Silence

It's so quiet, I can hear the freight trains in Kentucky, hauling coal, and they are many miles away. I turned off the radio and flipped the breaker on the fridge. The quiet is overwhelming. Clearing my throat is a major aural event. Maria Magdalena had a distinctive hand, you can always tell when she's copying Bach's original. In cases where we have both copies, she is absolutely accurate, so I trust "The Cello Suites", despite the fact that we don't have it in his hand. I think it's the 12th of January, thereabout, and at 3:23 in the morning I start listening to Rostropovich. This year I want to listen to a different version every month, and it's fitting that I would start with Mstislav, because it's my benchmark. I can spare two hours a month for BachWorld, I can spare more than that. Add it up and I listen to Bach more than anyone else, Bach and the Grateful Dead, there's always a warm spot in my heart for Garcia noodling, and Dwayne Allman on that first Boz Scaggs album, but I always come back to Bach, certain progressions. It's probably closer to two-and-a-half hours, but I'm not keeping track. Heaven forbid I should be tied to a clock. I heat some water and clean some dishes; when I go outside, to throw away the wash water, the silence is overwhelming. It's 4:31 in the morning and we're just starting the D-Minor suite. I get a drink and roll a smoke. I love this piece of music. Just at dawn three crows converge at the outhouse, shattering the stillness with their squawks. I don't have any frozen mice for them, and can sense their displeasure. When I go out, to use the facilities, they fly off, complaining. Since I was booted-up, I did a little exploratory walk, but as it stayed a little above freezing last night, the mud situation is even worse; dangerous footing, and I'm not about to haul wood in those circumstances. Beat a retreat back to the house and reread W. G. Sebald's "Austerlitz". A lovely book. Extreme attention to detail. When I get a slight headache, from reading too much, I make another pone of cornbread and eat the last of the chili. It's beans on toast unless I go to town tomorrow, and I'm not feeling much like going to town. Ran across the word zugzwang yesterday, which is a position you find yourself, in chess, without having a move that doesn't involve sacrificing a piece or getting yourself deeper in shit. Surprised that I hadn't run across the word before, as it so nearly describes the human condition. It might become my standard reply when people ask me how I'm doing. I'm working on this whole recluse thing. Spent several hours today thinking about the libretto for an opera TR and I had talked about. Concerning a hermit and a fox. A fairy tale that involves no bestiality. What it might involve is what occupies me most of the day. Toward sunset I walk out to the graveyard, sit on a stump while the light fails, and imagine my life in other circumstances. Nothing comes of it. When I go back to the house my feet are very cold and my hands are shaking, so I put a kettle of water on to heat and get a change of socks. I amaze myself, how purely practical I can be.