The old dear slipping a cog? Nope. Not at all, thank you ... .

Reading back through the last few days of posts it occurred to me that anyone reading them might erroneously conclude that the old lady has lost it. Reads absolutely manic, doesn't it?

In the event that the mood swings might suggest otherwise, let me assure you that they are more an indication of the hugeness of the world I move around in, and the enormity of what is out there to be sensed and felt and tasted and perceived -- and that give me a way to measure my own capacity to be open enough to let it all in without self-destructing. Writing is the way I sort through it all, and the means by which I'm able to make sense of the wild places these brain cells take me to if I don't allow the censors in to shut down those nerve endings and slow the synapses.

Wondered as I was dropping off into that quiet edge of consciousness just before deep sleep last night -- if what I'm experiencing as I age up into my "wisdom" (presumably) -- if I'm not tapping into that wildly open-to-learning-everything space that we experience in the ages from birth through 3 or 4 years-old? That period before we reach the place in childhood where compulsion to conform begins to erode curiosity. I'm certain that all of the people that I ever was are alive in me still and that I draw upon earlier parts of myself as the noise and the busyness of the world allows. There's something that feels quite primitive going on these days; something I can't name. But it's all good. No pathology here.

Of this I am certain.

... and this afternoon I'm going to attend a Mother's Day Gospel Concert at Star Bethel Baptist Church in Oakland. Weird for a non-believer? Not at all. There's a quality of profound faith in the black church that I can witness no other place on earth, except for a moment or two last winter while standing transfixed at the south rim of the Grand Canyon. Black gospel music is glorious! Count it another dimension of existence. It needs no rationale. Nothing to prove. Check intellect at the door and join the shoutin'! The hats, alone, provide enough drama and color to satisfy most saints, surely! Next Sunday I'll visit with Mozart and Brahms and Haydn at a chamber music concert at Davies Hall in S.F., but today it's the celebration of Hallelujah! There's no earthly dimension that could simultaneously accommodate such diverse cultures -- but they co-exist within me -- and quite comfortably, thank you -- as do all of the apparent contradictions I wrote about the failures of public education and the exaltation of living those few hours with the fourth graders at Joaquin Miller School on Friday.

I see few inconsistencies, only Dimensions!