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I am Content in Mexico

21 Feb 2012 -

Javier Estrada

Once again, Michele and I have found our way to the Contento Cafe. It is around the corner from Starbucks and worlds away in quality of food and atmosphere.

This, I have decided, is my new morning routine.

One of the big draws (in addition to the great food) is Javier Estrada. He was playing here yesterday morning and we were hopeful he’d be here again. There is a woman in a beret playing as well, though sometimes he strums and picks alone while she sips her cafe.

How could I be anything but happy when I start my day with guitarra, cafe con leche, a good friend and my journal?

Estoy muy contento aqui…

Category: Music, Musings, Photos, Travel writing, Traveling  Tags: , , , , , ,  2 Comments

The End of So Much – Winter Solstice

21 Dec 2011 -

 

It is Winter Solstice (officially @ 05:30 UTC December 22nd which is actually tomorrow over there but happening now over here, right?) Forget referring to your Einstein notes to try to figure out all that time and space. It’s all too much to understand. It is enough to know that it is Winter Solstice tonight.  Besides, I’m still working on how airplanes stay aloft, never mind that whole timezone thing.

But truly, all that concerns us here in the Vancouver area, is that after tonight, our days will begin to lengthen again. This then, as far as I can see, is the true end of the year. This is the darkest and longest night of our lives in 2011.

We sit here in this early dark, surrounding ourselves with candles, twinkly lights, fireplaces and willing our cozy lamps to cast magic light against that enormous darkness that looms like a shaggy-shadowed wolf outside our little cave homes.

This then is the dark night of the soul, the time to acknowledge that some things have ended.

Some of those endings will have broken your heart. But if we’re lucky, our hearts break open and soften as a result.

But then. Who am I kidding with this third-party language?

Let me say what I’m really talking about. We went to visit my 86-year old father today and it is like watching a time-lapsed film of an enormous mountain crumbling into the sea.

I feel like the curtain has been torn away and I have been left to discover that the towering Wizard of Oz was only an ordinary man after all.

Just an ordinary man who tried to do his best.

So, on this darkest night of the year I am waiting for the light.

I am waiting with a softened heart.

 

And so this is Christmas. And what have you done? Another year over and a new one just begun…

 


So Merry Christmas by unecricri

Category: Music, Musings, Video  Tags: , ,  8 Comments

If You Want to Sing Out

03 Feb 2011 -

nashvillescene.com

Harold & Maude

 

You know how sometimes when you revisit something - like a book or a movie or even a place – it doesn’t quite measure up to the way you remember it?

I am happy to report that was not the case with my lablog viewing of [amazon_link id="B001Q8MMGU" target="_blank" ]Harold and Maude[/amazon_link]. I watched it again last night…I’m sure it’s been at least twenty or maybe thirty years since I saw it. It might even be that I only ever saw it when it first came out in 1971, then again, I remembered so much of it that I think I must have seen it again sometime between then and now.

But there was still a lot that I’d missed in that first viewing(s). I loved all the layers of life that Ruth Gordon embodied in her portrayal of Maude; the moment when Harold notices her concentration camp tattoo, her reference to Vienna, the wonderful Cat Stevens soundtrack…all of it funny and tragic, but mostly a wonderful tribute to living life as loudly as possible.

If you need to shake things up a little and want a life-affirming film, then I’d suggest you watch Harold in his various suicide attempts…there’s nothing quite like it.

Category: Films/Movies, Memory, Music, Video  Tags: , ,  Leave a Comment

Yoga Grooves

21 Sep 2010 -

My meditation practise is mostly based on silence. In that ten-day silent retreat I took so many years ago, the emphasis was on stilling the mind by focusing strictly on breathing. No mantras. No icons. No props. It was pretty darned basic and therefore very portable and available to anyone in any circumstance.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes it’s hard to find some silence. When the hockey game is on downstairs or there are just bodies roaming around the house, it’s pretty hard to keep focused on inhalations and exhalations. Enter the meditation CD.

Putumayo makes great CDs already and this is one of their lablog that they sent me to review. The cover reads YOGA.  But since I don’t do that much yoga at home, preferring to go to my class instead, I decided to try it with my meditation practise.  Meditation is definitely in my at-home routine.

I found it to be just soothing enough to create relaxation without being like that bland stuff that some less-than-stellar spas still think is pretty cool. Instead, it’s got enough international edge to it to keep the mind engaged but mellow.  

In fact, it’s playing right now while I type. The words are foreign enough that I don’t get caught up in some distracting lyrics – always a bonus when writing – and the music not so smooth as to make my brain fall asleep.

And anything that hints at a little bit of India is always good for a smile.

Category: Music  Tags: , , , ,  2 Comments