slow sunday morning ix
Good afternoon. It's 2:55pm, I'm in my room, and the rain is pouring steadily outside my watchtower window. I adore summer rain for the way that it raps against my window, the way that it washes my room in a grey tone, the way it allows me to take a day to myself guilt-free.
I find that writing has been the only creative pursuit I can carve time out for lately, in the form of blog posts and reviews to friends who send me music to listen to. I'm somewhat okay with that, given that it allows me to keep up my resolution of creating one thing a day, although I have been feeling quite drab lately with my lack of experimentation.
Instead, I've been in a 9-5 every day, spending my 5-9s with friends most every night. I truly believe there is an art to friendship in all forms. To good conversation, to collaboration, to all that makes connecting with others such a soul-healing experience. I had an interesting conversation about something along these lines with Zeina the other day that I've been toying around writing more about, but I'll dispel a little bit of it now while my coffee's still lukewarm.
The last we saw each other, we were having a drink in the backyard of a nice, cozy bar while the sun was still barely up. In trading stories back and forth, a greater conversation formed about how we interpret our lives at large. In my many tales, what I tend to focus most on the the environment in which they are set in. Perhaps it's the architect in me. I like to establish the context first. The view of our seats, the coldness of the beers in front of us in contrast to the warm summer evening air, the groups all around us lost in their own private little worlds, all within the larger ecosystem of the bar.
Oftentimes, I neglect to ever mention any words that were even shared, even if the memory I'm reflecting on was one of nothing but conversation. For me, words are the affirmations of the setting, the sentiments, whatever's already in the air. They are powerful, but they're not what I think of when I tell a story. Zeina on the other hand is the opposite, enamoured with conversation, or as she said, dialogue. She gathers meaning out of the pure words shared between one another, and her writing reflects that in spades. It's excellent, her talent for creating that context out of straight conversation.
I've been fascinated by this lately, noticing how different friends of mine interpret the world. I believe one of the reasons why I've been so surrounded with people lately, besides the simple fact that I love my friends dearly, is that I'm striving to illuminate what my exact mediums and parameters are based on what others find works for them.
In catching up with a longtime friend the other night, before the night ended, we opted to jam for a little bit in the parking lot with the guitar in the trunk of his car. It's our little tradition, and one of my only tethers to music at the moment as I have, regrettably, no time to play piano right now. We played Rocky Raccoon by the Beatles as they are one of the only artists we share song taste with despite loving mostly the same genres of music.
Prior to this though, he played through the most recent songs he had written in an attempt to navigate through a very tumultuous period of his life. Across from us was the high school where I had several character-defining events in, despite never attending it myself, by virtue of it being across from the tea house. I counted the bricks, watched the fluorescents inside flicker as he recited his guitar-backed poetry, twisting his words into a reflection of all that I had been through so far as well. Music is very special in that way, it paints the world around you in it's own hues, if only for a few minutes.
I'm grateful to be surrounded by people who teach me so much every day just by being themselves and living life fully, passionately. That's the biggest thing I value in others and what I always try to hold myself to. Now, I'm going to get up, give my room a quick tidy, and live the rest of my afternoon fully, passionately. Or something of the sort.