reverse threading

the path back is the path forward

Category Archives: sisu


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kintsugi-ing. [kerri’s blog on not-so-flawed wednesday]

we had a list of possibilities. it was a list of things to do, places to go before or during christmas. since our adult children and their partners would not be here, we knew we needed to keep busy, to create more hustle and bustle. missing your grown-up kids is ever-present, even when you are happy for them.

so we started a list: the botanic garden lightscape display, the garden domes, splitting a burger at a favorite bistro in a little town square across from the gazebo lit with christmas tree and menorah, a park festive with big illuminated balls of color. we included luminaria, a bonfire on christmas eve, singing carols around the piano in my studio.

as it turned out, we lit three luminaria and, on a rainy christmas eve, placed them inside, in front of our fireplace.

and we hiked on christmas day. bundled up, we took to our loop – this place where – for years now – we have sorted through life.

yesterday (which isn’t really yesterday now but is last week) we had a hard day. i wonder how many of us had a hard day. it was the day after christmas, the day when you realize all the hoopla is over, all the preparations done, the anticipation breathing a sigh. it is the day that sort of places you back into the calendar, a place that had – temporarily – been suspended in celebration, big or little.

it was on that day i realized we had not stood at the piano and sang carols.

this is the fifth year we – or even i – have not stood at the piano – any piano, any where – and sang carols.

i thought i was ready.

because five years is a long time for someone who spent most of her adult life – at christmas – creating experiences through music – for christmas.

i thought that carols would be the way back in, the easiest path back.

but somehow it got lost in whatever else we did on those two days of christmasing.

and, when it dawned on me we hadn’t, it didn’t fall gently.

in some self-indulgent raw disclosure to you, i can say this fiveyears has taken a toll. i can see now that being fired broke my spirit, that being fired triggered unmentionable earlier pain that further entrenched the breaking.

and i wonder now if it wasn’t so much about stopping my music. i wonder if breaking my spirit was actually their intention.

wow.

healing takes a long time.

and now this is the last day left to this year and we will cross into the year when i will turn 67. and i shake my head – vehemently, to unstick the clinging tarry goo – and throw a rope to my spirit that is trying to tread the water of eh-it’s-ok.

it’s done. it’s enough.

i have decided to decide.

i’m not positive that is possible; i’m not even sure that is possible.

but this piano-less existence is hard and i wonder if it is harder than what it will actually feel like AT the piano.

it won’t be carols.

but it will be something. something gut-worthy of answering the tug, something that makes me show up, that makes the walls of my studio vibrate with fortissimo and neck-crane to hear breath in the rests.

in the new year, little by little. kintsugi-ing.

and – even now – even in the middle of deciding to decide – part of me wants to add: maybe.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY

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clematis sisu. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

clematis is known as the “queen of climbers”. it is symbolic of ingenuity, cleverness, mental strength, all clearly relevant to this vine climbing with abandon, climbing wild and free.

out back – next to our potting stand, completely covering the metal peace sign we purchased at a tiny garden shop on the great river road, trying desperately to overtake the tomato plants on the ground and the basil on the barnwood stand – there is a clematis vine. unlike this purple clematis, it is sweet autumn clematis and will have tiny fragrant white flowers late this summer. we didn’t plant this. it was planted by our eastneighbors a few years back, seemingly to block the open visual space between yards created by the wrought iron topper to their otherwise privacy fence. in the last couple years they have not tended nor encouraged this clematis.

but it is unstoppable.

on our side of the fence it is exploding. it doesn’t seem to favor nor suffer the hot weather, the dry days, the stormy torrential rain and wind; it is ambivalent to the forecast and presses on, despite any challenges, regardless of anything in its way. the clematis finds its way around – or through – and continues growing – a burgeoning bundle of green that each day swells in size, thriving on the fence and the potting stand and the tomato and the basil’s clay pot and our wrought iron gate and scrappily winding its way through the ornamental grasses along our lot line. flourishing, flourishing.

it is not unlike women.

and right now, with the warped, conservative, backward, rights-thwarting, chauvinistic, misogynistic, downright hateful view being thrust upon this nation as policy on women, we must draw on clematis-sisu.

recently someone read a post i had written a few years back – one that included reference to an even earlier post from december 2019. it seems inexorably relevant right now and, with your grace for repetition, i’m reposting it here:

“this piece today is dedicated to all the women who have made it through, all the women who are making it through, all the women who will make it through.

your fire has brought you to the edge of the battlefield many times and you have still made lemonade; you have still prevailed.

you have made it through intensely emotionally abusive relationships.  you have picked up the pieces and you have moved on.

you have made it through physical or sexual abuse.  you have risen from the ashes.

you have made it through terrifying health scares.  you have pulled up your boot straps and determinedly plodded through with massive courage.

you have made it through society’s prioritizing of body image and appearance.  you have been measured by your cleavage or lack thereof, by the indent of your waist, by the clothing you choose, by your hair.  you struggle to remember you are beautiful.  you stand tall.

you have made it through vacuumous times, the middle of chaos, the middle of multi-tasking.  you have created.

you have made it through physical summit experiences.  you have scaled mountains.  you have boarded down untracked chutes.  you have trained your body with weights and exercise.  you have run.  you have skated.  you have pedaled.  you have breathed in and sighed an exhale.  you’ve run thousands of lengths of playing fields.  you took the next painful recuperating step.  you dove to the depths.  you have been on world stages.  you have risen with hungry or fevered children night after night.  you have competed.  you have given birth.

you have made it through falling.  you have made mistakes.  you have been human.  you have forgiven and you have been forgiven.

you have made it through an education steeped in gender-inequality and bias.   you have chosen to learn more, to actively seek the resources, rights and opportunities due you, to resist against the discrimination.

you have made it through a system that undermines your success and devalues your value.  you have fought for your place.

you have made it through financial challenges of single womanhood, of single motherhood.  you have been scrappy and, without complaint, you have layered onto yourself however much it took to get it done.

you have made it through work situations where you’ve questioned how you would be treated were you to be a man.  would you be yelled at?  would your professionalism be questioned?  you have asked these questions.  you have stayed, holding steadfast, or you have moved on; you have decided what is best for you and moved in that direction.

you have made it through the skewed-world fray into leadership roles where your every decision is challenged or thwarted.  you have overcome; you have triumphed.

you have made it through being-too-young and through aging.  and you are not irrelevant.

you have made it through.  you have spoken up, spoken back, spoken for.  you have written letters.  you have marched.

you have been pushed around.  but you have pushed back.  and, just like the tortoise [in the photograph accompanying this post], you have made it through.“

we are clematis. we are women. we are: all the women who have made it through, all the women who are making it through, all the women who will make it through.

scrappy.

like a vine.

with abandon.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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the weirder, the better. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

“you are a child of the universe. no less than the trees and the stars, you have a right to be here.” (desiderata)

i don’t suppose i ever really fit in. i was the youngest in my family – separated by a decade – while most of my friends had siblings their own age. i grew up in a neighborhood where the kids were somehow athletically gifted, while i took organ and piano lessons and sat in my tree writing poetry. an early entrepreneur, i pulled a wagon around our neighborhood selling baby cactus cuttings and candles i had made. i didn’t go to – or get invited to – wild parties or cut class or skip my homework. i took bike-hikes and walked on the beach in the winter while everyone was at the mall or the bowling alley or the movies. i didn’t listen to the stones or grateful dead or led zeppelin (with the exception, of course, of stairway to heaven – everyone’s prom theme). i listened to john denver and gordon lightfoot and the carpenters. i wore off-brand clothing and didn’t keep up with fashion trends. my momma bought me less expensive boy-pants and found the offbeat stores for shoes-that-look-like-trendy-shoes-but-are-not, like my cherished construction boots. my first car was my dad’s vw beetle, nothing fancy but beloved. i had numerous part-time jobs through high school and then in college and knew the joy of serving corn flakes to both me and my dog missi for dinner. i never thought of myself as weird. but i suppose – if one considers the definition “may have unusual habits, interests or ways of thinking that set them apart” it could be true. i don’t see that as negative, though i also suppose that – depending on the way you see yourself fitting into the world – one might consider it such.

so the sticker “stay weird” hung upside down and backwards made me laugh aloud. somehow my laughter summoned mary oliver and she and i enjoyed a good chuckle about the infinite extraordinary of the insignificant and the everyday, the value of seeing the usual through a filter of unusual.

weird took a very long hiatus – it was safer, less vulnerable, and kept me out of trauma i had shelved. i pursued the inevitability of having to make money, to help support a household in a more meaningful way than the way of an artist. for this society – though its love for the arts is profound, its support of the arts is less so.

it was after my children were born, after the imperative was too loud to ignore, after the perils shushed a bit – when it was time to start releasing music. writing, practicing, recording, performing, marketing, booking, hawking – none of this is necessarily standard-work fare – it is unusual, it is tenuous, it requires a bit of courage. it doesn’t have the same parameters as a workday in corporate or structured america. it has no guarantees of reward, no regular paycheck. it is steeped in personal challenges, the need to be scrappy and the sisu to put it out there.

in the time that was the heyday of my recording career i would call absolutely anyone, regardless of their position. as the owner/artist of my label i have talked directly to vice presidents of sales of barnes and noble and borders books and music, owners of publishing houses, the personal managers of ridiculously successful recording/performing artists. i’ve sat in j. peterman’s messy office chatting (of the j.peterman catalog and seinfeld fame) and in the spare chair of radio program directors. i’ve danced across the stage at qvc-tv under a disco ball and played songs live over phone conferences with oncological pharma higher-ups. i’ve stood in the rain on flatbeds playing, embraced boom mics over my piano on theatre stages of all sizes, sang in front of 35000 people in support of cancer survivorship in central park. pushing the boundaries, carrying a little chutzpah along with belief in my own artistry was everyday life – and necessary. and i’d remind myself each time i picked up the phone or stepped into the unknown the very fact that we all breathe in and out the same way. this thing we have in common, i would tell myself – breathing. surely i could connect on that most basic of levels.

as outside the conventional box as it all seems, i didn’t feel weird. i felt in my skin.

and so, apparently, the weird continues. we know we are different than others. we have a certain run-and-jump into vulnerability that others do not. we have a certain pull towards creating, experimenting, learning – all in the public eye. we share because we have to, not because anyone has to receive it.

so, yes, the “stay weird” sticker really spoke to me.

though my life – and our life – is quite a bit different than the traditional lives or retirements of lovely people we know and care about, it is somehow just right for us. i never forget the corn flakes and he never forgets the sleeping bag in his studio space. every everything counts and we are reflexively careful about not being frivolous. for us, weird has granted us a certain appreciation of the littlest things, honoring simplicity and leftover pasta, redundant black thermal shirts and a shared bin of socks, used notebooks and repurposing taken to a new level.

what one does with one’s “wild and precious life”*…

the weirder, the better.

*****

(*mary oliver)

read DAVID’s thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

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fervent fern. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

they unfurled from their tiny seahorse stage into real-live ferns in what seemed like moments. all of a sudden, there they were – a whole corner garden of ferns. so incredibly green. lush.

but – even in their zealous and prolific growth – they are fragile. their fronds fall victim to the wind or the dogga’s curiosity, and they are knocked over, with – seemingly – no chance of revival. it seems – perhaps – safer to be in the middle of the bunch of ferns in the garden, rather than on the outskirts.

and i find myself nodding my head, as any artist might nod her head. yes. indeed. safer to be in the middle than on the outskirts, than life as an outlier.

when i finally felt safe enough – when the imperative was too much to ignore any longer – for me to pursue my own artistry – to leave the middle – i knew it was a different route. it would not be the interstate to success. instead, it would be a challenge to stay upright – to keep reaching – when the perils of the outskirts were plentiful.

i knew i should have kept on the road earlier, but there were things that precluded me – that hushed me – and i largely put aside that desperate voice inside of me begging to come back out – the one i had quashed so many years – decades – prior.

but the tiny seahorse fern in me didn’t give up. it kept nagging me until it was finally ok to face the perils.

and i began to write – with the fervency of the ferns in our back garden. my piano was never silent. i kept unfurling, reaching to the sun – an artist coming out of fallow.

and there was music. and more music. the compositions, the songs, the albums populated the garden rapidly – there was much time for which to make up. stages and boom mics and product boxes were the accoutrements of my life. and i could only imagine – and still wonder – what might have happened had it all started earlier, had i fronded in earlier life.

it remains a mystery.

even now – in which the unsuspected and life have mown down some of the outer fronds – there is a core, a center of gravity that holds the fern-muse.

though fragile on the exterior, we are never really broken to the core. there is still time – there is healing, there is a new spring.

there is a fern garden ripe for more ferns.

*****

WATERSHED © 2004 kerri sherwood

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read DAVID’s thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

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to be a tree. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

this is the year.

breck is strong, its trunk is solid, it’s rooted and feels grounded as it grows not only taller, but seems to have more and more branches filled with more and more beautiful aspen leaves.

this is the year. breck is a tree.

in the last years of saplinghood, our tiny aspen has had more than its share of challenges. from its beginnings in a pot we carried from city market in breckenridge to its ability to withstand the seasons in a big clay pot on our deck to being planted in a dark corner feathery fern garden where it suffocatingly couldn’t fully see the sun to transplanting to a different garden out back, the curving of its trunk as the west winds buffeted its more fragile spirit, its fight to resiliently stand tall, its skinny jack-in-the-beanstalk growth last year, odd leafing and an infestation of aphids, ants and wasps. and now, there it is – right there, out back – proudly standing tall, loved through it all. rooted, grounded, healthy.

i would draw the parallel between me and breck and our last few years were it not to be that i’d like to linger more in now, look more toward next. the challenges have been plentiful, the sun minimal, the wind battering, the growth sporadic.

but i would also draw the parallel between me and breck – once you get some real roots under you, once you transplant out of the dark corner garden, once you feel the sun and can breathe in fresh air, once you fight to stay centered, once you steadfastly feel grounded in who you are, once you resiliently stand tall growing and leafing, loved through it all, you are far more likely to be a tree.

this is the year.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

WAITING AND KNOWING mixed media 48″ x 48″

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etched in clay. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

once upon a time she decided to hold others accountable.

unlike the david and goliath story, she has no slingshot, no rocks to thrust. it is the real world.

she is an individual against a system – one that hides and protects its own, that has no hesitation around spinning webby tales, one in which truthtelling does not fit into the agenda. nevertheless, she persisted. despite their fabrication of narrative. despite the misogyny. despite their absence of proof and her wealth of evidence. she persisted. despite the badmouthing. despite the betrayal. despite the hypocrisy. she persisted. despite the lack of respect. despite the disregard of boundaries. despite the downright ugliness. she persisted. despite the small desperate contingency of Them in a her-them. she persisted.

and in the end, that will be the prize. persistence. speaking up. standing up.

maya angelou is quoted, “each time a woman stands up for herself, she stands up for all women.”

nevertheless. persist.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

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we are all tiny ferns. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

looking like a new year’s eve party noisemaker waiting to unfurl in celebration, the fern steadily grows. in-between last year’s clipped stalks and in and among dried leaves and the last vestiges of winter’s effect on mulch, it peeks out, pushing up toward the sun. it chooses to thrive, even covered by sandy soil and bits of the past. one day soon i will walk out to the back – where the fern garden is – and this tiny fern will have stretched and straightened and fanned out into a lanky beautiful feather.

it makes me think about blowout noisemakers. all furled up they look relatively innocuous and not particularly capable of being noisy. a little gumption and air blown into them and they can be pretty doggone loud.

the little fern breathes deep and reaches down into where gumption is stored. against the odds, this seemingly fragile, willowy plant rises up, centimeter by centimeter. suddenly it is a powerhouse, standing tall in the rain and a part of the wind in storms.

though it may be all trembly inside as it makes its journey upward and outward, its gumption, air and the sun give it courage and strength. it is tough and resilient and – it is said – has an incredibly strong survival instinct.

how often we are all tiny ferns – over and over – through fallow and rejuvenation, covered in the patina of the past and growing it off. innocuous and silent.

and then, we rise up and unfurl.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

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the towel. [kerri’s blog on not-so-flawed wednesday]

the first sentence in the new york times arts section front page article reads, “chris domig was ready to throw in the towel.” but then…

for years he persevered and persevered, through thick and thin, this dear friend of david’s. a consummate actor and dedicated off-off-broadway theatre co-founder and artistic director, he was not hindered by the somewhat invisible but definitely impenetrable wall in new york city’s theatre world. and then…

the front page in the arts section belies the rest of the story. but every artist knows it. the ever-present imperative to create and to succeed, not only from a soul place, but from a place where you just might be able to afford to pay the bills, to have a littlebit extra, to hold the esteem of your colleagues, to be recognized. you hold the towel close, knowing that at any moment it might be the thing you do – you just might throw in the towel.

chris decided to take on mitch albom’s tuesdays with morrie. but it took a long time to land. everything takes longer than you think. a long fermata of longing. every artist knows this. most craftspeople know this. most philosophers know this. poets write of it. composers strew melodies around like patio lights. painters throw paint and prep canvas time and again. dancers pirouette, spinning ever faster. writers wordsmith, deleting and reading and elaborating and deleting. beavers in bogs – singularly focused, ridiculously hard work – and the tree still stands. and then…

the sea dog theatre tells this remarkable story – tuesdays with morrie – through the interwoven magic of len cariou and chris. it is earning high regard and the reviews are outstanding. it has landed.

and the towel is set aside.

*****

LONGING from AS IT IS ©️ 2004 kerri sherwood

read DAVID’S thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY

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the fuzzy-wuzzy. [kerri’s blog on not-so-flawed wednesday]

i’m on the side of the fuzzy-wuzzy.

there is never a time i will pass by a caterpillar attempting to make its way across a busy trail without stopping to help it, to aid it across the pathway, to shield it from harm, to literally pick it up and place it on the other side, to protect it.

i have gotten some funny looks doing this.

yet, i will continue to do this. i will continue to protect, to aid, to shield, to carry tiny critters that are in harm’s way, beings that are subjected to elements against which they are not equipped, creatures that are in the way of someone else’s forward movement – by foot, bike tires, four-wheelers, agenda.

because – if one has ever been the caterpillar on the trail, threatened – even debilitated – by someone else’s negligence, someone else’s inaction, someone else’s inconceivable agenda or apathy, someone else’s aggression – then one knows the importance of others, of their care and concern, of their help, of their doing-something, of their protection.

and because we never know when we might be the fuzzy-wuzzy.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY

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snowdrop chutzpah. [kerri’s blog on not-so-flawed wednesday]

with rugged tenacity and will, the snowdrops push through the top frozen layers of soil. these are tough little plants, hardy in the snow and cold. the sap contains a type of antifreeze that prevents ice crystals from forming, even in the most inclement weather. they withstand it all.

that’s the kind of chutzpah one needs in today’s world. the ability to withstand it all. the tenacity to pierce through the untruths, the agendas, the misaligned loyalties, the unreasonableness.

as a person who leads with her heart (ask my children!) this can be a rough world. but those who know me really well also know that it’s not just my heart in the game. those who know me also know that – like a dog with a bone – i will hold on….and on….only letting go when it is time to let go. i will not go away easily – particularly if someone is wronged. i will not move on, forgetaboutit, celebrate a new start until i have pierced the opaque frozen layers shielding the truth and readied antifreeze to repel what i would anticipate to be coldhearted strategy.

i’m certain there are many of us. those who have challenged wrongdoing. those who have asked for answers. those who seek the wisdom of unprejudiced eyes. those who are compelled to ask for objectivity in circumstance. those who have pushed back. those who have suffered in pushing back. those whose blooms still open in winter’s freeze. those who are hardy and tenacious. those who withstand the elements, whatever those may be. those who do not give up.

if someone told me i was a snowdrop, i would be proud.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY

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