Zen

Have I lost leave of my senses?
My perception of the last time I had the urge to write something worthwhile in this blog was that it was about 3 months ago. It has been 7!
One of my Aunts once told me a hideous fact about ageing.
Every ten years goes twice as fast as the ten before.
My recollection of time is distorted and as I get older it seems to warp further.
I know from the friends I have that I am not alone. Many a time I have heard people expressing that they don't know where the time went. Often it is at a milestone birthday.
30,40,50.
I can't think further than this without some trepidation being 52 and as it would seem,hurtling towards 60 faster than The Neutrinos they seem to have discovered travelling beyond the speed of light.
This recurring theme comes in a week after I attended the funeral of my Uncle Ken who was 87 and after working for the RAF once told me that if youngsters wanted a buzz that instead of taking drugs they should try jumping out of a plane.
It is also a week or so since Steve Jobs died whose biography I am reading on an ipad and iphone and a Scorsese film about George Harrison That has brought my mind around to thinking about minimalism, Buddism, Aesthetics.
I am aware that we live in an age where there are labels for a multitude of behavioural and brain functions that were un-heard of generally 10 years ago.
ADHD,BIPOLAR,DYSPRAXIA.
Being friends with some extreme people with a variety of obsessive compulsive tendancies it is interesting to see how what we term disability can enable people to achieve things that other 'normal' people wouldn't.

The person who owns the house where I rent the basement was astounded by how many things I owned. I have an old computer, some recording equipment, some photograph albums and a television. The bed is not mine, nor the sofa. I don't have many clothes or shoes and yet he is someone who is not bothered or attached to THINGS. I also know that he has been on Budhist retreats, meditated and has practiced Yoga. All of this after owning a company in the 80's that earned him good money and a flash car.
George Harrison also journeyed from fame and wealth to a life of The Yogis mixed with using pop music to popularise it's deeper meaning.
Steve Jobs like these others took LSD, went to India, was a hippy and then became the richest man in the cemetery while not being interested in many material things or money itself.
Of the interesting quotes in the book so far are;
Our consumer desires are unhealthy.
To attain enlightenment you need to develop a life of non-attachment.
Asceticism, Minimalism, can heighten subsequent sensations.
Great harvests come from arid sources, pleasure from restraint.
Absence and coldness make moments of warmth intensely gratifying.
The equation that most people don't know?

THINGS LEAD TO THEIR OPPOSITES.

Well,

Ironically my iphone which helps organise my life, bookings, maps, tuning apps, e-mails, and even records high quality piano pieces on some of the best pianos in the land so pleasurably was stolen at a school for pupils with Autism.

Believe

I arrived at a house for a tuning a little early at the weekend so I parked the car and walked from the road to the high street. As I had twenty minutes to spare and it's East Dulwich, full of delis and eateries I thought I could grab an interesting snack as my breakfast. As I turned the corner I was approached by two Christians from the local Baptist church. Now, when I was a teenager a friend of mine started going to his local Baptist church back in the 70's. I followed him in. Both of us from working class poorer backgrounds from the more affluent people of the congregation. They were a friendly bunch and I was invited to dinner or tea at someone's house. I would be introduced to food I have never tasted and rooms that were as big as the whole floor of our Victorian semi. Wooden floors with grandfather clocks ticking, a Grand piano here, a Chesterfield sofa there. We even swam in a private swimming pool on a hot summer afternoon. At the church we would sing the hymns and listen to the organist playing Bach fugues and other composers from the last century but here was more interesting music happening there. A young group. A guitarist with a beard and a liking for ethnic shoes and chunky knitwear and two girls, one blonde, one dark black haired, long and perfectly straight. They were very good. Singing in harmony with the guitar thrashing in a style that was influenced by Paul Simon, Jackson Browne and Joni Mitchell. Well I liked Simon and Garfunkel and Bob Dylan at the time and this group had lyrics and songs with stories about love and loss. It was a new world, an extended family and new friends. Now here I am, so many years later trying to convince these polite and good intentioned believers that I cannot take them up on their offer of a visit to their church.
I talk briefly to them about how I was advised by the church back then to meet a nice girl and settle down as there was nothing as sad as an old, lonely, homosexual. They couldn't really offer me anything to explain apart from that they believed I should be celibate or find my inner man. I declined the obvious innuendo and walked back to the house.
When I walked in, there, on the top of the piano were some wooden silver painted letters that spelt
" B E L I E V E "

Ah, out of London for a few days. More sky, more trees. Last week I went to check an old piano I had tried to get back in tune from years of neglect. The house is rented by a few friends who share the piano. The deal was, I tune it again in return for dinner. It didn't disappoint. Chatting we talked about growing up and games we played as kids only to be given this story.
'We used to catch flies and put them in the freezer. They don't die but go into some kind of suspended animation. Then we would tie cotton around the leg of the fly and then take it out of the freezer. The fly would spring to life and Hey Presto! We would have a fly on a string. Endless amusement. Didn't any of you play this game? There was a resounding NO!
I will take the train back from Bradford on Avon on Sunday and go straight to Notting Hill to the hidden heritage 20th Century Theatre for a charity called Mousetrap Theatre Projects. They work with young people of different abilities and backgrounds who may not have the chance of working in theatre. http://www.mousetrap.org.uk/
The theatre was where a 17 year old Lawrence Olivier made his debut. It was home to the Amateur Dramatic societies of Harrods, DH Evans and the BBC. Margaret Rutherford and Rex Harrison acted there.

From now on

It's a proper spring day. I'm not one to moan about the weather but this winter has seemed colder and longer than the fifty odd ones I have experienced before.
I have decided to write this blog after spending a few years on a book called A Diary of a Gay Piano Tuner.
In the book I started from my days as a boy in the 60's to the incredible array of people and places I visit tuning pianos today.
The book is in limbo waiting to be published but I enjoyed writing it so much that this blog will take up where the book ends and allow me to share my take on the secret world of a piano tuner in this amazing city.