A daily routine is one thing I had never had, but one has begun to coalesce around me the last 3 years, and has intensified since covid. I enjoy having a certain order of things I want to do before the day properly starts. Even when there is some urgency to the task that I must perform, (which was decidedly the case today), I stuck to my guns, and spent the first hour and a half doing the first things I always do.
For my entire adult life until I found self-hypnosis, and meditation, I was one of those people who just sprang out of bed. Nowadays, I spend at least 20 minutes trying (in vain) to meditate, (it is futile, but I presist), then I get up, make a coffee and settle down for 3 pages of long-hand. These, I must do now, and even though I used to think such a thing was silly (hence the springing out of bed), I revel in it, I look forward to it. How often lately do I say to my wife: "I can't wait to get up in the morning!"
Once that is over with, I am ready to face the day.
Waking up, is of course the most beautiful part of any day, whether from a nap or from a night's sleep. In that magic time, life seems mellow and sweet. Then, after a moment or two, the regrets and despair of the previous days, weeks and months settle back on you and crush your sweetness. And then you begin to put back on your personality, like a well-worn coat, and all is lost.
Yet we persist; and the day brings much joy, much sorrow, much chagrin, much delight.
Since I am at this point, essentially retired, I divide my time into little segments, as to give some time to each of the pursuits that interest me. I have a feeling that this list will evolve; how could it not? We evolve over time; indeed, after 6 or so years, every single cell in our bodies has been replaced. We are no longer the same person we were 7 years ago, literally.
These days, I try to cover these areas:
30 minutes Spanish
60 minutes classical trombone
30 minutes tuba
30 minutes jazz trombone
30 minutes piano improv
60 minutes composing music
60 minutes writing words.
These keep the days full, and the idea after that is to walk about 10k, or at least 10,000 steps. This of course, has proven to be not accomplishable; I have yet to do all of them, but I am often 90% there. What's the point of all this? My wife says it's to make her feel bad, but I'm sure I have other reasons too...
The thing I often like to do the most is just sit there and watch American politics. That kaleidoscope of crappiness will never tire me. A combination of "whew, I'm glad it's not my country" and "Wow, I'm so much better than those idiots". Talk about your shameful joy! There is a part of me who wants to feel for everyone, even the poor sick president. And there is a part of me who cries "burn baby, burn". As Walt Whitman says: "I am large, I contain multitudes".
Whitman's verse I find hard to take; he is often so clunky and stilted; sort of a like a drunken King James bible prophet who is plugged into the "kosmic soul". But he felt and observed keenly. Not a fighter, he chose to tend the wounded and dying during the civil war. Who knows what horrors he saw and felt. Stefan Zweig, whose memoir I am currently reading was a big fan, and there is no doubt that Walt Whitman fell like a thunder-clap on the world of literature. He sure has his moments. And it's useless to judge art, in a sense; art is so much bigger than you or I, and it's so personal that no-one can truly understand it, even the artist at times.
And now, after all my callow criticism, here I am with tears in my eyes, reading one of his elegies to Lincoln:
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