I’m convinced that daily is the way to go with blogs.

When I check blogs and they haven’t a had an entry for several days I think of them as stuck somewhere no longer touching the “rolling present.”

On the other hand, writing a daily blog is a bit like sitting in a room with one way mirrors.

You’re never quite sure if you’re being watched.

Or maybe it’s like writing a daily note and putting it in a bottle. (Pace to the dozen or so readers and responders to this blog.)

The difference is I’m not stranded, but prefer large amounts of solitude. This solitude allows me to read, think and practice.

I know that it’s informed by the love and care of my wife and a few other people. Without that I’m pretty sure it would be bitter.

Actually it’s hard for me to imagine. At this point I carry the ones I love around with me. They’re thoughts (as interpreted by me) continue to inform my daily life, little conversations with ones dead or gone.

And then there’s the poetry and music itself.

Yesterday I played through the first two piano sonatas of Schubert. I do this more and more carefully, slowing down to get every note and rhythm as correct as I can.

It’s weird that my technique has improved over the years. Logically one expects it, I guess. But I see people stagnate into one place of being or another. Plus the technique I am striving for I know is not that advanced. I once read or heard the statement that the reason most organists are so bad is that so many of them didn’t have the technique to give a sophomore piano recital. Also after I quit school at one point and was sipping wine with a disgusted prof, he confided in me that most piano majors in the school couldn’t play scales in all keys. Both of these things have nagged at me in the back of my mind as I try to develop my abilities.

But I have made strides by myself in front of keyboards since leaving the care and guidance of teachers years ago.

It feels like my personality is evolving at the same time and I require myself to look harder and harder at those mirrors. Even the one way ones.

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In Korea, Changes in Society and Family Dynamics Drive Rise in Elderly Suicides – NYTimes.com

This reminds of the article I read recently about a Chinese family sacrificing so that their daughter could go to college, get a good job and take care of the parents in their old age.

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Supreme Court to Hear Alabama County’s Challenge to Voting Rights Act – NYTimes.com

Eileen and I watched an NPR special on Hubert Humphrey recently. In it, Jimmy Carter said on camera that Americans might need reminding that it wasn’t so long ago that Jim Crow was the law of the land, upheld by the Supreme Court. Racism is alive and kicking in the USA.

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