petrichor | Evening Light

I woke this morning to a cool gray sky threatening rain. It’s probably an empty threat. I woke feeling okay, but within minutes I was feeling cross with the world, with humanity itself, and disappointed in the world and my fellow human kind most particularly. Seriously? We can’t do better for measures of success than revenue and gross margin? We can’t elevate ourselves as a specie beyond profiting on the suffering of others? Yeah. I didn’t actually mean to open up a news site first thing, and I’m definitely regretting it. It wasn’t even ‘serious’ news, although to be honest I find that news information from sources like The Daily Show and Last Week Tonight regrettably often seem a higher caliber of reporting these days…and Last Week Tonight told me why, this morning.

How about it, humanity, how many more things can we ruin by chasing profit at the expense of substance, meaning, and value? We have so much potential…

Anyway. I’m not exactly angry about it… just disappointed. Disappointed first that I looked at the fucking news – any fucking news – first thing in the morning. I know better than to do that to my fragile waking consciousness. Then too, I am disappointed that as human beings we still hold up “making money” as some laudable skill, and “wealth” as a great goal for an adult life… and I am frustrated at how difficult it is to explain why it seems obvious this is a fairly stupid approach, generally. There is so little worth having that is “about” money.

I’m shouting into the wind. We all want things or experiences that “cost money”, making the money valuable to have. We’re constantly told “the market” sets the price of goods and services based on wholesome supply and demand. We ignore how badly wrong the math is because we like the way our ideas sound, and cave to pressure when we’re told that wages are also set by some mythic “market” and that our value is only as much as the job itself is “worth”, rather than being paid for the value of our expended life force (which is probably a whole lot less variable, frankly, since we are all human beings). Ah, but if I bitch when my bank account is fat, and I’m making a good wage, I’m told that it’s easy for me to say so, but… And if I bitch when I’m broke, why, that’s sour grapes and I should do more, work harder, and surely I will profit. Seriously, people? It’s like I’m shouting at monkeys – the noise is audible, but it is unlikely I’m actually being understood. It is what it is, I guess… what a depressingly pointless human legacy. Fail sauce, fancy monkeys, fail sauce – keep your fingers poised over those typewriters, perhaps you’ll write a novel yet.

…Raindrops on roses…

Sorry. As I said. I’m cross with disappointment in my fellow-man, this morning, and it’s my own doing. This too shall pass. I hear a soft rain falling, and open the window to smell the petrichor of meadow and marsh. I put on some music after a while. Humanity hasn’t changed much overnight, and changing my perspective will be the easier choice, instead of clinging to hope that my few aggravated words will sway even one human being as they choose the course of their life. We are each having our own experience. Looking past money’s magic funhouse mirror is too hard for most of us; we need stuff.

The music carries my heart to a different place as fast as a Mclaren F1 on a straight ribbon of highway. The beat pulls my sense of self out of my head, more firmly into my body, into this moment. Music becomes movement… becomes a bass guitar hanging from my body, and practice, and nothing at all to do with disappointment or aggravation. Am I slowly beginning to work out some of the challenges, incrementally, over time? Maybe…? I’ll keep practicing. Today is a good day for practicing the practices that tend most to improve my experience. 😀

I slept deeply through the night, evening sleeping in far later than is typical for me. I woke to that light-hearted chiming of the ‘don’t forget to take your meds’ alarm that goes off ‘well past when I am likely to be awake’. 🙂 I woke to tangled hair that sticks up in the most ludicrous way – on just one side – and the scent of rain on the breezes. It rained last night – it didn’t just rain, the thunderstorm woke me around 2:30 am, but not with nearby thunder – it was too distant for that. I didn’t wake to flashes of bright white-hot lightening scorching the sky for an instant. I didn’t wake to the sounds of other humans waking to the storm. I woke to the music.

I generally don’t associate music – melodic sounds of hang drum, particularly – with rain storms. I do love the sounds and scents of rain, but it is easy enough to hear that they are their own thing, and not to be confused with some other sounds, particularly melodies on metal. I woke because I could hear the sound of actual music…very like the sounds of hang drum. Even after waking, the lovely melody was audible – and amateur. This was no professional playing something recognizable, or structured – it was improvised, and a little random, although sweet and charming, like someone trying something new. I got up to discover the source of the music…had I perhaps left the stereo on very quietly, and some long forgotten recording of a friend or stranger turned up on a playlist, finally waking me? In the living room, I could hear the rain more clearly, and through the patio door I could see it coming down, and see the occasional flash of distant lightning. I could still hear the music – I scanned the lawn and pool area half expecting to see that some festival had crept near, and to realize I was not actually awake at all, but only dreaming. I could still hear the music…as I turned I realized…I recognized the source. I was indeed listening to melodic percussion on metal; the storm driving raindrops onto the metal cover over the chimney pipe, and the one above the vent from the bathroom fan, too – how is it that I hear this here, and never before, in other places, I wonder?

I open the patio door the let the apartment fill with the scent of rain freshened air, and take a seat on love seat to hear more of this unexpected concert, enjoying the whimsy and unexpected delight of having an apartment that plays its own music for me when it rains. The world is quiet for a time, no audible traffic, and only the sound of breezes, and built-in “rain drum”, melodic and wonderful, keeping time in the wee hours. Shortly afterward, the rain slowed, and the music stopped. I returned to bed, and to sleep, to dream of love and lovers.

I woke slowly much later, uncertain that I wanted to be awake at all…unsure why I was seemingly so committed to sleeping in, then remembering the late night ahead…torn between sleeping and waking, I linger too long on the wondering about it, and found myself decided by default; I am awake. That’s okay. Coffee sounds good, by this point, and I am already wondering if I might have heard from my traveling partner…

After the rain, the morning breeze carries the scent of roses to me while I write.

“Kiss n Tell” blooming, coffee on the patio, and thoughts of love… I enjoy the moment.

Today is a good day to enjoy unexpected delights in an accepting way, and be reminded that this fleeting lifetime is filled with wonders. It’s up to me to choose to enjoy them, more often than I choose to be annoyed by something else. 🙂

Irritated and Disappointed

The Music That Woke Me

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Irritated and Disappointed

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The Music That Woke Me

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