Yesterday’s main event was selling the Honda (to finance the Triumph). The Honda, which Pattie and Tim found/got me in Jan, 2019 as a starter bike, was an absolutely perfect starter bike. On that bike, I put on about 2000 miles, and gained a ton of confidence in riding, putting everything learned in the rider safety course I took Dec., 2018 into practice. The bike’s been up for sale for about a month, since i got the Triumph on Sept. 6. And I’m happy to have made $600 on the sale of the Honda.
The woman who bought it came up from Wilmington, and I enjoyed getting to know her a bit over the few hours she was here–test-driving, getting $, notarizing title, loading bike onto a trailer, etc. She was a recent UNC-Wilmington grad (Master’s in Internat’l Studies) who’s heading into the military to pursue intelligence work. She is someone whom, it was very clear in just a few moments, is capable of anything. Pattie and I both found her remarkably impressive, in many ways. Sociable, affable, and capable of taking on any sort of challenge. I expected a few minutes worth of transaction but, in fact, spent about 3 hours on this. And we enjoyed the day, which became a very pleasant distraction from other things.
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The past days have been focused on two tracks: house-jobs, and constant reading and re-reading of the A.E. Housman poem.
The house-work has gone well, with our deck now two-coat stained, a new sliding door installed to replace the rotting French doors, a doggy door ready to install one window darkening film is installed this evening.
The Housman poem, from A Shropshire Lad, I’m readying to set–
When I watch the living meet,
And the moving pageant file
Warm and breathing through the street
Where I lodge a little while,
If the heats of hate and lust
In the house of flesh are strong,
Let me mind the house of dust
Where my sojourn shall be long.
In the nation that is not
Nothing stands that stood before;
There revenges are forgot,
And the hater hates no more;
Lovers lying two and two
Ask not whom they sleep beside,
And the bridegroom all night through
Never turns him to the bride.
has led me to wonder about the perspective that comes from depression and/or feeling the threats of the heats of hate and lust. Even a quick reading of his biographical sketch reveals some of what’s behind Houseman’s expressions.
At this point I have a fundamental harmony which I’ll tease apart for this brief song, and I think there may be ways to fragment/segment this harmony to find both melodic lines, accompanimental harmonies, and sounds to associate with now/life and forever/after-life. Although I’m writing for a faculty colleague with great range and virtuosity, his commission specifically asks for this to be suitable for student singers. So I suspect this will bring a contrast of pitch-complexity in the piano, and pitch-simplicity in the relatively easy lyricism of the vocal line.
Off to stop speculating, and get to writing…
