Andrew is reading a cognitive psych book he's talked about some. He said the author says low mental focus is emotion-driven, creative thought, while high mental focus is clear, logical thought.

I'm thinking about it as I drive around in the rain alone with the music turned up, the destination distancing and the comfort growing in the power I exercised to impose isolation.

I'm thinking about the hours I've spent moving with music plugged into my ears and I don't care what music that is as long as it facilitates imagination. Sometimes this way of being engenders writing material.

I'm thinking too about the processes required to pay sufficient attention to the road while other worlds grow in my head. And thinking about the hours walking dark city streets or those same streets during the day, in rain or not. And, what about all the hours on buses?

I don't know why today I wanted to listen to Sarah MacLachlan's Surfacing. It just seemed that kind of weather. So I came home on my way from one place to somewhere else and dug the CD out from one of the boxes of CDs I keep but don't listen to.

I remember buying the CD because one of the songs (I can't remember which) was very popular in Korea while I was there. It played everywhere, from stores to cafes to taxi radios. I liked it. But I got tired of it and the album not too long after. For lack of understanding it better, it seems I outgrew the mood.

So it's been a long time since I listened to it when it wasn't part of someone else's background. When it started to play today, it was one of those time tricks when the world changed to the color it was during the time I listened to the CD most. I listened to it many times after I bought it, of course. But the only time that sticks is maybe five minutes four years ago on a bus coming back to central Seoul from north Kyonggi province.

It was blue-cold. Indisputably. The country was so thoroughly frozen it was buried in ice and our breaths froze to the glass and denied outdoor views. I kept rubbing the frost off so I could see. And out there the moisture in the air, frozen, seemed to refract the night to illuminate concrete, metal, light and the shadows with midnight hues.

It was eight hours on the bus that day and I could've traveled longer for the enjoyment of my thoughts and the hidden place the music created for them.

I remember not needing to speak to anyone. I could go on like that for days when I lived there, and sometimes I did. Dave sat next to me the whole trip and we hardly spoke. He never listened to music but I knew his thoughts were as far away from reality as mine. I couldn't understand where, without music, he conjured and stored his creations.

Blue lonely.

Man, only the world was a companion at that point. Any stillness forced the truth of that startling paradox of feeling isolated in a relationship.

Today was rainy and gelid and the undaunted grey Seattle always is under these conditions. Driving around I ruminated on the power of music to elicit clear and poignant remembrance. I thought about how a year ago I was in Korea again with Angela. I thought about the people I know there and imagined how they appear at various points in their daily routine. And I thought about how I'm ready to travel again, somewhere else.