Hot Chocolate, Love Handles and Chopin in Everyday Ramblings

I am in a slightly melancholy place as autumn comes on that is a perfect match for Chopin’s music and a big mug of hot chocolate. So far I have managed to not indulge in the chocolate part but it won’t be long before I succumb.

On Friday afternoon I finished listening to David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas on audio book. What a tour de force that book is! It took me two tries to get going on it and I was not prepared for the abrupt ending mid sentence of the first story line. I actually came home and Googled it to find out if there was something wrong.

The bad guys are really really bad. But he sure knows how to tell a story. Even if many of the “good” guys are not exactly folks you would bring home to your mother. I loved the patios he developed for the Hawaiian characters in the future after the apocalypse. My favorite word was “babbit” for a baby.

I very much admire the way he showed the young composer Robert Frobisher’s vulnerability. Out of all that arrogance and entitlement and hubris comes this startling and ever so human vulnerability.

There did seem to be a lack of deep connection in the characters. They were basically all off in their own version of their worlds. And when there was a seeming connection there was always some sort of duplicity at play.

A sense of connection is much on my mind these days. Or the lack thereof.

Mr. POA raved about Cloud Atlas a few years ago. And I know Edna Million enjoyed it. Now I am not in regular contact with anyone who has read it and I miss the connection of talking about it and sharing references in casual conversation.

I took this picture this afternoon as I was on a reconnaissance mission to find the place where the four-day yoga workshop I am registered for this next weekend is taking place. It is a part of town that used to be rural farmlands not so very long ago and it challenging to get to without a car. All the resource material for the workshop assumes one has a car. It is going to be a long slog for me.

First a bus ride and then a two mile walk each way, but I figured out where there is sidewalk and where there is not so I am very glad I took the time to go there first. It is on a very idyllic college campus here. Mr. Finch and I went there once for a poetry reading about 11 years ago.

I signed up for this because a nationally known teacher that wrote a book on yoga for tight shoulders and necks that I have found useful was supposed to be the co-teacher. Yesterday in an email confirming everything it was announced that she is not going to be able to make it.

The other teacher uses the word love handles to explain a certain part of the anatomy on the DVD I have of them both teaching yoga to seniors. I hate that term! I understand all about needing to use common non-technical language to describe body areas when teaching. I get that.

Me thinks I might be a slightly troublesome student. :) But I will still get my continuing ed credits and my certificate and it will be a wonderful holiday from work.

In the meantime I am listening to the Sonata for Cello and Piano in g minor, Op. 65 recorded in Warsaw a few blocks from the church that holds Chopin’s heart.

Last updated October 13, 2014