This week I couldn’t not keep my eyes off of the sky. Its not usual for me to become so obsessed with what the clouds look like, but for some reason I could not stop staring. They weren’t traditionally interesting clouds, with the colors of red, orange, pinks, and purples. These clouds were more like an array of a hundred shades of white to black. It gave the sky so much depth, and also was a warning of the rain to come, or that already passed.

This weekend I had a fair amount of time to spend in Seattle. I got in on friday and visited an old friend I hadn’t seen in a while, and that night I went out and drank with some other friends in Belltown. It was great time filled with laughter, great drinks, and good food. I was also able to hear a lot of music that night traveling from bar to bar. The next day was time for some work, I left early in the morning from my friends home to go into other parts of the city and start sketching. I thought it would be a fun and easy experience, but I actually became frustrated very quickly. I never thought that I was good at sketching necessarily, but I didn’t think I would struggle so hard at representing what I was seeing at all. It was very hard for me to accurately capture what I was looking at, and it wasn’t so much that I was sad I couldn’t draw it well, but that I was not necessarily able to show the scene so that everyone else could recognize it later. Nevertheless, I moved on and kept trying. I first stopped in in the U-District, my old home, and sat at a coffee shop next door to my old house to draw the street. After that, I left to Greenlake and then Discovery Park. All these places offered different sounds to hear while I was sitting and sketching. The U-District felt sleepy, probably because I was there so early, but it built in noise overtime. Greenlake was full of sounds of peoples radios, as well as the fleeting noises of conversations passing by me. Discovery Park was the most serine with the wind being the most noticeable thing. That night I stayed at my sisters home in Queen Anne, it was great to see my niece and nephew, and sleep in a bed instead of on a couch. The next day I walked from Queen Anne to Pioneer Square, along the way I heard a great number of things; the noise of people shopping, the radio from the cars, street performers, and the sirens from the police. I took this walk not only to listen and see, but because I was headed to a Sounders game at Century Link Feild. It was the Seattle Sounders vs the Portland Timbers, which is a pretty important game. This was by far the most musical place I went as we sang chants from day to night. Its always great to experience music like that, even though they are not the most complex songs, the energy they provide to so many people is intoxicating.

It is hard to believe that in 24 hours I will be in a car driving to New Orleans, then Alabama. I am so excited to get this little road trip going! It may be about halfway through the quarter, but for me it feels like things are just taking off. First I have this trip to go on, to listen and experience things I never have before; and then I will come back to Seattle, where I have plenty of shows and museums to attended as well as starting the recording process. Today when thinking about the road trip I was struck by the simple yet important realisation that the sounds I hear will be different from home in the most fundamental ways. Yes, there is still wind sounds and rain sounds but they will be hitting and blowing a different kind of tree, over a different landscape, at a different temperature, ect. Even though the environmental sounds are similar, it is like the song is being played on different instruments. As I said before I have really only traveled pretty close to where I grew up, and even though I have been to Alabama before, I know I have not looked and listened to it like I will be on this trip.