It's all fiber art

If this was obvious to you long ago, pardon my obtuseness. It dawned on me while lying on my back after a routine (slow) three-mile run. I put on a record, drank some water, and lay down on the floor to stretch. Isabel the cat slithered by and curled up on the middle of my chest. David Grisman and friends played their own "Dawg" fusion of jazz and bluegrass on the stereo. The sun slowly set on another day in Methodistville.

As my spine extends snake-like on the reed mat, hips tilt open to the sides and shoulders rotate in circles, my eyes gaze up toward the cedar ceiling. Breathe in, breathe out, absorb, release. I notice my attention moving from trapezius muscles to the fiddle solo to the grain of the wood to the piriformis muscle to the mandolin to Isabel purring and the pull of gravity on my sacrum, knees, shoulder blades, and head. I do a few stretches with my legs, which changes the tension in the abs; the guitar and bass do their thing; eyes move from board to board across the ceiling, taking in the color and texture of the wood; Isabel saunters off to continue her nap elsewhere.

All this analysis and description is after the fact, of course. At the time, it's one continuous stream of sensory input coming in on multiple channels, weaving or spinning or flowing together, and I get the feeling that my fibers are vibrating with the other string instruments and the unpainted wood ceiling.

Fugue for muscle, nerve, bone, gut, steel, nylon, and cellulose.