Notes from a colony stay

Here, at the colony, I have a composer’s studio on the bottom floor of one of the cottages. It faces a line of trees that borders a sunlit field—squirrels scamper about, chipmunks chase each other, and once, I surprised a hedgehog coming out of my studio. It leapt into the path, landed on its back, and scrambled about for a while recovering itself. My room has curtains and a piano, which I opened only once. The piano is big, black; its solidity in the room gives me courage.

It a fall-feeling day, but I can see on the bare branches outside my window some kind of growth, new buds forming. What I will take with me, in addition to a heftier manuscript are these indelible images: a black and white wall against which I read, a turn-of-the last century tycoon’s crumbling playa entrance, the faces of new friends, a woodchuck sitting proprietarily on a pile of wood surveying a field…