A while back, I wrote, 'Neruda begins his Poets Obligation with the lines, 'A quin no escucha el mar en este viernes - To whomever is not listening to the sea...' and that it had immediately opened up a dilemma for me because I had recalled reading this as 'looking' not 'listening' and then I realised his wording was perfect because it reminds us to open up all of our senses.' To be aware of everything around us, to react to what we hear and see and smell and touch and taste is a part of the memories we carry, part of the stimulus. Too often we visualise our ideas, like in this picture I took while on a wee trip to the coast with my Dad. The picture doesn't parcel up everything that is going on, it just reminds me of the time, the smell, the taste of salt, the feel of cold sand on our feet, the tea he drunk and the coffee for me. And I harbour those same memories I have of my late mother who only died this year - nearly a year ago as it happens - and I bought a pomegranate this week because of a fifty year old memory, goodness, so many years. Recently I received a notebook for my birthday that is designed around piano keys, its called 'do re mi' if a notebook can be called anything and there is a picture of piano keys on the front (although they are not black and white but multi coloured keys). On the front it says, 'notes are living sounds,' and I like that but on the back it says, 'the self is what is heard in the spaces between the piano keys… do re mi.' I am thinking in the space between the keys, in the silence. This clip is an old favourite of mine and its as good with or without sound, and a real do re mi performance, for me.
