Who knows where the time goes?

For a couple of weeks now I've been getting even less done than usual on all the various projects I've been working on. As little as six months ago I'd had hopes that I'd have most of the work done for my next album by now; I'll be lucky to get the first one or two scratch tracks done today. There are organizing projects and carpentry projects scattered all over the house; software projects and writing projects and web projects scattered all over three filesystems.

Last night I realized how much more of my time is going into my improved relationship with Colleen, staying in touch with the Wolfling, and even chatting with the Younger Daughter, who is rapidly transforming herself from a child into a young woman. Have I mentioned that I don't multitask well? Not too surprising, then.

It's a good trade-off. I'll take it.

Meanwhile, though, I have a tendency to stare at my lengthening to-do list and feel paralyzed and powerless, rather than pick an item -- any item -- and damned well just do it.

*sigh*

Memories and dreams

The last few days I've been working on an arrangement for Yeats's poem "The Collar-Bone of a Hare"; it's finally coming together, I think. Might actually post some audio later this week. Odd; it insisted on intruding itself into the middle of a song I was writing, taking over some of the melodic ideas and a lot of the mindspace. The connection was waltz time and dancing.

This afternoon, though, one poem led to another and I found myself thinking of "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven". The two of them used to be among my favorites back in college when I was young, lonely, and depressed. Some day it may acquire music.

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,   
Enwrought with golden and silver light,  
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths         
Of night and light and the half light,   
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;  
I have spread my dreams under your feet;         
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. 

Somewhere in the house I have a necklace of blue and white beads, where each blue bead represents a letter of that poem. It was given to me by the young lady who took my virginity, one magical night in the summer of 1970. It wasn't love, but seemed something stranger and more mystical to me. Might have been simple pity on her part, though I think not. I think she was a little surprised to have been my first.

If I had found the necklace, I would have been very torn over which of my friends to send it to, to give to their lover. Perhaps it's just as well. Is there someone you need to give this poem to? Don't wait.