I'm a little freaked out. I need a piece of toast. Sometime early, before I was fully awake, I clocked in a brief little prayer that somebody on the confirmed list for the upcoming week-long retreat in October could drop out so that I, sitting on the wait list for the last few months, would get an e-mail saying do you want the spot that just opened up? I just got an e-mail. There's a spot for me. My habit is now not to spend a lot of time in forming my answers for things. I used to do that—like a paragraph or two already composed in my head. This time the response in my shock was to sit with the feeling, spin a few fantasies about unnamed consequences and then respond with one word: yes. All of the usual things that are familiar signposts—analysis, fear, paranoia definitely, rationalizations for sure—and yet I'm booked! Sweet! Not what I thought my day was gonna go like today. I've recently crept back into Facebook very gingerly and the pull is extraordinary. This came about because my little brother who is obsessed with flea markets and antique shops emailed me a picture of a circa1885Clariona that he had seen—a very basic type of organ that uses paper rolls, operates with a crank and has a cool feature that has been described as a swell box or pipe chamber, which makes it sound a little bit like a harmonica waah-waah. He just wouldn't let it go so I said well I'm not going out all the way to Martinez, maybe I'll call him and have him play it for me over the phone, and he responded do you want me to drive you out there? I said oh you mean like a field trip? Sure why not. He wrote back ah kell err? The result is I now have yet another music box except it's not really a music box despite what the enduring little clueless price tag on it said. I had jumped on Facebook to check in with my old mechanical music colleagues from the old days, there aren't very many of them left and just ask straight up: anybody seen one of these? And of course, they've seen everything, so sure they said yeah that's a Clariona, and so-and-so makes new rolls for it outta Tennessee. One guy even said the thing that I was expecting him to say, that they always say: looks sweet… I'd snap it up if it's in good condition (it is but I didn't know that at the time). The contrasting opinion is forever: they're asking way too much, probably drank the kool-aid thinking 'it just needs a l'il work' when it clearly would cost an arm and a leg to fix assuming nobody else already tried and messed it up from galldurn ignorance. What I'm really enjoying is a sense I have of being quite mellow about this because, frankly, I have so many music boxes I really don't need another one. I truly think that temptation is not that big a deal. I can walk away if it doesn't pass the smell test! In fact I have to say being thoroughly in it for the fun instead of having any agenda whatsoever including not worrying about whether my brother flakes on me or not. (Actually a safe bet, since he wouldn't when it comes to antiques, unfortunately for somebody who is in fact too tempted and apt to get himself in trouble.) We just survived this horrendous heat wave and I suppose I was more than ready for a little jaunt. This is old news but I am still wrestling with what it means to accept things as they are unfurling in front of me. It's very hard not to project forward because I have sat in the car with my brother and man, he has a real hard time just being quiet. Not really fair in this case because we grew up in this area and we have a million stories, just driving down a particular road. So yeah that's not really fair. The idea that this field trip would be one of any particular quality other than the usual was not terribly realistic. What is new though, is my sense of I really don't care how this goes as long as I'm enjoying myself and I'm present. Which has the curious effect of, I wanna say, infusing the atmosphere with a kind of pleasant invisible imperceptible scent. Of course as soon as we got to Martinez, I was channeling my mother at times. She had a very specific way of dealing with shopkeepers. Especially if it had anything to do with vintage or antiques. If you are revisiting a shop, you walk in, you never never never go directly to something you've already seen and immediately haggle. My brother got out of the car and went in, making a beeline for the Clariona. I was behind him going sotto voce hang on hang on hang on. Didn't matter. He's got his own style. Want to hear if it plays? Take it off the shelf! It turned out okay but mostly because I took over, being familiar with protocols for these puppies, and truth be told of all the people this particular seller would have wanted in his shop picking things up off shelves, me and my brother are the safest of his choices. Just saying. Where my mother would engage with chit chat and secretly gaining points because of her cute little French accent, she would also run a very great and real risk of alienating with—sorry to say—some pretty harsh condemnations of things. Like that's notgenuine, that's not agate that'sfulmercium, that's from 1860 not 1820. She loved to share but she also loved to Lord it over people that she knew more than they did. I wonder how many times she scotched a deal because of that… I, on the other hand, get an hour and a half or so of confirmation around leaving that behind. In fact I love talking about mechanical music and even if the person is not as let's say educated about it that's fine. I'm just enjoying sharing. And as it turned out there was a little bit of a mystery around the swell box since my brother had taken the initial photo to show me and it revealed that there is no consensus around the orientation. It gets a little fiddly and overcomplicated but the short version is that if it's on there correctly, the design makes sense musically. The other way? Not so much. I was happy to admit that after I pronounced something, I was actually mistaken: nope, that's not right. I'm full of prunes. I've also borrowed something shamelessly from my former therapist. He always insisted on names. My mother my son my grandson, didn't matter he wanted to know their name and thereafter would make concerted effort to remember all the names and stop me if I said something other than a name. It's not so much a payoff as it is a gift to somebody to actually ask what their name is and then respond by saying their name. Granted I remember the first guy's name Orville, but I don't remember the woman's name who was running the transaction, who was really nice actually. As I was waxing euphoric about appropriate placement for musical resonance yet sorrowful that someone else at home in the parlor might be forced to share a platform, my brother Tim pointedly headed outside and stood in front with the box in his arms. I said he's alright with pack mule duty but he probably wants to get going. And "Carol" responded well sounds like he better watch out he might be sleeping on the couch! We said our goodbyes and I exited the shop with the bag of rolls. Barely made it out to sidewalk and half-way cross the street told him guess what? She thinks we're married! We both burst out laughing.