New Snow

Five inches of new snow in town, so I made a good call, not going home, because there's probably twice that on the ridge, on top of eight inches of crusted old crap. No traffic, nothing stirring when I go outside for a walk. Everything is covered in snow. Very beautiful, in an urban way. The ridge, I know, is drop dead gorgeous right now, but I had to be in town. Mark and Charlotte came in, and left immediately for Springfield; TR and Emily came in, to open the show, though we all knew no one would venture out in weather like this. At the official opening, March 2nd, there will be a crowd, but today was very quiet. Fine, from my perspective, I spent most of the day thinking about the way one artist influences another, thinking about what Alan owes to Andrew Wyeth, what I owe to G. Spencer Brown. Late in the day TR came upstairs, and wondered what I was doing after work. I told him I had no plans, and we went for a beer. Conversation, and banter with the staff. We're thinking about doing an opera, and we talk about that, feeling each other out. We agree about a great many things, I defer to his sense of composition. What I'm talking about, in the text, is the source of inspiration, whatever that might be. The honey is those moments when you are drawn completely into a thing: prismatic light through ice on branches, the return of a specific woodpecker, the way the smell of my feed-cap always reminds me of my grandfather. Nothing feels more comfortable than being within yourself. A down bag on an air-pad is pretty good. If someone else has made the coffee, fried some Cutthroat trout with eggs, and the toast is acceptable. My idea of a cruise. I have to go. On the ridge, nothing ever seems artificial; it's always actual.