the seedheads stay present all winter. thimbleweed is ready. eventually the wind will carry it, dispensing it, seeding new growth, spreading it far and wide. the wooly tufts are evidence of nature taking care of nature.
the concentric circles are all around us. in reminders we get every single day, we are prompted to remember that even the tiniest of our actions will impact the next and then the next and then the next and then…
it is what makes me feel so utterly disheartened with what is happening here and now. it is not just the cruel actions of others that ripple out. it is also the mindbogglingly complicit inaction.
once again – and over and over – i see the absolute transience of this moment. once again – and over and over – i see the silky filament that exists between am and am not. once again – and over and over – i try to take in – to make part of my being – the presence of mind to be present, the ability to be stopped in my tracks, a nod to wondrous, utter gratitude for breathing.
to be amazed by the tufts of thimbleweed, to carry a sunrise or sunset, to drink the sun into our bodies, to hold one another.
and once again – and over and over – i wonder how it is that there are so many who would choose cruelty over kindness, who would choose corruption over goodness, who would choose marginalizing others over lifting others up.
how are we taking care of each other? what are we spreading in rippling concentric circles from our very center? how are we carrying, dispensing, seeding, spreading life – living – far and wide?
look to thimbleweed. its resilience, its anticipation. the seedheads seem to be ever-looking forward, planning for its survival, anticipating its continued beingness.
maybe – just maybe – nothing less than what humans should be doing.
tucked into the trail – the river trail – are spots i always find i am looking forward to: the curve of the river, the cattails in the marsh, the hill where you look down on the trees along the riverbank, the section that looks like a bayou, the turn in the path where deer linger, this one spot – where the reeds are thick and the turtles are numerous. we hike along and these are touchstones along the way, indicators of how far we have come, how far we have yet to go.
we all have them – the indicators of how far we have come, how far we have yet to go. i think about this now as i walk into my studio.
i spend way more time on the written word these days than on the piano bench. i spend way more time typing on a keyboard than pencil-jotting on scraps of paper scattered above the keys.
i look at high profile artists, years and years after their last album release, after long drought periods, in their 60s, now recording and releasing new albums. and it makes me wonder. it’s been 16 years since i released a full-length album.
sixteen years.
as someone who released fifteen albums in fifteen years that is stunning to me. and, thus, the wondering.
my piano is a touchstone to me, an anchor, something i can touch that is profoundly meaningful to me. i have walked a textured journey in the years i have spent with a piano central in my life, in time that the creating and performance of music was imperative. i have assigned success and failure, acceptance and rejection, support and betrayal to my piano.
and, in the way that enlightenment happens, i am beginning to learn that it is not my piano that is responsible. it has merely been my spokespiece, a vessel through which i might give voice.
instead, it is in that giving of voice – that expression of me – that amplification and celebration of music – that others – people – have squelched the how-far-i-have-yet-to-go, have taken the get-up from my get-up-and-go.
i don’t really know the reasons that one might feel they should push someone else under water, that one might feel the best use of their energy is to abuse or denigrate or minimize someone else, that one might feel that the most humane treatment of someone else is to concoct narratives and sway public or private-circle opinion. i don’t know the reasons why anyone would want to break another person or their spirit, creative or otherwise. i don’t really know the reasons why anyone would do any such things. it’s crushing.
i do know the impact these things have on a person. for no matter how tough one’s skin, how devoted to confidence, how determined, how bootstrapping one might be, there are others who can do great damage and who are – apparently – damned devoted to it.
it’s not my piano’s fault.
and so now – in this great enlightenment or admittance or downright sad awareness – i can see that those people who have done great harm have undermined so much between how-far-i-have-come and how-far-i-have-yet-to-go. and i am thinking – now – that I’ll be damned to let them rob all that from me, to let them take my piano – or my muse – hostage any longer. not that that’s easy. it is a difficult uphill journey.
it’s maybe time to stand in the reeds, hang with the turtles and cattails, get my feet wet in the marsh and walk – or sprint – or, more likely, crawl – toward the bench.
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.
“whatever it is that calls us, that’s our path. and as we walk that path, we have a chance to shine forth who we are. it affects other people around us.” (richard bach)
we were talking about identity. in these later days, i have realized the nonsense of it all. in those striving-striding days of yore, younger versions of ourselves pushed for identity. we poked and prodded and molded and shaped and re-shaped our identity, pushing it out in front of us – as if to parade it, seeking validation. we – somehow in this society based so mightily on valuation – based our value on it. we let it rule us; we let it impact our decisions. we let it undermine our confidence. we let it stoke our egos. all of it.
and, suddenly, it all makes absolutely no sense.
so often, who we are falls prey to what we are.
he asked what we would do in retirement. i laughed. we’re already there. we’re doing it. it’s not a lot different than an artist’s path before retirement. it’s all-the-time.
we just are.
the path of artistry is not for the meek. it’s not a path of return-on-investment, for the investment of one’s heart far outweighs any yields, particularly in a society that underestimates its arts. it’s not a path of certainty, for scrappy is the only thing that is unquestionable. it’s not a path of sanctimony, for any sense of haughty righteousness must fall to the wayside of vulnerable creating. phony should not co-exist with authentic. caste should not co-exist with truthful art-making. all that pretense stuff – wrapped up in some version of identity in which one trembles when asked “what do you do?”
i’ll never forget a dinner i once attended, now years ago. seated in a fancy place with people i did not know, surrounded by those on ladder rungs i might not ever visit, i was asked that question, “what do you do?”
i answered that i was an artist…a recording artist….a composer…a singer-songwriter…a performer. the person – on that other rung – stared at me and gave a little laugh. “nooo, what do you REALLY do?” he asked.
i walk a path. i try my best to create. i try – not always successfully – to shine the truth of who i am, without bending or sacrificing the who of who i am. i try to affect others in a good way.
i know that there will be hundreds – likely, thousands – of cds with my name on them someday in some antique store. people will walk by and either give a quick second look or none at all. they won’t know who i was. they won’t know what i composed, the music i recorded and performed, the words i wrote. they won’t know what my voice – or even my laugh – sounded like.
but i will have walked a path that was mine alone. i will have joined hands with those i loved to walk alongside. i will have yearned and regretted and belly-laughed and wept. i will have realized that art – including music – is the answer to all the questions.
the deer prints will fade as the snow melts. it will be much the same for mine, i suppose.
were i able to go back to the linen-clothed table in the dining room of the country club, i should have looked evenly across the table and answered the guy who asked me what i really do, “whatever it is that calls me.”
from our perch in the sunroom we can watch it snowing. surrounded by glass, we have a good windowseat to the weather as it changes. it looked really beautiful ‘out there’ we agreed, also agreeing to throw on some warm jackets and boots and go ‘out there’ for a walk a bit later, as the snow accumulated.
we lasted sixteen minutes.
the wind was whipping off the lake and the snow was stinging our faces. brutal. it was not fun and it was definitely not comfortable. we pretended to be in the sierras on the pct, trudging our way to camp, to pitch our tent in the snow and rest. sheesh. just the thought of that made us consider a flipflop instead of a thru-hike. same miles, same terrain, different seasons.
“my comfort zone is like a little bubble around me, and i’ve pushed it in different directions and made it bigger and bigger until these objectives that seemed totally crazy eventually fall within the realm of the possible.” (alex honnold)
we both really respect alex honnold. he is an incredible athlete with downright top-of-the-heap courage. he constantly pushes himself, way, way past comfortable, every time expanding where his boundaries of comfort are.
in these years we have found that pushing the boundaries of comfort are necessary. we have found that immense amounts of courage are necessary. we have found that poking that safety membrane around us – as if inside a big luminescent bubble – is necessary. poking from the inside out, not the outside in. no bubble-bursting here.
we’ve made big steps in that poking.
it’s not like we haven’t poked-the-bubble before in our lives, individually or together, as artists, as humans. but – and i’m betting this is a common truth – poking-the-bubble is harder the older you get. and so, as we step out of our c-zones and into things more unknown, hard things, complicated things, scary things, we have a tad more trepidation, a bit of reticence, some good old-fashioned fear. we keep on.
so we are not intrepid snowwalkers, we see today.
no worries. there are workarounds. (not to mention a mostly-warm sunroom where we can sit at a bistro table and watch out the window.)
besides, our pokes are saved for other bubbles.
“the one thing you learn is when you can step out of your comfort zone and be uncomfortable, you see what you’re made of and who you are.” (sue bird)
“life hack: stop trying to be cool. be nerdy and obsessive about the things you love. enthusiasm will get you farther than indifference.” (posted on barkersounds IG)
this could possibly be my new mantra. nerdy and obsessive and (possibly overly) enthusiastic.
indifference slays me. the whole aloof, apathetic, flippant thing. all that gets under my skin, which is particularly sensitive to all the stuff on the opposite end of the spectrum from nerdy, obsessive about the things you love, and enthusiastic.
so that might explain the excessive photographs of barney, the old piano in our backyard, losing keys and structure in each season, its patina dusty wood. it might explain the innumerable pictures of breck – in every season – its leaves – budding in early spring through its golden age in autumn. it might explain why i take a zillion photos and generally completely annoy my adult children with my wish to capture them on film (well, “film” so to speak).
my sweet momma was a person who was also pretty nerdy and obsessive about the things she loved and, most definitely, enthusiastic. her “wowee!!!” goes down in history as a word she owned, and each of us knows we are referring to our beaky when we use that word.
life is short. that becomes more and more apparent as the years go flying by. the age spots on breck’s leaves are like the age spots i find on my own person. everything is fluid and keeps changing and the youth of our budding – like our aspen’s – is fleeting.
i can see no reason to not be nerdy. i can see no reason not to be obsessive about the things i love. and – yes – i can see no reason not to be ridiculously enthusiastic.
it made me cry. it was all i could do not to down-and-out messy cry. had i lost control it would have been ugly. i grieved for every single american child as i struggled and hiccuped my way back to some semblance of calm. phil vassar’s lyrics were poignant and profound and deeply troubling.
the concert was amazing. phil vassar is a prolific songwriter, a consummate performer, his voice strong, his ballads clear. i’ve seen him in concert several times and was thrilled to see him again. he is now 63 and, having had both a heart attack and a stroke, he is making his way back – to the attention of the public – for the public forgets quickly.
there are artists you hold onto, particularly when you are an artist yourself. you know when there is something absolutely special about someone – you can feel it. every song, every note, every sung lyric – this man is a master singer-songwriter. there’s nothing really fancy about him…he plays a painted acoustic yamaha piano, often standing (which i can totally relate to). his band is extraordinary and tight, the perfect backup for him.
“cause 419 lakewood had no silver spoons/just an old beat up upright that played out of tune/now i’m singing and living the life that i love/and when i count my blessings i thank god i was an american child/an american child/’cause dreams can grow wild born inside an american child.” (american child – phil vassar)
every american child.
and that’s why i cried. because it’s no longer the same. i cried for my adult children. i cried for my friends’ grandchildren. i cried for the children i don’t know. i cried for what this country has lost, the dreams that have been violently stolen, the hope that has dissolved, the democracy that hangs by tiny filaments.
at the end of the concert, phil vassar – in seemingly no hurry at all – sat on the edge of the stage and chatted with people, took selfies with his fans, signed shirts and hats and cds.
i stood at our seats and watched, both proud of him and a little bit stunned at how very gracious he was – his obvious, deep gratitude to a concert hall that should have been filled.
i knew he couldn’t hear me – and i didn’t go up to tell him – but as i stood there i whispered, “you’re relevant, phil vassar. you’re so relevant.” deep down, he already knows. he’s always been relevant.
an american child. the american dream.
“there is no trust more sacred than the one the world holds with children. there is no duty more important than ensuring that their rights are respected, that their welfare is protected, that their lives are free from fear and want and that they can grow up in peace.” (kofi annan)
“a promise once made/will it shine, will it fade/will we rise with the vision or fall?” (american child – john denver)
we had the gazebo all to ourselves. it is likely that the tropical-storm-nor’easter had something to do with this. no one seemed inclined to be strolling about, nonetheless lingering on the gazebo.
so we danced. on the rain-soaked boards of this beautiful age-old gazebo, we waltzed to the music on my phone – the cherish the ladies instrumental if ever you were mine – the very piece we irish-waltzed at our wedding, surrounded by a circle of family and friends.
and on this dark starless night, with rain drifting in under the domed wood of the gazebo, it was not only magical. it was a little bit healing. it was sacred.
for here we were – both literally drenched – all alone on the gazebo of my youth – lifting the cellophane of the old magic slate – starting a new history.
just a couple people passed by in the park, walking the edges of the harbor. they paid no attention to our slow dancing. much is the way of new yorkers: you do you they imply.
we weren’t looking for an audience, so that was good. we were just sinking into the night – in the middle of the storm – in the middle of the storm.
and i could begin to feel the old break away a bit and new replace it as our feet got jumbled together in the waltz we hadn’t waltzed in a while.
i clicked play a second time, lifted the cellophane a second time.
i couldn’t begin to guess how many times i have sat on that beach. i couldn’t begin to describe all the life i have navigated there, all the pondering i have pondered, all the sun and the snow and the rain, the early dawns, the inky skies i have shared with that place. in the mystery that connects you to certain places, it was always my go-to.
and the mystery continues.
we shared time with that beach again. profound time. time wherein i stood by the water’s edge talking to the universe. once again, feet in that sand, touching that water, eyes to that sky.
some of the benches just off the boardwalk have been there forever. the curve of the metal arm, the weather-worn wooden seat – familiar touchstones that date back and back. the seagulls diving, riding the waves, rising in air currents and dropping crabshells to the ground – their caws lodged in memory.
this is not the island’s finest. there are many beaches with less rocks, fewer shells, more shoreline, softer sand, less seaweed, stronger surf. but this is the one.
i left a piece of me – a free-to-be–crazy-with-potential–wildflower-growing piece – behind on this island.
and so i thought that maybe – just maybe – i could go put my feet on this very sand, touch this very water, drink in this very salt air to both reclaim that piece and set it free.
there was no drumroll, no hoopla, no folderol. there were no fireworks or lightning bolts.
as the wind became gusty and it got colder, i merely turned reluctantly away from the water’s edge.
he was waiting for me about halfway up the beach and he held me as i stood in that very sand under that very sun, taking it all in, grateful.
we walked arm in arm to the benches and sat on the oldest one.
jeffie used to use the term “grasshopper” a lot. not really understanding any reference, i always took it to be a term of affection.
in the middle of the middle of stuff we are in the middle of, we took a hike. we always see tiny grasshoppers on the dusty trail – hopping in just the last second and flying away – like small moths zipping past us.
but this day – in the middle of the middle of stuff we are in the middle of – there were Grasshoppers – capital G. never had we seen hoppers this big on any part of this lengthy trail. they didn’t just hop away upon feeling the vibrations of our feet on dirt. they stood their ground.
i bent down to share a few moments with this one. after communing with it, i urged it to jump off the beaten path, trying to save its life from zealous bikers also on trail.
for the first time, i looked up what jeffie’s “grasshopper” reference might be. and it all made sense, reading that kung fu (from the 70s tv series i never watched) used it – yes, affectionately – to convey to his students etc “a message of growth and learning”.
this differential grasshopper grinned at me as i bent down, posing for the camera. he turned and looked down the dusty gravel trail. and then he turned back to me for a few moments before i urged him on, away from potential danger.
“you got this,” he whispered. “keep going. you may feel small and it may feel bigger, but we both have abundant power. i can only go forward. you can jump with me.”
i heard him as he took off with a giant hop for the underbrush, “remember! leap!.”
reverse threading 