Relaxing … Ahhh

On Tuesday afternoon, some of our seniors in the PTC program did a short play in the mode of Theater of the Oppressed regarding the arsenic levels here in Butte and our neighboring town, Anaconda.  You can see a write up and photos at EcoRover and at the end of the entry is a link to watch a few minutes of the play.  The short play is acted out twice by the original actors, and then the audience members are invited to take over the roles, one by one, and attempt to then take the play … the situation … the interactions between the roles into a new direction.  The students were good – the audience actors were good – and I enjoyed myself thoroughly.  Last night I had a lovely evening with the faculty and students from our department.  It was relaxing to just hang out with no deadlines hanging overhead.

Tonight I had the opportunity to attend two concerts, but instead I’m at home reading Aristotle’s Rhetoric.  It seems like a good time to settle in with this classic text.  I could whine a little about it being ‘too cold!’ outside, but really, I’m just trying to recuperate from this lingering, never-ending cold that has been dragging on waaaaay too long.

I’ve actually got a number of books going right now, depending on what part of the apartment I’m sitting in.  I’m still meandering through Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and I’m also breezing through A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold.

I can only read Zen in short bits.  It’s a brilliant book – but somehow his inner turmoil reaches out to me and I find myself in turmoil if I spend too much time with him.  I’ve had that experience with a few other books – reading Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain I felt like I was also dying.  I never finished it.

Leopold’s book is brilliant in a different way – his descriptions of his simple daily experiences walking his farm, listening to bird calls at dawn, fishing, hunting, following the tracks of a skunk … just to see where it was headed – all are beautiful and heartwarming.

In another corner is my latest knitting project – yet another scarf and no, I’m still not bored with knitting simple rectangles.  So sometimes I just curl up by the warmth of the fire, listen to Niyaz or Axiom of Change or Coyote Oldman or just flow with whatever Pandora.com is sending my way.