Dialing In

Quickly, because I am going back to work tomorrow after a long, long-deserved sabbatical, and need to sleep:

I need to clarify something about yesterday's post.  I didn't "mute" 660 people on FB.  That would mean that I wouldn't see their posts.  Not my intention.  Instead, I narrowed the reach of MY OWN POSTING to 145 people.  I still can see and interact with the 800 people whom I'm friends with.  They just can't all see my posts, unless I change the setting back to all of my friends.  I can do this easily, but have the smaller group of people as my default setting. 

So:  I hard-blocked some family members.  I muted several idiotic Trump supporters for my own sanity.  And I've narrowed my posting audience to 145 as a default.  That is all.

This afternoon I was at the gym for the first time in months; since I got back from Vietnam I've been a lump.  Today I was listening to a song on the treadmill (incidentally, it was "Seasons Cycle" on XTC's phenomenal Skylarking album, about 1988).  The tempo happened to match my pace, and my hands started tapping on the bar because I can't stop from doing that when I really get into a song.  At that moment, something buzzed in my brain.  Frisson on the hamster wheel! 

This is normal, I know, but today I had been reading about how visualization while exercising makes the exercise "count" more, or something like that, and I had also been thinking about how my baked-in anxieties have always made sitting still and meditating really difficult for me...how much more I like to move while I am thinking...remember, I'm moving during this whole string...and then I got all catalog-ey (thanx OCD) and made a playlist called "3.4 [MPH] Walking Meditation" and skipped to the next song. It was faster, so I sped up the treadmill (beep beep), and the frisson happened again when I hit the right speed!  Holy shit, let's make another playlist...called "3.5 Walking Meditation."

Gleefully I spent the whole hour putting songs in playlists, from 3.0 to 3.5.  Here was the sequence:

New song comes on.  Check against speed until head shivers.   Bam--organized. 

The frisson was the signal.   It's the same way when I mix music and I know it's right.  Or choose a word.  It's a gift, like how a painter knows what color to lay down next to another.  I have no eyeball orientation, but my ears never disappoint me.  It's probably why I'm a writer.  Anyway, THIS IS NOT EVEN THE COOL PART.

The cool part was that throughout all of this, I was experiencing a very rare clarity of mind.  Somehow I had dialed into a fine space.  It felt narrow and lucidly wide at the same time.  I had an idea for a creative project, and I could see all of it.  I could have written it all down right there, as I was walking, tweaking the treadmill, shivering and organizing music.  I didn't.

That's ok, though.  The hour passed in what felt like minutes (sorry).  I went to the hot tub with Lucy and Jeff and we had a beautifully present conversation.  Then Lucy and I jumped into the big cold pool because we're badasses and then ran into the locker room.

TL;DR:  I'm running off to join a one-man band.