Meta-meta: about the about
Motor memory
8 months of silence: the muscles decline, and I feared the physical remembrance imprinted into the mechanical action of my limbs and fingers would be gone. How long is a motor memory?
And why might it be so hard to return to an activity which has always been such a non-negotiable part of what makes me, me? At first it was innocent - a broken thumbnail. But then we head into the depths of winter, exacerbated as never before by depression and paralysis, and the guitar becomes a rebuke: it laughs at me hollowly, taunts my ever dreaming that I might be a musician; the necessary soul is - in me - mere performance; the performance, demotic; my vernacular, hackneyed. Music, it seemed to say, is the only transcendental phenomenon in the world, and what laughable hubris, what tragic arrogance, to think I might have any pretence to accomplishment in the only practice that has any claim to true beauty and truth.
But as ever, spring brings hope - or at least, I am persuaded to be stubborn, and to persist, in the face of all evidence; to believe that to no-one, not even me, is some access to the magic of music denied. Painstakingly, ignore the doubts, and retune withered muscles. Eventually, I discovered the motor memory was every bit there - it was adapted, malleable, and I can see how it might - left long enough - degrade and dissolve. But for now it remains.
Ejercicio
To laze is to not exercise. Hence it is not possible to ocioso during ejercicio. The task-master is always there, insisting you do not slur, waver, or diverge from the proscribed path laid out by the demi-god fitness-instructor.
Are you fit for purpose?
Download: Jose Ferrer - Ejercicio (Vals) mp3
Metaphorically speaking
Many poets should be left as they were by the riverside. Your first encounter is likely to be the most fulfilling.
Some poets, however, demand a longer relationship, since their words evolve, even if the printed page does not.
John Donne's metaphysical poetry evolves with you as you go by. You can measure yourself by the extent to which you adapt to his conceits.
I used to think a metaphor required rigour: metaphors that broke quickly at points of logic and dissimilarity were inadequate.
Now I realise that the end of the aptness of any metaphor is the beginning of its use: where Donne reaches a broken path in the pursuit of his conceit, he digresses, follows the new road, and never looks back.
Those complex conceits which work on many levels do not remain faithful to their absolute limit, but push you to introspect, analyse and learn from the limitation. You emerge into a new kind of light at the end of the metaphor.
Download: Tarrega - Endecha
soon
Meta-meta entries to follow soon...
