Tuning Machines are 6 for $20

 I started to learn guitar after Eric gave me a used guitar and introduced me to an online instructional program.  Yesterday when practicing "ka chunkas" I found the g string wouldn't stay in tune at all.  I decided it was the string tightening mechanism.  I looked up "guitar string tuning" on the web and found what these things are called and how to replace them.   The site author suggested purchasing a package of 6 and replacing all of them because altogether it would only cost about $50 US.  I went to an unusually busy music store today and bought 6 machines for much less than that. 

Since I diagnosed the problem yesterday, I was surprised at how urgent I felt the absence of a tuneable g string because it meant I didn't have my guitar time.   Funny how attached I have become.

Dog, Barge Operator and a Load of Hay

I watched a small barge being loaded at French Creek Marina.  When I saw the dog watching the barge operator watch the load of hay, I knew I had to release the shutter.  The scene seemed familiar,  moving these small bales a 100 at a time on a trailer, but it was strange to realize that they were traveling over the Salish Sea in a barge.  The dog just looks like every farm dog I ever saw.

Planting an Apple Tree

Our lot has good drainage.  The soil is likely compatible but the trees need 6-8 hours of daylight to thrive.  A gardening pro suggests checking  for sunlight on the summer and winter solstice then locate your plantings accordingly.  Today is September 21. I have studied the yard for sun and shade and I think I know what the hours of sunlight will be between the spring and fall equinox?  It is not the same thing as the solstice but it might do.
Using these calculations, the sloping backyard has about 3 square meters with the correct hours of sunlight.  It is occupied by two 10 meter birch trees and 4 rhododendrons.   Privileged locations.  Can we find a place for all the backyard inhabitants and still squeeze in the apple tree?  Probably not without a significant redesign of the yard.

So I am thinking,  the back yard is like my "self".  This self is a space that  is occupied by a hierarchy of beliefs, ideas and feelings.   Now insert a newcomer, like lets say a new idea that requires a commitment of time and money.  This new commitment will make everything in my self space confusing.  If this insertion happens unexpectedly so that I cannot prepare a plan to readjust the bits in the self,  I will feel threatened and vulnerable.  If I can prune and purge in anticipation of the new idea, I am likely to be less tense.

The yard will be changed even though the sunlight still falls in the same place and the legal boundaries don't move.  So do the garden and yard remain the same?  Or maybe it is a matter of quantity of change and recognition.  Maybe cutting out the rhodos and planting a dwarf apple tree will not make the yard unrecognizable.

Does this mean my sense of self seems to be continuous because the boundaries stay in place even though the hierarchy and the kind of bits have changed irrevocably?  What happens when the edges of my self are threatened?

What Kind of Thought is a Useless Memory?

 In one of my memory compartments I am still waking up before 6 am to go running in the predawn morning though I haven't done this for 15 years.  Someone is saying "Hurry Dad, I've got to get to the soccer game!"  Comes from the same place. "Get the phone someone! Please!"  These little urgent messages get stuck in one of my memory circuits like foreboding nursery rhymes.  Maybe they just want some attention because they have no purpose except maybe to divert me from the useful memories like turning off the element on the stove.   

Discovery Islands Intoxication

We travelled to Quadra Island yesterday for a little exploring.  This is the first time we have been in the Discovery Islands. We travelled through the interior of Quadra by road which is mostly wooded.  What I really wanted was to have the beauty of the forest on one side and the spectacle of the seascape on the other side.  The advantage is that this would give me a continuously unfolding panorama where I am able to fix the points of the mountains or the points of land in the ocean as well as the shapes and shade of the trees into a clear sense of place.  In spite of this, or because of this tree tunnel travel, I saw the mountainous archipelago from different view points and then knit the places in between together in my memory and in my imagination.  This gave me an internal map of sorts.  Then I checked an actual map and compared what I believed I saw with the technically correct version.  It is amazing how the map came to life when I did this.  The printed map took on inspiring dimensions.  I now look at the map and I am intoxicated with possibilities for water travel in the straights, inlets, narrows and passages.

I wonder if the printed map would have had the same effect if I hadn't had the snapshot perspectives of the ocean through the tree tunnels?

Manic Islands Fever

It is September and we have lots of sun and the sky is clear.  The croplands on the prairies are getting good weather as well and industrial agriculture churns forward.  My own cover crop of fall rye is doing well in front of our house.
On the beach this morning we had a modest cool breeze.  I have a burning drive to see many places in the area as the summer winds down.

I am hopping all around my mind wondering what I should do next.   I simply have too many activities to choose from all of which are feasible.  It is like the shopping aisle that has 12 kinds of detergent.  I am overloaded.  The prospect of working on one straightforward project would be welcome right now.

Surrealists and Lasqueti Island

 First let me say that I have not felt like I belong where I live.  This is in part because I am not familiar with the landscape, flora and sea scape around me.  Too few memories to bond with.

I have done  2 things recently that seem to have had a settling effect on me.  I visited Lasqueti Island and I saw an art show on the surrealists at the Vancouver Art Gallery.  I like to talk about both experiences.  The events resonate with something that fits with my identity.  Why is this so?

I will have some things to think about.