Farmer's Market Apples and Latte's

Today is good day. Things that make today a good day:

1) Haircut. While I really can't afford it right now my hairdresser is one of the more delightful people I have met since I moved out here; probably because she is from Quebec. We always talk in exaggerated, mildly pretentious ways about living, art, culture and food - especially the eating part. She was one of the only people who reacted with a "good for you" when I mentioned quitting my job. Most of my haircuts have been after a day at work... she knew.

2) Reading. It always astounds me how quickly I forget how much I enjoy reading. Not just in an escapist sense, but in the way in which I always leave a book's pages feeling refreshed. Even in the mildest of ways. A book is a place which says to the outside world, "No, not right now, she's busy," and generally this is respected. It's hard to look at yourself reading a book and think that your wasting your life. It's the only kind of procrastination I don't feel guilty for.

3) Irony. Just as I began to muse on the pleasure I have been taking in my self prescribed social hiatus I am reminded just how dependant that pleasure is to the knowledge that there is something to remove myself from. Choosing to be alone, when there is someone who wants for your company, is much more fashionable then simply being inconsequential. Like a death, the act of removing the person from the social network causes stress, grief and frustration. While the dead may regret the imposition their passing has caused, they can't help but be simultaneously validated by these feelings of remorse. In my alone-ness every face is a stranger, except the ones I hold in my mind to remind me that my solitude is still a choice.

While this may not be able to go into the category of what makes today a good day, I did indeed see Beethoven's 9th symphony performed last night... by myself.

I sat surrounded by patrons, most of which were older then my grandparents, with tears welling in my eyes at the moment when, after the first refrain by the male vocal soloist, the music builds, the choir collectively hits and sustains that high note, then it all slowly drops away. Like a gust of wind that hits your ears as you pull your self upward for the first time on a summit and stand in amazement at the vastness before you. It was so perfect, it was divine - says the atheist. ;)

There are certain defining moments in ones life when we become intimately aware of the being who exists within us, and despite us. An endless and unconditional sense of love and appreciation which has no external source or measurement. As I vacillate unpredictably between external and internal versions of myself, trying to reconcile the duality of who I am, I am reminded just how infallible and uncomplicated this really is.

Now that's some great art.

Beethoven - 9th Symphony