The art of being late

Fashionably late, beautifully late, dripping in jewels with diamonds at your feet, irrationally late, debatably late, whispered cocoons of well-spun envy. The art of being late. Something intrinsically alien to me, an acquired taste, inpalatable somehow. And here I am, at maida vale studios next to some band on their coffee break as I consider my two-hour wait. Why the *%# did I not receive the message? Lie-in, my brethren, magic away that jetlag! I stare down distastefully into my swimming pool coffee and hear my mind whir into battle. Find the library, the music you need in a month’s time, Boring Solemnis by someone called Beethoven, use your time wisely, rub out any ugly etched-in markings. I wonder at the heiroglyphics that some bassoonists seem to knife into their parts, ugly echoes of bygone rehearsals. So hard to rub out. The pretty handwriting I let be, the scrolling “mp”s or the lilting “hush”s usually exclusive to half eaten parts 100 years old or more. Japan is still in my mind, my body, the lights and air and charm, the programmes. That’s where I am, 9 hours early into the future. I recall a mindfulness class, “feel the space between your eyebrows”. It starts to tingle. I never get further than ‘scanning’ my face. Asleep by the time the other yogis are blissfully AWARE.
I would sometimes like to disappear, apologise for who I am and what I am. Too much resistance. Too many idiots. But there is nothing better than the music and within that is the timing. Not late or early, just there and for that I am thankful.