Saturday, February 19, 2005

cecilia bartoli - take 304

I have, I realized, been on tour now for 6 months. Too long.
I travelled home on the new daily service from Paris to Avignon, the idtgv train, in 'espace zen' - which I thought would be like it's adverts, all spacious with little purple meditation cushions and sushi provided at the bar, but is exactly like every other tgv except more crowded. The alternative to 'zen' is an 'espace party' or something for which I am, of course much too old.

The recordings for Cecilia threw me into a boiling pot of orchestral politics from which I have emerged with a severe headache. Though I am innocent, the repercussions of my being asked and not my desk partner in P and B came at me from all sides like thrashings. A performance, unhappily the last on the tour for our delightful leader and many others, ensued in which there was no joy, no gesture, no feeling whatsoever. I built a wall around myself to protect myself from my colleague who had built a wall round himself and we went through the motions with broken spirits. Like making love without feeling. The tenderness of Mirella's lines made me ache unbearably - for Home, for Mother, for Belonging - while teardrops made their way freely into my f-holes.
I often wonder why we are not more open to the music we are playing, and yesterday I was reminded that sometimes it is just too much; we are too vulnerable and thus it is too threatening to the delicate web of protection we are weaving around our human hearts in this cold world.



I come home to orange clouds in an indigo sky, to one cat wriggling under a bathrobe and another on my lap while I write; to a house cleaned from top to toe by my beloved, and symbolic of his new state of mind. The new website is almost ready to go off to the mailing list, new small paintings of large beauty are appearing and we are feeling hopeful about our future. He has even mended the weighing scales ready to sell paintings by the pound. There is space in our home, space in our heads and space between us. There's a fire burning in our hearth and I'm already warming up.

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