas, Canada, the Olympics, Mt. Rainier on a clear day, and tourists with a serene smile on their face, there’s plenty to see, framed by bright auburn Arbutus trees whose orange bark glows neon in the setting sun.

I think I’ve felt a little bit like a lighthouse this past week, informing others of what lies ahead. The topic in my case hasn’t been rocks that might sink someone’s vessel, but rather, tools that will help their professional ship stay afloat and find a great harbor. If you’re curious about the power of social networking (and since you’re connecting with me by reading this, you may well be), here’s a piece I wrote for Molly Sheridan’s ArtsJournal blog, Mind the Gap. There are plenty of thoughtful entries and comments on this subject if you swing over to the main page, too.

There’s no sense in cursing the darkness, when we can all find our own light.
At least, as long as we have electrical power and the internet!

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Below, from slightly above.

One couldn’t find a more spectacular dinner location. Last night I stared across the fringe of the rocky shoreline to the Haro Strait that separates the island on which I type this, from the much larger one named Vancouver. Orca whales glided quietly behind the shoulders of my five dining companions, one of whom has the lucky title of being the property owner of this particular piece of paradise. A pair of bald eagles stood at the tide pools for hours and just like the rest of us, watched the sun disappear behind the mountains. Maybe the birds were as entranced as we were. Maybe they didn’t care as long as their favorite fish swished by. The moon and conversation rose as the sun and levels in the wine bottles lowered, and all evening long, I thought how fortunate I was to be surrounded by brilliant people in a brilliantly perfect setting. Ahhhhh.

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Island music.

Unless one has followed this bloglet for a while, one might not understand why there is algae in the title. Thus, a reminder. It’s everywhere around me. Eat your sea vegetables!

Huge swaths of the stuff drape the shorelines, and at low tide it looks like the chaotic ladies’ dressing room at Filene’s Basement or Ross Dress for Less, the oddly greenish fabric strewn everywhere, left behind in a mad tidal retreat to the next big sale. This particular dressing cove looks straight out to Victoria, which I could see far more clearly than my little pocket Nikon could. My phone could see it clearly, too: on this side of the island the only cell signal you can hope to momentarily grab comes from Canada, as witnessed by the “roaming” indicator on my readout. Only in or extremely near the bustling metropolis of Friday Harbor (all four blocks of it!) can one hope to use their cell phone. But that’s okay, because I really didn’t feel the urge to call anyone. I was in deep conversation with the plants.

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Swell and swirl.

I can stare endlessly into the water, imagining all the life that thrives where most above cannot see. Like the creatures who cling to these rocks, I’m waiting for my own version of high tide. Having just finished a solo piano work this week for one of my favorite pianists, I’m about to embark on a journey for ten instruments– a double quintet of strings and woodwinds that will premiere this fall in Chicago by this very hip ensemble. I’m nearly done with a sizable article that addresses writer’s block (it would be rather ironic if I were to the deadline on that one), I have a few pithy words to add to other blogs I like, and am never lacking in additional music projects, like finishing up my long-promised electroacoustic CD, Alextronica. Each of these projects and tasks is poised at the edge of the shore, waiting to set out to sea on an adventure. I’m always looking for the next tidal surge.

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Hot music for a temporarily warm amphibian.

I realize the mug shots of Kermit here make him look like the frog that ate Cleveland. He is, however, just over an inch long.

He is also quite lucky: I narrowly avoided stepping on him and turning him into froggie puree as he sunbathed on my deck today. After the requisite photo shoot, I extended my seemingly gargantuan hand, into which he and his big smile readily hopped. We cooed at each other, (ok, I’m anthropomorphizing: I cooed at him, and he was probably thinking, “get me the heck outta here”), then I brought his slightly sticky, very green rubbery self over to a nice, bug-laden salal patch and placed him on a leaf the exact same hue. I hope I did not separate him from a large family that is now worrying about where Grampa Bubba went, getting ready to place his photo on the side of bait cartons around the county.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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…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.

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Ooooh. Aahhh.

Back from NYC this weekend. Leave again for NYC on Wednesday. Despite ping-ponging myself across an invisible net due to an unusual amount of cross country traveling recently, the minute I get back here to San Juan Island I make damn sure to let the ball rest and put my gears into neutral. That doesn’t mean not working; I’ve got several commissions nagging for my attention and a ton of followup correspondence that guarantees I’ll never see the picture waiting on the bottom of a clean, empty email inbox. What neutral means to me is what you see above: the ability to just stop and gaze in awe at something so exquisitely peaceful that it puts everything else in immediate perspective. Like lots of my colleagues, despite the proclaimed holiday, I’m working in my studio. But I’m also working at being a whole person who won’t ignore what’s just outside that studio door. Aaaahhhh…..