If You Were Here

A new day, a new blog post. If you were here with me right now you would see me staring at a blank page with twenty nine words on it. I write all my blog posts in Pages, a word processing program part of the iWork suite. I have been a mac user for 10 years, but if you were here you would know that. You would see the translucent, glowing, partially eaten apple on the back of my mac book pro. It’s not one of the newer ones with a shiny screen. It has a tiny piece of plastic missing from its left corner. One day about two years ago it just broke off.

Usually when i work on my blog posts I listen to a stream of classical music from WQXR.org. WQXR is a classical station in New York.  So far I have been working in silence. Only the drip of melting snow and ice are tapping on the cover to my window. Once in a while the pipes rustle as the water circulates through the rest of the house. Sometimes a single drop of water will dive from the bathroom faucet only to slide back down into the contours of the sink making its way back into the system again, but if you were here you would know that.

Or you might miss it. You could be distracted by the lights and screens of other computers in my music studio. You might not be able to resist the temptation to touch one of them many keyboards in the room and think, “I always wanted to take piano lessons.”

Now the music is on.

Low, playing from the small speakers. The piano works of Bach.

I have a small sofa i bought from Ikea more then 6 years ago when i started my business. Its beige with lots of character. Just before Thanksgiving I updated it with a trio of new fluffy black and white patterned pillows. Make overs aren’t just for day time television. Sofa’s like them too.

There is a picture of Louis Armstrong on the wall to the right of the sofa. Satchmo is sitting in chair. He is old. His black pants ride up high to show his white socks. the shoes are shiny leather with reflections of his trumpet being  clutched between his legs. He’s thinking something.

“What A Wonderful World.”

He probably thinking:

“If i have to sing that damn song one more time….”

On that same wall I have an 8×10 picture of my wife and I. If you we here you’d go over and look at it. Then you would ask, “Is That You Wife?” Every one does. Then you would remember the last cruise you went on, or dream of the cruise you have yet to take. You might even notice the same back drop in your cruise photo at home.

To the left of the sofa, there are two more thin black 81/2 x 11 frames on the wall sitting stacked on top of each other. The higher one is a photocopy of the first published piece of writing I ever did. It was a two page article for a UK magazine called Computer Music. It was a short article about hip hop drum programming. I have written other articles since them but i don’t cover the walls with them. Below that is a framed movie poster from The Next Three Days with Russell Crowe. This November I had a piece of music I produced and co wrote used in the film. That is a story for another time though. If you were here  I would tell you and we would pass the time.

About an hour has passed and the page is no longer white. It’s scattered with descriptions that I hope have invited you into the place where I write. Both my blog posts and my music.

The marathon of Bach works has ended. WQXR is calling my attention to the works of Sergei Prokofiev. The twenty nine words on the page have become more then six hundred and I have barely said a thing. But for tonight…

Thats all I have to say.

Peter Weis

Be Sociable, Share!

•