Dear Diary . . . day by day

Monday, June 19th - Full Moon Music
Jeff is a great person to go camping with. Aside from the fact that he's energetic but easy-going, he also is an incredibly creative, talented musician. Is there a more soothing place to be than resting in a hammock under huge redwoods listening to a dear friend deftly strum his fingers over an Oud, letting the medieval melodies waft over you in a sylvan paradise? Not to mention dancing around our fire under a full moon while he dum-tekka-tekked amazing complicated rhythms on his tar. I lost all inhibitions and really let myself go, dancing and feeding off his drumming energies, sending them back and receiving them until we'd built something otherworldly. We're getting to be very close as friends.
We were at Hendy Woods State Park and we had a huge campsite. We put the tent in a clearing so that the door looked out at two fallen, moss-covered trees that made a V-shaped couch. It never rains, so we left the rain-fly off and enjoyed a 180 view of the redwoods above the tent from inside. Another clearing was our yoga room - it had lovely trees surrounding it and sun streamed through them in the morning - we spread out an old blanket and did yoga there in the mornings. There was also a dark spot which featured a gigantic stump that looked like a throne - our Throne Room, which later became the nighttime bathroom (appropriate for a throne room, no?).
The park is small enough that you can just hike out of the campgrounds into the forest. The glade of Redwoods was enormous and flat - it was like strolling through a park made for giants, the hiking was so easy. The path up to the hermit huts - left-over dwelling from a man who lived the last 20 years of his life there, hiding from the Russian Army after WWII - was more steep, yet still not too hard of a hike. There were so many nooks and crannies in that forest - it truly felt enchanted. I told Jeff about the Ents from Lord of the Rings (he hasn't read those books yet!) and truly expected the gigantic trees to bend down and pick me up - I was as small as a hobbit in comparison.
I didn't do as much writing as I had hoped; maybe if I had a laptop, though it's questionable. It was so good not to drive or check email or answer a phone for two whole days!
We came back and had 45 minutes to get ready for the symphony that night. What a lovely juxtaposition! The music was Steve Reich's Music for 18 musicians - full of marimbas, bassoon, cello, violin, sopranos, tenors and a couple of grand pianos. Jeff had played it on the way up to Mendicino just as we were heading up into the mountains, so it made a perfect bookend for our weekend. It's heady stuff - full of austere, swelling sound but neutral in emotion, much like nature. My heart was full as I let the live music wash me cleaner than my earlier shower had. Truly beautiful.
Exercise log:
Hiking. Lots and lots of hiking and camping and all the extra energy that sort of activity entails. I also did a good amount of wild, uninhibited dancing around the campfire Friday night. Incredible.
I'm currently reading:
The Fall of Atlantis by Marion Zimmer Bradley

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