The lounge at Fuerteventura Airport is neither great nor actively bad. It does have an outside area, and the weather here is great, like it’s been all day, or rather all of the Kreativurlaub.
Getting up at eight, having breakfast and doing a round of Schmendrik as a Service (read: „work with AI“) seemed almost second nature by now, and after exchanging a phone call with Bettina, I said bye to Carolina (staff) and Didi (cat) and went for a lengthy swim in the Atlantic.
The remaining gear was packed, time was spent at the pool (which is a nice one), and the lead into departure – checking out, having the guys grab the luggage, ordering a club sandwich and wine at the Ginger Bar, then going for a smoke looking out over the Atlantic, and upon returning being addressed by „Sir, your taxi has arrived“ felt like something out of an ancient movie starring Cary Grant. I like those movies.
Risco de Gato
I’m looking back at two weeks of music-making, two weeks of The Atlantic, two weeks of great food and drinks. And two weeks of cats. „They are part of the family“ is what the hotel’s general manager told me. And I consider that a good thing.
And it was also an experiment in how spending time away from home and alone would work for me – that’s something I haven’t done outside a business context for more than ca. ten hours at a time for ca. 13 years. But before that, an experiment in how I would be able to create music in such a setting. No people I know around, coverage of my needs by a competent team, and me not being forced to but also not finding excuses not to write music.
Did it work?
Creativity Has Latitude
It’s easy to make something work if you set your goals accordingly. Which in this case was „let’s do it and see what happens“. So I did it, saw what happened, even documented it (mostly in photos, manuscript papers and lean physical Kanban), so it did work.
And while doing that, I did in no specific order:
- complete the remaining track for minmax, for which I made a pretty nifty way of composing,
- based on that, define a cover art concept for minmax,
- complete, start or completely do tracks for Altherrenrunde
- as well as other pieces of music,
- including a track that would sit well in the lounge of a club somewhere in the Southern Atlantic.
On the side, I did also enjoy local and Nikkei cuisine, the Atlantic, and the generally nice vibes of the place. I even got to experience Yin Yoga.
Be Felix, not Maurice
So how about velocity? Did it live up to that of the big writing session during October or November of 2024 for MAX? Prolly not, but that wasn’t the goal. Did it produce something worthwhile? Sure did. Did it double as relaxation, vacation even? Yes on both counts.
And I could have kept that vacation running for just a bit longer. But I’m also glad to return home, to Dr. Emmy Noether, to Sieglinde, and to Bettina. Tomorrow will just be another day.
No, it won’t. I got all the completed artifacts to catch up on, let alone the wealth of experience.
Let’s do that again.