so, as the kids say, i’ve obviously “slept on this one” – thanks to gary for putting me on this b-more fuck yo couch remix!
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yo, i’m off to Fuji Rock Fest 2008!!! who knows when i’ll get there…
Hey guys…since the site is back up and the summer is wrapping its self up, hence me finishing up grad school, I thought I would drop a line about my plans post school. I ended up accepting a job as a Industrial Engineering Patent Examiner at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office starting Sept. 2. I visited the D.C. area early in the summer, and was fortunately able to catch dejae, my new dc buddy, eyecue before he dipped to the left coast, and signed a lease for an apt out in Arlington. So plans have been set up and I will be leaving the sunshine state for the capital city aug. 15.
So…lastnight went to see a midnight screening of the new batman movie, The Dark Knight, and I was blown away. I have not seen such a great movie like this in a very long time. An instant classic. You will be blown away by the story, the acting, and the superb directing. This is how movies should be made, but rarely are. If you don’t have plans of seeing it..change them and go watch this movie…it will leave you speechless.
There is a recurring dream that enters my sleep roughly once a month. It has been with me since childhood. There are other dreams that repeat themselves or versions of themselves but this one is always the same. It is simple and filled with no great event but it is powerful in its permanence. In the dream I am a child. I walk down a stone path; it seems to be as broad as one arms width. On either side are thick hedges waist high. Not far above the line of the hedge drape the leaves of great oak trees that sit further removed from the path. The air is sweet and damp as it is in the spring in England. Sometimes as I’m walking I will see an old stone wall off to the periphery, or perhaps a moss covered fountain, dry for decades. It is not night in my dream but the treetop canopy blocks much of the sunshine, creating a soft dimness that surrounds and envelops me. This is all that happens. When the dream comes to me I am on the path and as the vision progresses I simply walk. Nothing about the scenery changes considerably. No one else enters the dream. There may be birds singing and the natural sound of the garden or wood but these details are not significant. What is noteworthy, the quality that defines the tone of this somber reverie is the dimness of light and the solitude of the stone path. I am alone in a quiet vision, peaceful in the lazy melancholy of the moment, a child again.
Through the work of The National Trust the English have so wonderfully preserved many abbeys, castles, palaces and estates across the country. The defining characteristic of all these historic sites is that they will, without a doubt, inevitably have a garden. Not just any garden, however, but a magnificent, grand, intricately designed, thoughtfully laid out English garden stretching for acres complete with flowers, bushes, hedges, trees, fountains, pavilions, conservatories, pergolas, tombs, stone paths, gravel paths, rock paths, streams, rivers, ponds, wells, cisterns, orangeries, vegetable patches, croquet lawns, bowling lawns, perhaps a graveyard or two and so many other things regal and horticulturaly significant.
When I was a child living in England my family would take the big wicker basket, a couple of tartan blankets, a Frisbee and drive to the local National Trust site which was Fountains Abbey when we lived in Harrogate and Wrest Park in Bedfordshire. We would lay out on the blankets and eat a fine meal of cheese, bread, fresh cut ham and apple slices and my parents would have a bottle of wine of which they would share a small taste with my sister and I. It is my conclusion that the dream of the garden path comes from these special days spent on the grounds of medieval abbeys and Victorian estates.
When lunch was complete and afterwards when my father would tire of throwing the Frisbee and retire to the warmth of the blanket for a snooze I would venture out, often times alone, into the magic of the garden. You see, when you are small, all it takes is a tall line of bushes and a crown of wizened tree branches and one obscured entrance and you find yourself in a magical wonderland of Lewis and Tolkien. I would wander for hours in the quiet solitude of the garden and loose myself in incredible fantasies of Robin Hood and knights in shining armor else I would simply sit on the stoop of an ancient pavilion hidden and obscured deep within a maze of trees and pathways and pick at the lichen growing on the worn stone without a worry in the world.
When you are a child there are no burdens to weigh down your imagination and everything is so big when you are two feet shorter and fourteen years younger. When you grow up the bushes that lined your secret garden path and stretched so high above you can now see over the tops of. The lanes and walkways that never seemed to end are traversed in minutes. The ancient pergola you imagined was your castle is now just a place to rest for a moment. My recurring dream is of a secret garden. A place I can be alone in a way I could when I was a child. The gardens of my youth are the places where my nature was planted and nurtured and grew into my adult personality. To this day I still cherish solitude and quiet repose. I still love to sit on an old stone bench in a place concealed from the outside world by the natural fall of leaves and growth of plant and be alone. I am older now and will never again experience the garden as I did when I was a child except when I dream.
yo, family – we’re back online and a lot has happened since the site went off the net while our boy eyecue moved from the right to the left coast. but, we’re back and ready to pick up where we left off. to recap the few weeks we were dark – on my side of mother earth.
was out doing the ship driving thing for a month. stops along the way:
bangkok
singapore
manila
jakarta
kota kinabalu
expect a lot of photos from the underway. been back in japan for a month or so now. just working, trying to beat the heat. the parental unit is in town for a month an i’m having fun exploring the island with them. coming up on the horizon – out to sea for a couple of weeks next month then off to school for three weeks in newport, ri. followed by 18 days of vacation in the land of bread and honey. so stay locked for updates on my tour of n. america. in the mean time, the in between time, welcome back! stay up!
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Big up to the Consortium and extended fam worldwide. Just got everything off the ground out here in the West Coast. Lot’s of catching up to do on all sides, north, south, east and west so stay tuned.