Tranquility

Truly out of pics.  There is a barrel of which I am scraping the bottom.  I mean, it is a picture, and pictures are interesting, but. . . it is just a pictures.  It is nice, though, serene and tranquil.  

Since I was a child, I've been drawn to things that are quiet and peaceful.  I played in a New Wave Punker band, and we had a good portion of success, but I never listened to the music otherwise.  My bandmates could tell.  My listening habits were as they have always been, mellow.  It is part of my DNA, I guess.  

Last night, as almost every night, I prepared dinner for my mother and myself.  It was a fair amount of work.  I asked Alexa to play the university jazz station.  I was beginning to get irritated by the rather thankless routine, but the music helped.  Here is what the dinner prep sounded like.  

It's the kind of jazz the station often plays, a sort of popular version of the genre, but it was calming as I chopped garlic, sliced tomatoes and an avocado, put spring mix into bowls and added the chopped toppings.  Chopped the ends off the smallest Brussels Sprouts I've ever seen, about forty of them, I think, and put them in the double boiler.  Prepped the small red potatoes for roasting.  Opened a can of baked beans.  Sliced a pork tenderloin into medallions and put it in the pan.  Then, all things ready, timed each thing so that all would be ready at once.  Plated dinner knowing the mess of pots, plates, and utensils that I would have to wash afterwards.  

Oh. . . and two glasses of wine helped, too.  

Later, a glass of scotch and YouTube, I put on travel videos so my mother could watch with me.  We were in Mexico City.  I haven't been since. . . holy shit!  I need to go back.  And then we were in Vietnam.  Oh, yes, I need to go there, too.  We traveled to the great Buddhist temples.  And there was temple music, and I thought of my long, only partially successful journey into Buddhist ways, the search for peace and tranquility.  

I thought of Kendrick Lamar's performance the evening before and wondered.  The stuff is anathema to the way I long to feel.  I remembered a most wonderful afternoon in the Mission District of San Fran, sitting on cushions in a darkened, softly lighted room while a fellow whose name I always forget played temple music on big horns and gongs and drums.  I would go there every day if I could.  It was the trippiest, most wonderful moment I could imagine.

They should play rap music in hospitals.  Loud.  A lot.  It would be good for patients, help them heal.  Studies show. . . . 

I kid.  But, you know, it is a hateful, violent world and maybe that is the music that is called for.  

"I got bitches in the living room getting it on. . . guess what?  We don't love 'em whores!"

O.K. O.K.  That's all I know, and it is only because of The Gourds.  

In yo mama's booty.  

One friend signed off when I dissed the halftime show.  Q berated me for not recognizing genius.  But he's like that.

"I grow old, I grow old. . . shall I wear my trousers rolled?"

The thing I kept wondering last night after dinner while watching travel shows was if I would get sick eating the food in Viet Nam?  Bourdain did it with Obama.  I don't know.  I hate getting sick.  I am awfully careful in Mexico and South America and have avoided it, but I have avoided a lot of tasty things, too.  

I've asked my friends from Africa, South America, and Mexico who live here if they get sick from the food when they go back to visit.  The answer is a resounding "yes."  

I wondered if the Aztecs would like rappers and thought they probably would.  They'd have liked it much more than Mariachis, I think.  

I prefer the Mariachis.  

When I cleaned the kitchen, I asked Alexa for the music again.  It was the same, only different.  I'm sure it would drive most of my friends out of their minds.  It's not my favorite, but I've never really minded elevator music.  It kind of reminds me of a pleasant afternoon trip to the mall, sitting in the Bloomingdale's women's shoe section while a girlfriend shops.  Yea. . . that is exactly what it reminds me of, soft music and gentle, happy voices whispering to me, peaceful and serene. 

Tranquility now!

Namaste.