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It’s been a long day

November 12, 2019 by 42 Comments

Phoenix, AZ.

Visiting Brother.

Time: Now.

I was inspired by the full Moon over the Camelback Mountains the night before.

I was further inspired by a Moon quote from a Murakami book that I came across this morning.

So much inspiration is grist for a blog post.  As the bio suggests, if it moves me, it goes up. No other criteria required. Full stop.

Tell my Brother that I’m going out to take some shots of the Moon with my Smartphone.  How hard can it possibly be, right?

I step outside.

I walk a block looking in all directions.

Then I walk a second block.  It was a cloudless day in Phoenix. How hard can it be? Pretty damn hard without the Moon.

I get in car.  I drive 5 miles east.  Why East?  Because the Sun Rises in the East.  So Moon must be East. Does this make any sense? It gets Dark, the Moon is there. Does it rise at all?

I could have Googled it before I left (“Does the Moon Rise?  “What time does the Moon rise in Phoenix today?”)

But, WTH would I do that for?

In 50+ years, it has never dawned on me that the Moon wouldn’t be there waiting for me when it was dark on a cloudless night.

I drive back. Wow. Empty handed. Embarrassing and beyond.

“What took so long?”

“I couldn’t find the Moon?”

“You’ve got to be kidding?’

“No Moon.”

“OK Smart a**.  Does the Moon rise or is it just there?”

He has no clue either. Same root, same stock.  Makes sense.

He’s watching me write this Post.  He’s staring, wondering: “You aren’t really going to tell the world that you don’t know Jack about the Moon are you?”

Apparently I’m going to do exactly that. Yep.

I’m connected to my own reality here.

“We’re both looking at the same moon, in the same world. We’re connected to reality by the same line. All I have to do is quietly draw it towards me.”

~ Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart 

Notes:

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Walking in place. Saturday Morning.

November 3, 2018 by 49 Comments

“I like things I can see as much as things I can’t (see)…that inner light was drawing me in.”

It was an innocuous line by Murakami in Killing Commendatore, but for some reason I couldn’t, I can’t, let it go.

And then it’s Baader-Meinhof. You are shopping for a new car, you fall in love with a particular model, and then suddenly you begin to see it everywhere. But the what is what I can’t see.

Murakami is followed by a passage I read by Immanuel Kant:

“Whereas the beautiful is limited, the sublime is limitless, so that the mind in the presence of the sublime, attempting to imagine what it cannot, has pain in the failure but pleasure in contemplating the immensity of the attempt.”

And it’s early Saturday morning.  Light rain.

I’m in bed, it’s dark out. The body is spent from the week. The Mind is off on its own, its finger tips touching, exploring, wandering, free, weightless. [Read more…]

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Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

October 22, 2018 by 18 Comments

I still wasn’t sure exactly what form the painting would take. But I did know how I should begin. Those first steps—which brush to use, what color, the direction of the first stroke—had come to me out of nowhere: they had gained a foothold in my mind and, bit by bit, taken on a tangible reality of their own. I loved this process.

~ Haruki Murakami, Killing Commendatore: A Novel.  (Knopf, October 9, 2018)

Photo: cnd.ha (via Your Eyes Blaze Out)

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Sunday Morning

October 21, 2018 by 18 Comments

Sunday was another fine clear day. No wind to speak of, and the fall colors in the valley sparkling in the sunlight. Small white-breasted birds hopped from one branch to the next, deftly pecking the red berries. I sat on the terrace, soaking it all in. Nature grants its beauty to us all, drawing no line between rich and poor. Like time—no, scratch that, time could be a different story. Money may help us buy a little extra of that.”

~ Haruki Murakami, Killing Commendatore: A Novel. (October 9, 2018)

Photo: Paula W with chaffinch

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Saturday Afternoon

October 20, 2018 by 25 Comments

I went to the kitchen to start making lunch, but no sooner had I picked up a knife than I realized I was no longer ravenously hungry. Instead, I was very sleepy. I got a blanket, stretched out on the living room sofa, and promptly drifted off. I had a dream, a short one. It was clear and very vivid. But I couldn’t remember anything about it. Just that it was clear and vivid. It felt as though a fragment of real life had slipped into my sleeping mind by mistake. Then the moment I awoke, it fled like a quick-footed animal, leaving no trace behind.

~ Haruki Murakami, Killing Commendatore: A Novel. (October 9, 2018)

Photo: Yourtango

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Murakami’s brushstrokes

October 19, 2018 by 19 Comments

Autumn steadily deepened around me.

The sky opened up, the air clear and crisp,

the clouds like beautiful white brushstrokes.

~ Haruki Murakami, Killing Commendatore: A Novel (October, 2018)

Photo: Matt Champlin with Brushstrokes

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Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

October 15, 2018 by 21 Comments

The next morning I woke up at five thirty…It was still pitch dark outside. After a simple breakfast in the kitchen I changed into work clothes and went into the studio. As the eastern sky grew brighter, I switched off the light, threw open the window, and let chilly, fresh morning air into the room. I took out a fresh canvas and set it on the easel. The chirping of birds filtered in through the open window. The rain during the night had thoroughly soaked the trees. The rain had stopped just a while before, bright gaps in the clouds showing. I sat down on the stool, and, sipping hot black coffee from a mug, stared at the empty canvas before me.

~ Haruki Murakami, Killing Commendatore: A Novel (October, 2018)

Photo: Reddit

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Lightly Child, Lightly

July 5, 2018 by 17 Comments

The sun sliced through the windshield, sealing me in light. I closed my eyes and felt the warmth on my eyelids. Sunlight traveled a long distance to reach this planet; an infinitesimal portion of that sunlight was enough to warm my eyelids. I was moved. That something as insignificant as an eyelid had its place in the workings on the universe, that the cosmic order did not overlook this momentary fact.

— Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

 

Notes:

  • Photo: Prahalad Sanjeev Varma with Sun through the windshield. Quote: themindmovement
  • Prior “Lightly child, lightly” Posts? Connect here.
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”
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Running. With 0.5 Wolfpack.

November 19, 2016 by 58 Comments

mianus-river-park-nov-2016

Kids: “Dad, People just don’t do that. It’s weird.”
Dad: “Listen, I’m not People.”
Kids: Eyes roll. Whispering to each other, don’t we know that.

My text message is sent to the neighbors the night before.
“…Will Anya be free to come out to play in the morning?”
Text message comes zipping back.
“…Of course. We’ll leave the door unlocked, and the leash by the door.”

This has become a weekend routine.

She now knows what’s coming when the leash is by the door. She hears the car pull up, its daybreak. I walk up to the door, there’s a soft “woof” – she’s been waiting. I can hear the pitter patter of her paws on the wood floor. I open the door and she bounds out, ready to join her new BFF.

When you lose your dog, when the wounds are still fresh, and you haven’t / can’t replace your dog, what do you do?  You borrow the neighbor’s Dog, of course. It’s not weird, it’s a bloody necessity. 0.5 Wolfpack is better than no Wolfpack at all. [Read more…]

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Reading. On Metro North.

April 11, 2013 by 29 Comments

reading

It’s Tuesday.
I’m on the 6:22 am train to Grand Central.
One of few trips a month taking me back to Manhattan.
I drift away for a moment.
It has been six years.
Six years since I’ve changed Company. Changed routine. Changed my life.

Two hours a day of uninterrupted reading time.
To, near zero.
Churning through three books a week. 150 books a year.
To, near zero.
Lost. In a character. In a story. In another place. In another time. [Read more…]

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