It's the time in our annual hurricane get away months from Key West where we are in between construction projects or visiting friends and family. I am falling into a routine of sitting on the porch in the morning drinking coffee and reading for hours. Mornings tend to be magazines, afternoons and evenings books. Today the weather keeps changing, clouds drift over the ridge and block the sun and it's dark and cool, then it clears and the sun's out and it's hot . It's been low 80's in the day and mid 60's at night, except for the dark rainy days . Cool front's coming in tomorrow and I'm glad we have a few extra blankets around.
Over the winter our friend Tom and helper Andy drywalled our 2 room cabin. For 2 summers we've been looking at the framing stuffed with insulation and covered by plastic. It's the only part of the construction we didn't actually do ourselves and it was strange to see it so different. When we first arrived we did some finishing on the front room. Originally designed to be Dan's creative room and a small studio it's now transformed into the music room where we keep our instruments ( guitar, bass, keyboard, marimba and new harp ). It also houses Dan's computer where he is diligently working on programming the kiosk to display his teleidoscopic photo art.
Our first project was to paint the room, hang a ceiling fan, lay a floor and stain and put up the trim. I've put some pictures up of what we've done. At the moment we've got both rooms in the one room as a few days ago I painted the floor in the second room, our makeshift bedroom which was originally designed to be my practice room, with some leftover oil based barn paint. We did hang a fan in there and it's still airing out. Let's see I painted on Wednesday and it's Saturday now. I'm hoping we can move back in tomorrow, although having the bed in the finished room with our new sheets has made it seem like staying in a hotel. Although I don't normally hang my PJ's on the marimba at those.
Every day I spend a few hours at the harp. Learning a new instrument is a true test of patience. I thought it would be more painful as well, but aside from the tedium of playing everything very simply and slowly, the calluses are building up naturally and I can practice as long as I can concentrate. I always take some time later in the day to just play as well. A few Celtic tunes, variations on Pachelbel's Cannon and Ode to Joy and just jamming.
We picked up the harp on the way up and got to go the workshop where it was made and met the designer and his apprentice who actually built my harp. It was exciting for him too as he doesn't always get to meet the people he makes the instrument for. The harp is a Dreamweaver and is from Heartland Harps in North Carolina. It's a 34 string harp and made out of laminted birch, so it's very light weight ( 21 pounds ). It has a clear lovely sound and I am getting very comfortable with it. Playing the harp is so intimate, it snuggles up and leans on your right shoulder and you bring your arms around it and play it's strings. The notes and music make perfect sense to me. The mechanics of placing your hands and playing are taking some time. It's been just over two weeks now so I've come a long way quickly, but still ache to play with more fluidity.
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