Larger Flakes.

It's black night out now - I can see large flakes of snow falling in the peach streetlights below.

Mournful fog horns.

There is a pickup truck, its running lights glowing in the snow. A large man in a heavy coat is down by the docks, he lights a cigarette, drags on it for a few moments and tosses it into the water at his feet.

I've been resting here for the past 4 days, since Friday evening. There has been a run-in with a seal, over-priced pub food, the discovery of a 'fridge full of champagne and frozen cookie dough and a fair amount of sleep and introspection.

I wish I could say I am coming out of this a transformed person - unless you think that being more yourself is something of a transformation.

I've actually not talked all that much these last few days. Went to Portsmouth with friends for a tango practica, sat with a carpenter/boat captain pal in his rebuilt sail-loft of a house, drinking coffee and talking about the challenges of a being a new tango person - "new' being anyone not born and raised in Buenos Aires.

Through the windows that face my bed I can see lights moving through darkness, around the island docks in the middle of the harbor. It's motoring toward the dock with the pickup truck. The large man tosses what must be his fourth cigarette into the water and moves to the back of the truck. Looks like rope coming out, a line or something.

I think I've stayed here long enough. I feel rested, like my zealous, over-filled soul has used the time to listen quietly, patiently, to the gently varying sound of the waves on the shore. Like the snowflakes each wave has its own sound, its own pattern.

It should probably now become part of my routine to find time to sit by the ocean, wherever I am on the coast of Maine, to sit, listen and calm my spirit, tune my ear to hear the sound each wave makes, just once and then forever gone.

Unique and irreplaceable. And then gone.

The boat is at the dock. A tall man exits the wheelhouse, waves to the man on the dock, tosses him a line. The boat is home safe.

The snow keeps falling.

Fall forward, Spring Back - Feed a cold, starve a cold

So now we've launched our 2nd Generation magical computer device. I've been so excited I've not been getting sleep - working out my nerves by writing a fairly challenging new tango.

I like this new piece. I tend to like all of my pieces, frankly - but this one really seems to say what's on my mind, the joy and the tension, the excitement and contemplation that always fight for supremacy in my spirit.

I'm taking some time off next week - I really don't think in terms of vacations and free time - ordinarily, anyway.

There's a lovely bed/breakfast overlooking Boothbay Harbour, about 45 miles north up Route One. During "The Season" it's quite a tourist haven; my digs for four nights would have cost a good bit North of $1,500 - I'm getting them for about $500, including full breakfast.

And I'm a big breakfast guy.

People at the Orchard who have worked full-time from the opening (I've been full time for just over a year) seem to take huge vacations - it was pointed out to me that 100 hours of vacation is more than two weeks, rather than just over 4 days (96+ hours or so). I just don't think that way.

So, before "The Season" starts, while stores are being painted, docks being repaired and fishermen doing actual work, I'm going to stop and just watch the tide change, probably singing "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay" - or, more realistically, thinking about what I have to do to get my music to sound the way I really hear it.

If you really believe in what you do, that it can do some good, you have to act. I suppose I am, that everything I've done in my life has led to this direction, to the moment I'm sitting in now, for good or ill.

Let's see what happens, shall we?

One Fog Bank and Suddenly It’s Spring

The last 24 hours have seen the ruination of winter.

Had an isobar moved 50 miles toward the shore the rain pounding down outside would have passed through an arctic cold front and piled up as snow.

But it’s coming down as water, the air is in the forties and fog is drifting across the streets. Large drops are dissolving snowbanks that used to tower up to second-story windows.

My standards of meteorological neatness are quite high - if we can’t have lovely banks of puffy (easy to shovel) snow surrounding us then it’s just as well to have done with it.

Raindrops strike the brick sidewalk outside the glass doors beside my seat. The intensity waxes and wanes, cells are moving by above the city, the tap runs from closed to open and then back to closed.

I’m working on a new tango. It’s at a stage where I can take a step back to see how it feels as a unit. Having a foggy, rainy, slightly clammy night to stalk through helps clear my mind.

A beer and the excellent sauteéd Brussels sprouts make a difference too.

I suppose I’m ready for the season to change. Time to shed a layer of skin (going to the gym will help that too) and see what patterns I’m showing this year.