The Green Wave

I’ve got CDitis, I think, because today on a long walk through the woods a flock of CDs whirled and honked around my head like a squadron of returned Canada geese (yes, the old fashioned kind who actually leave the New England golf courses for the winter). An Irish one for sure, but with stories or without stories? A whole one for stories? One for meditative piano? Themed CDs? Poems and music? Music for adventures? These days I find myself hungry to explore, to learn more, to integrate and experiment, to luxuriate in hours strung to hours of playing time. Clearly, the radio I carry in my mind and blood is tuned to WSPRING and all the chirping, honking, buzzing, whirring, whoosing, and whispering of the world wakes up my own need to make some noise.

This instinct comes at the end of the term when it’s just as hard for me to sit still and think about essays and arguments as it is for my restless students. My legs itch to carry me out the front door of Sever, across the yard, and away north or west to ocean or trees. In my backpack, a bottle of water and my Shaw whistle. At my destination, the curious woodland piano I’ve seen sometimes in dreams: a wooden keyboard suspended from two trees by iron chains, a musty smell and sticky keys but a sense of delicious discovery – of being welcomed to make world/tree/moss/lichen/bird/bug/wind music. Ahhhhh!