Those whom I’ll never touch again

WFH: DAY 29. 8.00 am: A communion.

8.30 am: Having dispatched emails that required immediate attention, I returned to the phase 1 mix, and made small changes that were perceived to be necessary only when heard in the context of the online album draft. It’s curious how uploading a composition objectifies it — as does hanging a picture on the wall for the first time. In that moment, the artist also becomes the audience of their own work. When this present project is finished, I want to spend more time listening to the work of others. There’s a danger in being too much, too often, and too long in one’s own head. I’m intent on hearing sound performances by the best and the worst, and fully comprehending what makes the difference.

Yesterday, my camera accidently misfired twice in succession, once at my desk and, afterwards, on my return from town:

Fortuitousness beguiles. The chance meeting with someone whom you’ve not seen in decades; a glance across the room at a stranger, who happens to be looking towards you too; unsolicited emails on the same subject that simultaneously cross in the post; an unexpected telephone call bearing a word of encouragement, exactly when you needed it; or something let slip by someone you know well, which opens an undiscovered vista upon their inner-life. Iced-rain fell throughout the morning:

1.00 am: Hot mushroom soup and a wedge of brie for lunch. 1.30 pm: ‘Back to it, you shirker!’ The small changes took a large time. Micro-management.

And it’s the management of the quiet passages interrupted by the very loud ones that has proven the most challenging. Like throwing a saturated Hibiscus Red into an otherwise polite monochrome painting and making it sit. 3.30 pm: Remote DIY with my elder son. ‘A metal-framed stud-wall!!? What is the world coming to?’

5.00 pm: Down tools.