Natura

When my friend from high school got married, he asked for some kind of music that could be played while people were entering the chapel. So, I made a very strange collection of bird and insect sounds from many climates and arranged them into a composition. This piece lived on when Geodesic Gnome used it in a couple of performances as a dissociative layer on which people improvised. My original piece was entitled Natura. Geodesic Gnome's version became known as Nature Calls Collect.

Sitting at home unemployed in the city has been getting me down. My anxiety has been transferring to my wife. Not only that, but my wife has always been a bit wary of the city; she grew up in the middle states where there are no cities and people are surrounded by green things and animals. I, too, spent a lot of time outdoors, in the forests of Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Georgia. I tend to forget how much the trees and sounds of running water and insects can soothe my worries.

This evening, my wife and I went on a long walk through two sections of Baltimore's Wyman park. My wife seems surprised that cities aren't just an organized grid filled with buildings, only. We started in a very organized park where people were quietly lounging, and made our way to the east side of Hopkins where the brush grows thick. At one point we stopped and lost ourselves, watching the thick darkness of vines on trees climbing above a reed lined stream. Then, we followed a narrowing trail down to the shaded water, conscious still of the city around us by the smell, and the strange, small pieces of furniture in the mud. As the sky dimmed purple and the woods changed to a deeper green, we found ourselves on a lacross practice field where dogs and their owners took advantage of the grassy expanse.

It is good to know that our city contains at least some small patches of green. Although, I think that Wyman park might need a few cougars to keep the rabbits in check.