February 15th: nostalgia evergreen and another new song

Day 152

Woke, headed to the arts building, finished the song, which is now called "Ultraviolet for the Mole." I've completed six and a half songs since I came to China, three in this last week. (explanantion of the half: "Flashpaper"'s music was completed in the states, the lyrics completed here.) For shit weather and dampened spirits, I've been fairly productive.

After some lunch, I went back to the arts building and ran through the repertoire. Then I walked over to Dongzhou, updated the mass email journal entries and myspace blog. We went to the tree place for dumplings then tucked ourselves into Rhys and Jeni's room, listened to music, talked about stuff like hunting, maple nut goodies, sheep, Bill Viavant, Wales, cheese, etc.

When Rhys put on Massive Attack's "100th Window," I got lost in a headswim of nostalgia for my old apartment. I could see the soft lighting of candles, and the cinema aisle light rope snaking around the pedestals of my altar, the wooden statues, tiny Buddha in a bowl of salt, the Buddhist prayer flags draped along the ceiling, the fired couch which ate the cushions from under your ass no matter what you did, my creative corner with keyboard and computer, rickety coffee table festooned with remotes and pistachios, the two facing tapestries, George Harrison photo, oil projector spinning its wonders on the wall, my overlong narrow kitchen with acres of cupboard storage that I could never hope to fill, and my bathroom with melted wax on the floor, incense dust, and magnificent deep claw-footed bathtub, the many hours I spent in bliss listening to that album in and out of the tub, preparing for a night of simple pleasures, most of which were right on Ludlow. That apartment was my first living space which I was actually able to fill with my own energy, as it is one of the first times living without roommates and friends remarked how peaceful and comfortable it was, despite being too tiny to properly entertain a crew of over four people. Sometimes it was standing room only in my cozy efficiency.

Rhys and Heather both asked if I wanted to put on something different, afraid I was becoming upset. Why would I want to do that? It's a happy memory. Nostalgia may be scarved in sadness, but it's a good thing. Transition. Everything is transition. Living the Buddhist lesson. I hadn't thought that deeply or vividly about that place and those times since I left. Every bath I took or every gathering at my place seemed to have an expiration date since I knew I would be leaving eventually, so I tried to enjoy the hell out of every second, but it's never enough. There's always the feeling that a few more drops could have been wrung out, another level of appreciation could have been achieved, that you could have slowed the wheel of time to the point where you could memorize the precious seconds into a linear mental film. But the truth is if you had the ability to do all that, you would miss out on the very moments you were trying to preserve, like an overzealous dad hellbent on videotaping everything for posterity who ends up missing from all the footage because he's behind the camera.