A peaceful morning coffee with potica and Salman Rushdie’s latest novel… Followed by a day with ample free time to finish the puzzle. This was actually yesterday, but nothing wrong with being grateful for yesterday. I’m grateful for today, too.
I worked the floor first, and the rest of the more colorful parts in random segments, which left the hard blue part for the end. I was a little sad to complete it while there was still an hour of jazz on the radio, but resigned myself to moving on to the next thing. Before I did, I decided to slide the puzzle up to the center of the board to get a better picture of it…
My strategy with Picasso’s Studio as I sorted pieces out of the box was to put all the mostly grey pieces in one corner, all the largely white pieces above them, and all the rest above that. I’ve started lining up all the flat edge pieces along the edge of the puzzle table and it’s more efficient than sticking them up in the top right corner as I used to do. I continue to arrange the whimsy pieces along the right side of the table, bottom to top according to genre from geometric to objects to human figures to land animals to flying creatures. And so I began to assemble this one on Sunday morning, and finished it yesterday.
One of the joys of these puzzles is finding the most improbable connections from the most subtle clues, like placing the swirling cloud over the window with just the hint of a brushstroke.
As I attempted to slide the finished puzzle it caught on the felt and buckled… puzzletastrophe!
I was able to salvage most of the assemblage with some gentle shifting. Only two pieces landed on the floor, and it wasn’t too hard to put the puzzle together again. I was grateful to get to spend some more time on it while my friends on KVNF were giving their blues show over to a rare jazz theme, including Vince Guaraldi’s pivotal album ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas.’
And then, about the time the jazz ran out, this gorgeous puzzle from a Damian Elwes painting was finished. Liberty has six artists’ studio puzzles from Elwes, and this is the fifth to join our scattered communal puzzle library after Matisse, Gauguin, Monet, and Frida Kahlo’s. They’re all as scrumptious as this one. I’m grateful to Cindy for breaking the blue barrier and buying it: Sarah and I had qualms about all that blue, but that turned out to be, on my part anyway, an unnecessary bias. This was so lovely to do. The sixth studio puzzle is Basquiat’s, which is brand new and doesn’t appeal to me at the moment. Perhaps my perspective will shift someday about that puzzle also.
Meanwhile, here are some details from Picasso’s Studio, just because they are so delightful, not even considering the whimsy pieces that make them up. You might be able to make out in this image a pair of eyes, one above the easel and one above the white table. This is a hidden layer in the puzzle, a portrait of Picasso himself revealed more clearly on the back side of the puzzle. Another stroke of genius from the Liberty Puzzlemaster.
And finally, as I began to disassemble the puzzle this afternoon, I noticed yet another precious combination of whimsy pieces, which had escaped me as they came together on the board: the guy riding a bike with a cat on the back. I’m grateful for Picasso’s Studio.
Playing with ancestral charms and baubles this afternoon, letting go of anything that seems to matter… focusing on what I choose to attend to.
Thanks for suggestions of ways I can get music! Several people mentioned Pandora. I did have Pandora for years, but found Spotify’s music management features more helpful and convenient. Pandora also repeated songs annoyingly frequently at that time years ago, maybe they’ve expanded their capacity since then. I paid for each of those services because I can’t stand ads for so many reasons, from the aggressive sound of their voices to the manipulation of desires and emotions, to the presumption that I am a “consumer.” I bristle at that word: Consuming is not my primary motivation nor my identity.
As I write this evening, I’m listening to Turn It Up on KVNF with my dear friend DJ Honey Badger playing a lot of Neil Young and Joni Mitchell. Like me, she appreciates the stand they’ve taken against Covid misinformation (and probably so much more). As I mentioned, though, KVNF doesn’t always play music I like, and also offers a lot of news, which I don’t want.
I don’t want it! I understand what’s happening, and take it in, in little bites, when I feel resilient enough each day to check the headlines. I understand that human nature is violent, greedy, power-hungry, rabid, narrow-minded and stupid, as well as kind, generous, loving, compassionate, expansive, creative and beautiful. I do not need to dwell in the negative aspects of our species, I spent most of my life fretting about those. Life is too short!
Mindfulness allows me to hold both the ten thousand joys and the ten thousand sorrows, juggling them from hand to heart to hand to mind to hand. Mindfulness allows me to choose where I place my attention, so aside from supporting my local Indivisible chapter, making calls, signing petitions, and writing to my ‘representatives’ (I use the term loosely, living in CO District 3); and ascertaining whether nuclear war has broken out; I choose to focus my attention on things I can actually control, such as what I eat for lunch, whether or not I walk Topaz in mud season, and if I should get her a kitten; how much time I spend on ‘entertainment’ and how much on learning, working, exercising, home maintenance, correspondence; living in alignment with my core values, and trying to be skillful and virtuous in thought, word, and deed; et cetera… there is so much that I can control, that life is too short to dwell on and make myself suffer from things I cannot control.
One of the things I can control is where I get my music, the background soundtrack for my days, the energy and joy that moves me. I tried I ♥️ Radio back in my traveling days but couldn’t quite figure it out and didn’t get much from it; also, I think there were too many ads on there. Kim recommended Radio Garden, which has captivated me. I could spend hours playing in Radio Garden! It concerns me that the website shows up as ‘Not Secure’ — I don’t really know what that means — but I’ve solved that worry by using it only on my old laptop where I no longer have any confidential or important information stored. I spent the afternoon listening to KOKO, old-school Hawaiian, as I worked upstairs. Commercial-free radio from Hana, Hawaii. I spun around the globe from Ukraine to Cape Verde and many points between, fascinated, but settled on KOKO for a peaceful, easy feeling this afternoon.
Kim also recommended Bandcamp, to hear music from unsigned artists around the world. She offers her edgy ethereal sound free on this wonderful platform. Coincidentally, or synchronistically, a new friend sent the link to her bandcamp profile, where her unique songwriting shines. What a world! Technology fosters a whole new level of interconnection among humans. I’m grateful I have lived to see the day. I’ve got all the music of the world at my fingertips without Spotify, Pandora, Apple, or Amazon Music.
Anyway, in this moment, I’ve turned up my “very own community radio station” on my actual radio, and I am hearting this community. Honey Badger has played my most favorite song ever (“I think I can make it now the pain is gone“), and a few other top ten, and my inner drag queen has gotten up to lipsync and dance around the living room. It’s easier without the giant dog bed taking up half the ballroom floor. I let loose as I haven’t in a long while, moving this body, feeling alive in this moment, and interconnected on many levels, despite this excruciating solitude. Most of the time it feels pretty good (solitude) but recently, Stellar’s absence, a somatic lack, has swelled into heartache again.
This diffident cat stimulates very little oxytocin. Even though I’ve known her since the day she was born, and have loved her within days of her existence, she remains mysterious: she is a consummate CAT. She’s been through traumas, suffered losses and unknown physical distresses in her madcap life, and so as Honey Badger points out, “Love is kinda crazy with a spooky little girl like her.”
My deepest soundtrack, in my story of this archival entity I call me. Listening to Honey Badger’s playlist brings alive my past, what first connected me with this community, dancing in a mob in Memorial Hall as Laura Love rocks “What if God Smoked Cannabis?” in this historical pot capital of Colorado. And decades earlier, that rock climber who introduced me to Neil Young, his perfect body, climbing with him at Seneca Rocks… Now, I dance alone at home, decades later, essentially content. Grateful for every living moment of every day, when I remember to attend to it.
Now, iconic DJ Fettucine takes over, HB is driving home through falling snow, and Neil Young sings on, on these community airwaves. This sonic nostalgia: another state, another love, another life altogether. I’m reminded of two questions I asked frequently when I first arrived in this place half a lifetime ago: Who Am I? and How Did I Come to Be Here?
How is a fun question to ask, but not essential. What now, what next, are the crucial questions moment to moment. I’m grateful for every step that led me here. Music tonight, and a felt sense of belonging, have restored my joy. For the moment. Everything changes, all the time. Let me remember to be grateful, every living moment of every day. I think I may have mentioned this mission before. I understand that self-cherishing is the root of all suffering, yet I am never happier than when I wallow without reservation in gratitude. Perspective is everything.
Among many other things today, I’m grateful for community radio. In particular at the moment, KVNF in Paonia. This evening, Cookin with Jazz was dj’d by The Hurricane, who put together a thoughtful retrospective on Charlie Watts. I learned more than I ever knew about The Rolling Stones’ drummer, and heard some wonderful music. It reminded me of the time I spent as a nomad, driving around the country camping in my Subaru wagon with my first catahoula.
We were camped in northern California among redwoods, cozied up in the back of the car, listening to KMUD out of Garberville. They were playing a Joni Mitchell retrospective. Something about the soft, moist night air, insect symphony blending with Joni’s songs, snuggled into my sleeping bag, cuddling that good dog… I’ll never forget it, deeply touched by the magic of radio. I was grateful for community radio then, and I’m still grateful thirty-two years later, tucked into my little mud hut in the juniper forest, crickets outside, Charlie Watts conversing softly over the airwaves, lying on a yoga mat on the floor beside my old best dog ever. Something very similar about these two far apart evenings, emotionally linked through the power of community public radio.
