Horse v.s. Bike

Today is a jewelry / excavating the stained glass workspace day because it's raining and also my neck and head are killing me. Sometimes when I put in a ton of welding hours this happens because the helmet can begin to feel like one of those heavy, towering, Vegas showgirl headdresses after a while causing the tectonic plates in my head to shift and crackle every time I move.

The good news is my brain is beginning to daydream a bit more in images now. This is a necessary shift. I'm happy for my artwork, and especially for the patient, very nice, Wisconsinite Unitarians, whose commission I didn't want to work on in the mode I've been in. They definitely deserve unobstructed "good flow" art. Now that the pump is finally being primed I can let ideas roll around like rocks in a tumbler and see what gems dump out at the end. The only part about this I don't like is that the shift causes me to kind of "lose" my characters, and that feels scary and lonely, but I've been through it a few times and just have to trust they'll be back when I have time again. I'll be able to write my way back in.

When I went mountain biking recently it had me comparing jumping horses to riding the mountain bike trail. Here are some observations.

1) Weight in your feet, loose hands. With jumping you have to give the horse enough room to do what he needs to with his head, and balance yourself off the saddle by standing on the stirrups. Same thing (kind of) with biking the trail. The front of the bike jumps around a little. You need to hang on enough to control it, but let it do what it has to do too. You're weight is mainly in the back wheel.

2) You go where you're looking. This is apparently bio mechanics. Your head weighs a lot. The horse can feel where you're looking and will head that direction. On a bike it must be a combo of self-fulfilling prophecy and balance. Same thing with surfing btw.

3) When you stop-- suddenly or otherwise-- on a horse, it doesn't fall over on it's side (Good lord! Hopefully!). On the bike you need to be able to get your feet to the ground in a pinch. This is why if I want to keep doing this I'll need a girl bike eventually. Dan's has a tendency to smash the living heck out of my girlnads.

4) The bravery factor-- and learning the course. You get better, and more nerve, the more successful runs you have. It's a bit of a mental game as well.

For something totally different today music-wise check out an amazing artist I learned about on npr's "Radio Lab" (highly recommended listening-- free podcast)--- Zoe Keating. She loops her own cello music through her computer, allowing her to play the cello somewhat like a piano-- layering the sound. Haunting and beautiful. I really lost myself in it for a while.